Hurricane Dorian Archives - Golf Digest Middle East

How Justin Leonard and Brad Faxon put together the Bahamas Strong Pro-Am to assist Hurricane Dorian victims

Golf Digest Middle East — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 23:59:48 +0000

Locals push shopping carts past debris in the “Mudd” neighbourhood in Marsh Harbor, Great Abaco, on September 7, 2019, in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian. The historically powerful storm left at least 43 people dead with officials fearing a “significantly” higher toll. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP/ Getty Images).

By Brian Wacker
It has been more than three weeks since the Bahamas were ravaged by Hurricane Dorian, the Category 5 storm with wind gusts as high as 220 mph that levelled Great Abaco, Grand Bahama and elsewhere in the archipelago. The road to recovery has been an arduous one, laden with bureaucratic red tape and the inherent challenges that follow a catastrophic disaster.

Golf and the courses on the islands are low on the priority list, but the game has a deep connection in that part of the world with the Bahamas a popular destination for everyone from the casual fan to PGA Tour player. Which is why those in the golf community are trying to do what they can to get the people there, several hundred of whom work at Baker’s Bay, The Abaco Club and other courses, back on their feet.

On Oct. 8, Brad Faxon and Justin Leonard will co-host a pro-am at Old Marsh Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Among those already committed to play are Justin Thomas, Jack Nicklaus, Jessica Korda, Ernie Els, Greg Norman, Lucas Glover, Billy Horschel, Jaye Greene, Corey Conners, Brett Quigley, Marina Alex and Charl Schwartzel. Funds raised will go directly toward relief efforts.

“They need everything,” Faxon said. “There’s no fuel, no place to stay. People need necessities like food, water and underwear because this is going to take months.”

How the fundraiser came to be in the first place speaks to the connection between Floridians and the Bahamas.

A well-connected Ponte Vedra Beach woman named Beth Warren, a neighbour of PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan though she doesn’t know him, was on a group text of other like women who had frequented the Bahamas on countless vacations and wanted to help. Her family’s home just outside the gates of Baker’s Bay on Great Guana Cay was destroyed in the storm but that was secondary. There were more pressing needs amid the chaos for the people she’d gotten to know over the years.

Another of the women who was on the text chain: Leonard’s wife Amanda. The idea percolated from there, with her husband reaching out to Faxon as well as PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh, and the pro-am was born.

“We made friends with so many of the Bahamians that it was truly our second home,” said Warren, who isn’t a golfer but had spent more than a decade visiting Great Abaco, often spending weeks at a time there with her four children. “Our souls were there. That was the happy place.”

Warren’s efforts have extended beyond just flying a plane full of supplies there, too. In the wake of the disaster, she says she has fielded calls from dozens of people whose lives have been interrupted or destroyed and has put them up in homes or flown them to Miami, where they could stay with relatives or in a hotel.

But it will be months if not years before there is any level of normalcy, particularly in Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco, where shantytowns were flattened and countless buildings reduced to rubble. The death toll is currently at 52 but that is expected to rise significantly with more than 1,300 people still registered as missing with the Bahamas government.

“There’s so much they need before they can even think about rebuilding,” Warren said. “There is a lot of need and a lot of confusion down there.”

In the meantime, every little bit of goodwill helps.

For more on the Bahamas Strong Pro-Am and how to donate, click here.

The post How Justin Leonard and Brad Faxon put together the Bahamas Strong Pro-Am to assist Hurricane Dorian victims appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

With the Bahamas reeling from Hurricane Dorian, local golf community looks to help lead relief efforts

Golf Digest Middle East — Sun, 15 Sep 2019 08:08:28 +0000

Photos by Dom Furore

By Brian Wacker
MARSH HARBOUR, The Bahamas — The devastation is absolute, like one of those end-of-the-world movies, except this is real. One neighbourhood after another flattened to slabs where homes once stood, reduced to piles of broken and twisted and muddied pieces of wood, metal and pulverised cinder block. Personal belongings are strewn and piled up everywhere. In shantytowns, the putrid smell of death still lingers heavy more than a week later, a grim reminder of what is below the rubble. Refrigerated trailers stationed at the adjacent port are another gruesome reality.

