HARTFORD, Conn. – Cancer was winning, and rather overwhelmingly, too. Prostate, lymphoma, throat-and-neck. The disease had come at Dave Adamonis Sr. with a vengeance and in so many different forms that even the simplest request required improbable actions.

Returning from Florida to Mass. General Hospital in Boston, for instance. It was a monstrous task but his sons – Dave Jr. and Brad – helped pull it off, which in turn blessedly added a few more years to the father’s life.

“He was in the car one day, thanking me,” said Dave Jr., “so I told him to flip down the visor and look in the mirror.”

Always, said Dave Jr. “my father had talked about a circle of life and how this golf was all about helping people and spreading goodwill.”

Dave Jr. explained to his father that two prominent men connected to Mass. General Hospital had helped coordinate the move, and they had done so because of warm remembrances of their sons’ years in the United States Challenge Cup. This was their way of saying thank you.

“Look at that guy in the mirror,” Dave Jr. told Dave Sr. “If he didn’t start this [Challenge Cup], I wouldn’t know these two men. They believe in the same philosophy that you do. ‘You help people.’ ”

Amen and warm memories to Dave Adamonis Sr., who died at 63 in October of 2009. But to know that he lived to see younger son Brad play two full years on the PGA Tour (2008-09) is worthy of a smile. And that smile should only grow marvelously wider and warmer when one considers how prominently the US Challenge Cup has flourished under the sensitive and caring leadership of his son.

“A lot of people owe Dave Adamonis (Jr.),” said Jim Renner. “You can’t put a price tag on what he has done.”

Cheers to that, because what Dave Jr. has done is take his father’s commendable vision and mold it into something that leaves an everlasting imprint on those who partake. To say the US Challenge Cup is a junior golf program is a grave understatement; it is a world into which you enter to play golf, but you exit more responsible, more aware, more accepting, more mature, more ready for life.

And if golf opens doors for you thanks to the Challenge Cup, it is because Dave Adamonis Jr. has navigated the landscape and routed his 40-plus tournament schedule to point you in the correct direction.

“It’s hard to put into words what the USCC has done for junior golf – not only in the northeast but at this point nationwide,” said Ben Spitz. “Dave’s organization gave me opportunities that I wouldn’t have ever had.”

Said Michael Carbone: “Dave is great at helping kids grow up at a young age. He doesn’t get in the way. He helps you along.”

They were of the same era, Renner (Oklahoma, Johnson & Wales), Spitz (URI), and Carbone (URI) and playing collegiate golf was made possible by how they grew up under Adamonis’ mentorship. That Renner, 38, went on to make the PGA Tour is a bonus that thrills Adamonis, but it is not a Challenge Cup mantra.

“We love to watch kids learn to take care of themselves (on the course) and behave around other people. It’s great that they get better at golf, but it’s more important that they become successful people,” said Adamonis.

There was a time when young golfers had little to play in beyond the state junior. The AJGA came along in 1978 but didn’t offer true local and regional options. “Dave created opportunities for guys like me,” said Renner.

A whole parade of New England golfers would fall in line behind Renner and echo his sentiments. Adam Kolloff became a trailblazer when he won the Optimist, then Renner and Michael Welch made it three in a row.

The Challenge Cup was legitimately a big deal and while going on to play college golf was a curious landscape, Adamonis knew it as well as anyone.

“Without the Challenge Cup, I wouldn’t have gone to URI, Kenny Lewis to Vanderbilt, or Brent Wanner to Wake Forest,” said Carbone, referencing this talented trio of Cape Cod golfers from yesteryear.

Time has marched on and Adamonis has continued to selflessly mentor other generations of young golfers. A tried and tested maneuver is to ask alumni to come back and play in tournaments. Carbone still remembers the time he teed it up alongside young teenagers named Megan Khang, now on the LPGA, and Michael Thorbjornsen, twice a U.S. Open competitor and currently a standout at Stanford.

“Dave is so good at helping kids grow up at a young age,” said Carbone.

This new generation of Challenge Cuppers savor their opportunity much like their predecessors.

“I wouldn’t be playing college golf if it weren’t for him,” said Mac Lee of Andover, who plays at Boston College. A BC teammate, Nick Cummings of Weston, shook his head as he sat around a lunch table with Trevor Lopez of Winchester, who plays at UConn, and Brandon Gillis of Nashua, N.H., who plays at URI.

Round 1 of the Wampanoag Classic at Wampanoag CC was over and singing the praises of Adamonis and the Challenge Cup was something they gladly would do. They have grown up together on the Challenge Cup, their friendships have blossomed, and they have pushed each other.

When Adamonis walked by to post some scores, Lopez smiled and nodded in deference.

“And we owe it all to him. A lot of us still come back and play because of him,” he said.

When that scene was relayed to Renner, he expressed great delight because 20 years ago he would have been at a lunch table saying similarly.

“He does this because he loves it,” said Renner. “It’s just who Dave is. But he definitely doesn’t get the credit he deserves.”