Sonny Palmer “SUNSHINE CLASSIC” 2016
This past weekend, my family held our 5th Annual Sonny Palmer “Sunshine Classic” Golf Tournament. The event was organized shortly after my brother-in-law’s untimely death back in January 2012. Sonny was a veteran of the Air Force and also passionate about the needs of our wounded vets. So, in his name, we began the Sunshine Classic, which is now a yearly tradition.
As in the past four years, the golf tournament was held at the Fairway River Links Golf Course in Rayland, Ohio, which is a beautiful course along the Ohio River. I feel this is also becoming a tradition for the River Link’s owners as we are asked each time if we are coming back the following year. We try to keep the participants to 25, four-person teams. This helps keep the tournament manageable, as it is well organized and the teams move along the course in quick fashion with each team having the use of a golf cart, and the golfers are then finished by late morning. This, our fifth year, the weather was as beautiful as the four previous.
This year, the post-tournament luncheon was held at the PAP (Polish American Patriotic) Club in South Wheeling where we were welcomed with open arms by Shotgun (who is President of the club) and we are already making plans to host the event next year. As I said, this is a family event and all the food is prepared by Sonny’s family for the golfers to come and enjoy after the 18-hole round of golf. The PAP Club is spacious and has an outdoor (covered) veranda that is perfect for our event.
All golfers receive a gift bag and a ticket for a door prize donated by our generous business community. We also raffle off many other donated items. We have a grand door prize and a 50/50 raffle that we sell tickets for prior to and during the event. We have a Chinese raffle with all baskets put together and donated by each of Sonny’s siblings and in-laws. This all goes over very well and we have lots of fun.
As I have said in a previous blog, this event not only helps our wounded warriors who come back from horrible situations and find they struggle with daily life, it also helps our family deal with Sonny’s loss that is still painful to this day. Most who participate in this golf tournament knew and loved Sonny. If they did not know him prior to participating in the tournament, they know all about him now and many have said they are coming back next year.
I again want to thank the businesses in our community for the many donations. Bordas & Bordas has sponsored a hole at the tournament for five years—another tradition—that we are so grateful for.
To date, Sonny’s family, through the success of the golf tournaments over the past four years, has made donations to The Wounded Warrior Project that total $13,725. Once again, my sister, Debby, and Sonny’s siblings, Linda, Dink, Mike and Mark are contributing this year’s proceeds to WWP in hopes that in some small way our wounded warriors will benefit. Sonny would be pleased about that.
Susan