The official death toll attributed to Hurricane Dorian, which hit the archipelago on Sept. 1 as a Category 5 hurricane with sustained winds of 185 miles per hour and gusts of 220 mph, is 44. That number, though, is expected to climb into the hundreds, if not more, with at least 2,500 people registered as missing, according to the Bahamas government.

At times like this, golf and the handful of courses on Great Abaco and Grand Bahama to its west are down the list in terms of priorities, though they are not entirely unimportant or unaffected. Golf is part of the fabric of these islands, with the sport helping bring in millions of dollars in tourism each year and providing jobs to hundreds of Bahamians and Haitians who emigrated to the island.

Dom Furore
Without electricity or food, families at Marsh Harbour hope to find transportation off Abaco Island.

Among the hardest hit was Baker’s Bay Golf & Ocean Club, the Instagram-famous spring-break destination of Rickie Fowler, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Smylie Kaufman. Located on a barrier island a dozen miles north of Marsh Harbour, the resort, which is reachable only by boat, was heavily damaged by storm surge and high winds as Dorian lashed the area for 48 hours.

“We are saddened by the devastating effects of Hurricane Dorian and are committed to helping with disaster relief and recovery,” the resort said in a statement issued last week. “The Discovery Land Company Foundation is coordinating humanitarian efforts to help the community of Abaco and has created the Abaco Relief Fund where 100 percent of donations will go directly to relief aid.”

Fowler and Thomas, among others, have pledged their support. In addition to an initial donation to the relief organization Convoy of Hope, Thomas has offered $1,000 for every birdie he makes the rest of 2019.

“It’s devastating, but to me it’s more sad for the crew and staff because they all usually boated over from Marsh Harbour. That’s where they grew up,” Thomas said of Baker’s Bay, adding that its founder, Michael Meldman, has been working tirelessly looking after his employees in the aftermath. “Now it’s totally wiped out.”

As for other courses on the island, Treasure Cay Golf Course, about 15 miles up the road from Marsh Harbour, was likewise heavily damaged, and The Abaco Club, a 435-acre development on the south end of the island that hosts the Korn Ferry Tour’s Bahamas Great Abaco Classic, suffered significant damage. Roofs were ripped off many of the homes dotting the property, and flood damage affects many of the low-lying areas. Even so, it was spared the type of destruction that took place in other parts of the island. Albany, on New Providence and site of Tiger Woods’ Hero World Challenge, meanwhile, was unaffected by the storm and a tournament official told Golf Digest the event, scheduled for Dec. 4-7, will go on as planned.

This area, however, is a small community in need of big help, and as of Wednesday, a GoFundMe page set up by The Abaco Club to benefit the Abaco-Winding Bay Relief Fund had generated more than $1.4 million in donations. Joe Deitch, chairman of Southworth Development, an affiliate of which owns The Abaco Club, also pledged $1 million to the relief effort.

Dom Furore
The Abaco Club suffered tree damage around its course but was sparred the worst of Hurricane Dorian’s destruction.

Whether the Korn Ferry Tour’s event scheduled for January will take place is unknown. That discussion is secondary to the humanitarian efforts taking place across the island, which is still mostly without power, running water or cellphone service. Pallets of food and other supplies continue to come through two airports open on the island as well as its port. Without a centralized and organized distribution network, however, many of the remaining residents have been left to wander and wait in despair.

As for many of the estimated 70,000 residents from Grand Bahama and the Abaco Islands who were evacuated or rescued, most have been displaced to Nassau on New Providence. That includes the 140 employees of The Abaco Club.

“We’re doing OK,” said Brian Shaver, a PGA professional at The Abaco Club who was one of six employees to ride out the storm inside the resort’s fitness centre. “All of our employees have been accounted for, and most of them are staying in Nassau at the Baha Mar.”

Dom Furore
Two Haitian cousins say they had lost everything and have no place to go. “Without papers” they feared heading to Nassau because of the potential of being sent back to Haiti.

