Sports
Home is on the Golf Range for Local Veterans
VA Hospital, PGA pros team up to provide weekly free lessons.
What started out as a simple reach out to introduce local veterans to the game of golf has become a weekly staple of the Robert T. Lynch Municipal Golf Course summer schedule.
Every Thursday starting at 1:00 p.m., PGA professionals Brian Bain and Larry Colletti take to the golf course, in partnership with the VA Hospital on the VFW Parkway in West Roxbury, to give local heroes free golf lessons.
“With the veterans we thought it would be a way to give back and help some of them when they get back here and get back into society,” said Bain. “That’s what it’s all about.”
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Bain said he usually has a group of six to eight veterans from all over the area show up on a weekly basis and work on the fundamentals of the game. The pros will go over everything from holding the club correctly to chipping the ball on a side hill lie.
Colletti, who is a Vietnam veteran, said he would like to extend free lessons to soldiers who are just returning from service and he would like to see more veterans becoming involved with the weekly program.
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On a recent Thursday, Colletti and Bain welcomed six veterans to take the skills they have worked on over the past year to the golf course. The group broke up into teams, and although there were bragging rights up for grabs, this was a chance to get out and enjoy the sunshine.
“It helps relieve my stress and it helps me a great deal,” said Ken Carson, who served in the National Guard in the beginning of the decade. “If I’m having a bad day I just go to the driving range and golf forces you to relax to hit the ball. That helps so much.”
Because of the free lessons, Carson said it would be hard to get him off the golf course when the weather breaks in New England. During the winter months, Carson said he practiced putting indoors and in heated driving ranges to keep his new passions strong.
“I always joke with my friends that I went to the VA for treatment and I came back with an addiction,” Carson, 48, said with a laugh. “That addiction is golf. I’ve been loving it so far.”
