My Friend Bob's Good Idea

Let me tell my readers about a friend of mine, whose name is Bob Duke. Some refer to Bob as a golfer, fisherman, flag-waving retired Army Master Sergeant and all around good guy. He is certainly all that and much more. I am here to expound on that “much more.”

Bob is a patriot, who talks the talk and walks the walk. A few years back Bob Duke started thinking about ways he could help Wounded Warriors. Not being a man of fiscal wealth he sought out ways he could assist those veterans who had suffered some debilitating injuries while in the service of their nation. His first thought was not, how to establishing yet another warrior type benevolence organization but utilizing one that already existed. He chose to assist the Wounded Warrior project. According to Bob that decision was relatively easy. The hard part was deciding the route to traverse in order to raise funds for our Wounded Warriors. While retrieving errant golf balls from the woods and yards that border the fairways and recalling his wife telling him to get rid of the six thousand golf balls he had accumulated over the years, an idea was born. Why not collect golf balls, errant, hoarded or otherwise, spruce them up and market them as a “Golf Balls as Gifts” to other golfers? By doing this you have a gift for both golfers and warriors. Being the renown handicapper and hacker he is, Bob recognized that contributions from any foursome or local golf tournament winnings alone would probably not serve the purpose he most desired. He wanted to raise a lot of money for Wounded Warriors not a little bit. Did I also mention Bob is smart?

To make a long story short, Bob began collecting golf balls, refurbishing them and “gifting” them for a mere donation to Wounded Warriors. Golfers residing in the community were enthusiastically supportive of the endeavor and began contributing additional golf balls and donating to the cause by purchasing refurbished ones. Within months, word spread to other golfing communities along the Wilmington-Myrtle Beach corridor and donations began to climb. So much so, that Bob’s storage and work area had to be moved from his man-cave to his garage.  And I mean the entire garage, from top to bottom.

How successful has Bob’s “Golf Balls as Gifts” been? Since its inception in December 2011, he, with the help of other handicappers and or hackers have raised in excess of $97,000.00 for America’s Wounded Warriors. Was this not a good idea? Was this not a worthy cause? Is Bob not worthy of the label Patriot, all-around-good-guy and “much more”? The answers are obviously, yes.