The Rippling Effect: How the Timothy E. Nettles Memorial Invitational Tournament Began
When our sons played golf for their high school team, my late husband Tim was their biggest fan, and could always be found on the course as a spectator. One afternoon, Chuck’s team played against a team from across town. Our team looked so sharp in their red, black, and white golf attire, clad from head to toe. The other team tumbled off their bus, dressed in a hodge-podge of unmatching golf shirts and shorts. I’m pretty sure we won the match. But Tim was concerned because the opposing team had no uniforms. When the match was over, he disappeared to his car, and I saw him scribbling in his checkbook. Before they got back on that bus, he sought out the opposing team coach and gave him a check to use for team golf shirts. He told the coach that uniforms might make them feel more cohesive as a team. I’ll never forget the look on the coach’s face as he accepted the check from Tim --- someone he didn’t know, who was a parent on the other team.
In an article about death anxiety, American psychiatrist Irvin Yalom describes the “ripple effect.’ He says, “Rippling refers to the fact that each of us creates—often without our conscious intent or knowledge—concentric circles of influence that may affect others for years, even generations” (2008, p. 6). It’s been six years since Tim died, and occasionally, the grief is still crippling, even after all the healing that the passing of time has offered. Yet it is enormously helpful for me to remember stories like that one, and the effect that Tim had on other people.
What’s more, Tim’s ripple effect has also provided a way for our sons to honor their dad and find some purpose after his death. In Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, David Kessler tells us that one method of managing grief is to look for concrete ways to honor the person who died.
Chuck and Tommy were avid golfers. They both played in high school and college, and in fact, Tommy spent some time on the PGA Tour Latinoamérica. Their father was passionate about golf, even though he quit playing when his sons began playing better than he did. (That was when Tommy was about four years old.)
He was even more passionate about giving. He spent his days looking for ways to make things better for people who needed financial support, and he volunteered for and supported many charitable organizations involving youth and education.
During the year after their father died, Chuck and Tom began talking about organizing a professional golf tournament that would provide opportunity for golf professionals to play, and also to raise funds for charities that Tim supported. As Chuck said, “We kicked it around before, but it was too soon, too raw. Then we’re in early May of 2020, during the pandemic, and everyone was miserable. We were sitting around at our mom’s house, saying, ‘Let’s put something on the calendar to look forward to. Let’s run an independent tournament and see if it works.’”
And it did.
With their dad’s memory cheering them on, and with help and support from lots of friends, volunteers, sponsors, and professional as well as amateur golfers, Chuck and Tom Nettles launched the Timothy E. Nettles Memorial Invitational Tournament in September 2020, held at St. Clair Country Club in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In spite of a pandemic and all kinds of odds, this pro-am tournament was highly successful. (Lots of people just wanted to get out of the house, so that certainly worked in our favor!)
Now, in 2024, preparing for its fifth year, the tournament has a field size of 129 golfers, 48 of whom are professionals, with a purse of $75,000. Concurrently, Chuck and Tom initiated the Timothy E. Nettles Foundation, which provides donations to nonprofit organizations that support education and the game of golf for young people who, through no fault of their own, have found themselves on the difficult side of life. The foundation supports organizations that teach the game of golf to kids who might not otherwise have access to it, provide college scholarships to teens who work as caddies, and give financial support for club staff members who need medical care, transportation, or housing.
This foundation has become our family’s way of honoring Tim and of multiplying the ripple effect of his generosity. Every year at the formal tournament dinner, I look around the room and see so many people who knew and loved Tim, who come to our event because they support what we are doing and share stories about him. That’s gratifying.
What’s even more gratifying is to see the number of people who didn’t know Tim and have the chance to find out more about his ripple effect. For example:
Our grandchildren hear stories about the grandfather they’ll never have the joy of knowing.
Young professional golfers have an opportunity to play in a professional event, but they also learn about the importance of giving of their time, talents, and money to those who are less fortunate.
Community members and sponsors who know my sons (some of whom have been mentors to them) come out to support them, but they learn more about who Tim was, why he was nicknamed “T-Bone,” and why so many people used the word “generous” to describe him.
Years ago, Tim told me, when we were casually discussing how to manage our lives after one of us dies, “You get a proper mourning period of about a week. After that, get up and go have fun.”
A week?
Of “proper mourning?”
In that regard, he had no idea what he was talking about.
But our sons and I did find that, in the past four years of hosting the tournament, channeling our energies into something fun and productive was, indeed, comforting. So, Tim was right about that. And I’m so grateful that he left us with an expectation that we would continue our lives in joyful ways.
In his book, David Kessler said, “All of us get broken in some way. What matters is how we get up and put the pieces back together again” (p. 28). I’m certain Tim would agree. And the Timothy E. Nettles Memorial Invitational Tournament is one of our ways of putting the pieces back together again.
References
Kessler, D. (2019). Finding meaning: The sixth stage of grief. New York: Scribner.
Yalom, I. (2008, May). The ripple effect. Therapy Today,19(4), pp. 6-11. https://www.bacp.co.uk/bacp-journals/therapy-today/may-2008/the-ripple-effect/
