Teams take flight at Crime Stoppers tourney
Published 8:15 pm Thursday, April 18, 2013
Partly sunny with a high in the upper-70s, one couldn’t ask for a better day to play golf — or better yet, participate in a golf tournament.
That’s what 24 four-man teams did Tuesday as part of Beaufort County Crime Stoppers’ annual golf tournament. According to Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Karen Ball, coordinator of Crime Stoppers and tournament organizer, the yearly fundraiser was a great success.
“I had a lot of golfers come up to me and say that this tournament was the best tournament they’d ever been to,” Ball said. “When you hear that, you feel like all your hard work was worth the effort you put into it.”
Tournament tallies were as follows: Flight 1 Low Gross winners were B.J. Marsh, Adrian Waters, Thomas Waters and William Woolard of team Williams Tree Service; Flight 1 Net winners were Mark Everett, Bobby Leneave, Bill Wall and Jay Martin of team First South Bank; Flight 2 Low Gross winners were Phil Ellis, Larry Wells, Billy White and Grant Sikes of team Pay-Tel; and Flight 2 Net Winners were Henry Stancil, Reggie Beamon, John Easterling and Rocky Hancock of team Coca-Cola.
In golf lingo, the different flights represent varying levels of competition: the higher the flight, the more accomplished the golfers. Low net indicates the actual score, while low gross includes score with handicaps included.
Taking the top prizes for longest drive and ball closest to the hole were Ken Baiker and Jeff Woolard, respectively.
While the total numbers have yet to come in, Ball said she believed this year’s tournament raised between $10,000 and $13,000. The proceeds will be used throughout the next year to support Crime Stoppers’ payouts for tips from the public that lead to arrests for local crimes.
Ball said that she, and the Crime Stoppers board, appreciates the continued support of the golfers each year — individuals and businesses — because their participation helps “keep our community a safe place to live, work and for our children to play.”
While organizing the tournament does take hard work and effort, Ball said 17 years of past tournaments combined with the tournament’s fun reputation have made it an event that simply flows.
“It’s just a good, relaxing day for everybody,” Ball said. “Everybody needs to take a break some time.”