Golf tournament raises money for Walk to End Alzheimer's team

WARDEN — The first annual Larry Hollenbeck “Dude! Where’s my CART?!” Alzheimer’s Awareness Golf Tournament was held at Sage Hills Golf Club late in July, part of a fundraiser for the Columbia Basin Area Walk to End Alzheimer’s.

“We competed against Watershed (Music Festival) and the boat races in Tri-Cities, and I had to close registration two weeks before the event because we had sold out of carts,” Columbia Basin Area Walk to End Alzheimer’s Chairperson Karisti Cox said.

Cox, who also serves as the Community Resource Director at Summer Wood Alzheimer’s Special Care Center, said that the tournament was brought up to help with costs associated with the upcoming walk in September.

“I wanted to do a fundraiser for our team,” Cox said. “However, something that started as a small idea of just having a few teams come together and go play some golf and make a few hundred dollars – I really did not think that I would get more than seven teams.”

The tournament reached its maximum participation two weeks before the tee-off day, for which Cox was very grateful to the participants.

“Once I hit 14 teams, everything shifted,” Cox said. “I realized that I was embarking on something way bigger and that there was a true calling and a need for this,”

Of the 20 four-member teams that signed up, 69 players showed up to the tournament. The weekend was dominated by a heat wave, but Cox was still appreciative of the golfers conquering the elements.

“First and foremost, it was 105 degrees – and I wasn’t excited about that,” Cox said.

Some of the holes at the tournament were set up as challenges with Alzheimer’s themes, including Dementia Glasses – which blocked out peripheral vision – and the Mini Driver, which was one-third the size of a standard driver and represented brain shrinkage.

“It shows me that the passion that I have is not held with me alone,” Cox said of the turnout for the tournament. “That this is hitting a lot of families. The people that were coming, they either had someone in their family that had it, or it was someone that they knew.”

The tournament was named after Larry Hollenbeck, who Cox said had a significant legacy in and around Othello.

“(Cindy Collins) who owns The 19th Hole Bar & Grill at the Sage Hills Golf Course in Warden, her dad, when he passed away he had dementia from a stroke. Nonetheless, we wanted to memorialize him.”

The money raised from the tournament will be put toward sponsoring the Summer Wood team in the Walk to End Alzheimer’s that takes place at McCosh Park on Sept. 17 at 10 a.m.

“I wanted to generate funds for our team,” Cox said. “And unbeknownst to me, it would take off.”

Ian Bivona may be reached at ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com.