Lucas: Another Hit Tour-ma-nent
May 1, 2006 | Baseball
May 1, 2006
By Adam Lucas
The most impressive golfer at UNC Finley is giving a lesson.
Never mind that he is not wearing shoes. Never mind that he is using right-handed clubs and swinging left-handed. Never mind that he is standing behind the tees and facing the road, not the fairway.
These are mere details. This is going to be one of those golf shots they talk about for ages.
Quiet on the course. He is speaking.
"Here is what you do," he says. (He believes in easy-to-understand instruction.)
"You hold your club like this. Then you put your ball right there. You line it up and then you swing!"
Golfers spend thousands of dollars and endless hours trying to understand their chosen vice, er, sport. And what they really need is Reece Holbrook breaking it down for them and making it simple.
Reece was the featured attraction Monday at UNC Finley, as he and 120 of his closest friends teed off in the second annual Reece Holbrook Golf Classic (Reece calls it his "tour-ma-nent"). The event, organized to benefit Reece and the pediatric oncology unit at UNC Hospital, raised approximately $125,000 for the second straight year under the direction of Stephanie Williams. The event has now raised a quarter of a million dollars for cancer research in two years of existence.
It can sometimes be hard to find a niche in the crowded world of celebrity golf tournaments. The RHGC has flourished for one simple reason: Reece is the only celebrity.
Sure, he's got some friends who make occasional appearances on ESPN: Roy Williams helped kick off Monday's 10 a.m. start; Eric Montross was an active bidder (note to Eric: you're not supposed to bid on golf with yourself) at Sunday night's auction; Dean Smith and Bill Guthridge could be spotted around UNC Finley on Monday; B.J. Surhoff walked away with a Wild Dunes vacation from the auction; Blue Jays shortstop Russ Adams sponsored a hole; and Woody Durham hosted the auction and played 18 holes with a lucky winner on Monday.
But only one person posed for a photograph with every foursome on Monday: Reece Holbrook. What's even more impressive is that everyone in the above paragraph didn't seem to mind being upstaged by a golfer only slightly taller than his putter.
Since being diagnosed with acute lymphoblast leukemia (ALL) on September 7, 2004, Reece has taught all his friends--and the entire UNC athletic department--about leukemia. He's helped break ground on the North Carolina Cancer Hospital. He's changed word meanings for his parents; "counts" used to mean baseball to his dad, assistant baseball coach Chad Holbrook, but now it means blood cells.
He's done all those things. But what he's done the best is what drew those 120 people to him on Monday, what sold out every golf spot for the second straight year: he's thrived.
You get the distinct impression that Reece Holbrook does not care about cancer. He's not a kid with cancer. He's a kid.
That's been the simple yet difficult goal--let him be a kid--over these last 20 months. It is a delicate balance. At the same time you want to try and preserve his childhood under a hail of needles and hospitals and doctors, you want to cram as much into as little time as possible.
Because here is the reality: if you pass him in the Smith Center or at Boshamer Stadium, you will never know Reece Holbrook has cancer. There are no signs. But every day, kids lose their fight with cancer. To drive the point home, Sunday night's auction was in memory of two very special friends of Reece.
NBC-17 television anchor Sharon Delaney bought her daughter, Macie, a white t-shirt that said "Busy Kickin' Cancer's Butt!" the week Macie turned 10 months old. Macie had AML, a very aggressive form of leukemia, and had been diagnosed just four months earlier.
One week after she wore that t-shirt for the first time, Macie died.
Former Tar Heel basketball player Michael Norwood also lost a daughter, Nell, to cancer. He addressed the auction crowd Sunday night with a simple yet emotional statement: "You can't imagine what we'd do for one more day with Nell. Just one more day is so precious."
Sunday's auction was dedicated to the memory of both of those children. So it didn't seem like too much trouble to blow off work on a Monday and spend the day at UNC Finley.
And that's how you came to stand on the tee box and receive a golf lesson from Reece Holbrook.
"Hey!" he said. "Are you listening?"
We're listening.
To find out more about the Reece Holbrook Golf Classic or to make a donation, email Stephanie Williams.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. He is the coauthor of the official book of the 2005 championship season, Led By Their Dreams, and his book on Roy Williams's first season at Carolina, Going Home Again, is now available in bookstores. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly or learn more about Going Home Again, click here.
