A Champion FORE Ohio
March 11, 2010
Story by contributing writer Kathy L. Coogan
The mission of the Mid-American Junior Golf Tour (MAJGT) is to provide elite junior golfers throughout the Midwest with a national spotlight to display their skills. It is understood that these competitors perform at the highest level.
This means excellence in performance on the course from tee to green but also recognizes the character and resolve that is developed by playing the game of golf. It is the underlying goal of the MAJGT to see its junior golfers carry these traits into their daily lives.
Some young golfers, however, are given challenging circumstances which test their character and resolve. Smith Brinker is one of these people. Smith is an Ohio junior golfer who competed in the inaugural MAJGT event at Eagle Creek in 2009.
The summer before, Smith won the Ohio Golf Association Junior Championship. For the prior thirty-six years the champion has played in the age 16-17 bracket. Smith’s victory was remarkable in that he was barely 15when he won with a 15-foot putt on the 36thhole.
Smith played throughout the summer of 2008 and began team play as a sophomore at Cincinnati’s St. Xavier High School. He had been playing with some discomfort in his chest which he attributed to practice. His parents insisted that he be evaluated. On October 17, 2008, an MRI was done. The news was bad. The test revealed a soft-tissue tumor in his chest, a tumor which, in boys his age, is frequently malignant.
Smith’s words are best to describe the roller coaster ride of the next week, “The State Tournament was on October 17-18. On the 17th I had the first MRI that looked so bad. The next day, I went up to Columbus and watched the guys play and was there when they won. Then I came back down to Cincinnati and had the PET scan and CT scan on Monday the 20th and spent the rest of that week figuring out what we were going to do.”
Smith’s parents had been told that the surgery itself, with the damage that it might do to his chest muscles, the muscles essential in a golf swing, could prevent him from ever playing competitive golf again. His operation was October 24th. A biopsy was done. And then another. To the doctor’s shock and delight Smith’s tumor was benign. The non-cancerous mass was removed.
Smith continues, “After the surgery, at home, we were kind of talking through everything and I started remembering and thinking about this other boy that I saw at the hospital and I tried to figure out why I got so lucky. That was when my dad and I came up with the idea.”
The idea was the Champions FORE Children’s Marathon Golf Challenge which would raise funds for Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CHMC). It was the perfect combination of doing what Smith loved, for a cause that he deeply understood, with the teammates who had supported him. The Marathon Challenge would be 54 holes of golf played to raise money for pediatric cancer research. He and his teammates committed to raising money to find a cure.
The inaugural fundraising event was played on March 28, 2009, only five months after Smith’s close call with cancer. Forty-four golfers from St. Xavier raised $39,000 and presented the check to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center researchers. 2009 would continue to be a big year for Smith. Less than a year after his surgery, he placed second in the Ohio Golf Association Junior Championship.
The 2010 Champions FORE Children’s Marathon Challenge has been expanded to include participation of high school golfers, boys and girls, in the entire region. The event will be played on March 27, 2010 at Shaker Run Golf Course in Lebanon, Ohio from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
After hearing Smith’s story, the MAJGT stepped forward as a Champion level partner of the event. Through this partnership, not only is the Tour sponsoring the event as an association, but also encouraging Smith’s fellow Midwestern competitive junior golfers to pledge a donation to the Challenge as they register for the MAJGT Memorial Day Invitational at Hueston Woods State Park May 29-31, 2010.
While Smith’s character is certainly a reflection of his family and his school, he believes that golf has taught him how to think and behave in situations, both good and bad. He has learned acceptance in the face of hardship; to make the best of what he’s got, a reminder every time he bogeys a hole. He has learned to play the game one shot at a time, focusing on the present, which certainly helped him through the days of tests and doubt about his diagnosis.
And he has learned that while the sport of golf involvescompetition, it has been his fellow golfers whom he competes with and against who have encouraged him the most. Smith knows that in golf and in life, you can’t win them all, but he also believes that the victory he won in 2008 was the most important one he’ll ever win. And it wasn’t in a championship.
To make a donation to the Champions FORE Children’s Golf Marathon Challenge go to www.championsforechildrens.com. Or send a check to CHMC, c/o Cathy Westrich, Donor Relations, Cincinati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, MLC 9002, 3333Burnet Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45229. Specify: Champions FORE Children’s.