Shaver added that the club’s president, Greg Sherwood, was also meeting with employees in Nassau and providing counselling or other assistance for those in need. David Southworth, the founder and CEO of Southworth Development, stressed that the property is the least of his worries at the moment, saying in a statement, “We are extremely concerned about the safety and well-being of our staff members and other residents of Abaco. There is an urgent need for immediate assistance on Abaco, and we are moving fast to provide that assistance.”

On Thursday, Woods announced the launch of the One Bahamas Fund, to support relief, recovery and rebuilding efforts following Hurricane Dorian. Woods is teaming with entertainer Justin Timberlake and Nexus Luxury and the Royal Bank of Canada to create the initiative, pledging to match dollar-for-dollar the first $6 million in donations.

Grand Bahama, meanwhile, is home to three courses, including the Robert Trent Jones Jr.-designed Reef Course at the Grand Lucayan Resort, which was used as a community shelter, providing refuge for hundreds of residents who had been displaced by the fury of Dorian. All three of those courses suffered varying levels of damage.

Dom Furore
Chef Jose Andres delivers food from World Central Kitchen at Treasure Cay International Airport.

The hardest hit area, however, remains central Abaco, where thousands of Bahamians are seeking flights to islands with power and freshwater. Airport restrictions, debris in ports that have been destroyed and sunken boats have proved a major obstacle. That hasn’t stopped dozens of organizations from trying to find a way to provide support. Celebrity chef Jose Andres and his World Central Kitchen has managed to distribute more than 25,000 meals on the island. The Flying Classroom, a K-8 integrative STEM supplemental curriculum program based out of Miami and assisted by pilot Barrington Irving, the youngest person to fly solo around the world, has been flying in donated food and other goods daily. Bahamas tourism has also said the best way to help rebuild is to visit, noting many of the Bahamas’ 700 islands were not affected.

As for golf? The courses in the affected areas on the islands, as Southworth and others have noted, remain secondary. The time, though, for the golf community to help, however it can, is now, and it will be for years to come.

How can you help with the recovery?

Here are links to participate in various relief efforts:

• The Abaco Club’s GoFundMe on behalf of the Abaco-Winding Bay Relief Fund: www.gofundme.com/f/abacodorianrelief
• The One Bahamas Fund: www.onebahamasfund.org
• Convoy of Hope: www.convoyofhope.org
• Red Cross: www.redcross.org

Dom Furore
The devastation at Marsh Harbour stretched in all directions.

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Tour vet withdraws from Korn Ferry Finals to evacuate family from Hurricane Dorian

Golf Digest Middle East — Sun, 01 Sep 2019 01:14:18 +0000

Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

By Joel Beall
Anirban Lahiri withdrew from the Korn Ferry Tour Championship on Thursday afternoon, citing concern for his family’s safety in Florida in the face of Hurricane Dorian.

Lahiri, who resides in Palm Beach Gardens, wrote on Twitter that he is returning home to help with evacuation procedures as the storm prepares to reach land this weekend.

Unfortunately had to withdraw from @tourchampulf to head back to Florida and evacuate the family. Cat-4 #HurricaneDorian2019 estimated to make landfall in 72hrs. See you all @PGATOUR in a couple of weeks. #familyfirst

— Anirban Lahiri (@anirbangolf) August 30, 2019

The 32-year-old has made 106 career starts on the PGA Tour, including 23 this season. Although he finished well outside the FedEx Cup top 125, Lahiri regained status in the first two legs of the Korn Ferry Finals thanks to a T-7 at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship and a T-5 at the Albertsons Boise Open. While missing the KF Tour Championship at Victoria National in Newburgh, Ind., will hurt his priority ranking, he will still have a PGA Tour card for next season.

Hurricane Dorian strengthened to a Category 2 storm Thursday night. According to the National Hurricane Center, the storm is expected to intensify into a Category 3 by Friday, and could reach a Category 4—which includes catastrophic 140 mph winds—by the time it reaches the U.S. mainland. The National Weather Service added Dorian could bring a “triple-threat of dangers” to Florida, including a “life-threatening storm surge, devastating hurricane-force winds and heavy rains.”

If that forecast holds, it will be the strongest hurricane to strike Florida’s East Coast since Andrew in 1992, according to the National Weather Service.

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