Always, there are stories that will rekindle your faith in the game at a time when so much nonsense is circulating.

Always, we need to be reminded that golf is not the PGA Tour; rather golf is a wide, all-inclusive network that enables people to benefit the joys, the opportunities, and the rewards of this beautiful game in a multitude of ways.

Always, Bob Beach is a perfect starting point.

A prince of a man and a legend within PGA of America circles, Beach is a veritable Statue of Liberty in his desire to spread the spirit of golf. Send those with autism or amputated limbs or special needs or intellectual impairment his way and Bob Beach will show them that golf is for them to enjoy.

“In 1990 I was an assistant pro in Avon Park in Florida, teaching (Special Olympic) children,” said Beach. “I returned to Boston in 1991 and I got involved with Special Olympics. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every minute.”

So revered is Beach that he recently was honored at the Special Olympics Massachusetts’ Celebration of Inclusion at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library. He was the recipient of an inaugural award that will go to someone who enhances the lives of people with disabilities through the game of golf.

The name of the award presented to Bob Beach? Fitting that it will forever be called the Bob Beach Award.

“Pretty humbling,” said Beach, who has helped spread the joy of golf to thousands of young people for more than 30 years.

https://www.powerfades.com/archives/2021-09-22

In a year when so many pro golf developments left sour tastes, when a parade of players were overpaid by millions and executives showed relentless greed, Beach offered a reminder that wonderful people continue to receive so much happiness from this great game.

Here are just a few others whose intriguing stories in 2023 kept me in front of the keyboard with a sense of joy.

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Zindzi Frederick – Her story was part of an assignment for the “USGA Golf Journal,” about youths who experienced a mystical path in golf. Zindzi was not a golfer and the summer she spent as a caddie at Brown Deer Park in Milwaukee was just OK. She was determined “to resign” that brief career, though.

https://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=799636&p=59&view=issueViewer

Urged to stay with it, Frederick caddied for three more summers at Milwaukee CC where she became friendly with an invaluable mentor, Micaela White Bomhack.

Remarkably, Frederick blossomed into an outstanding caddie and earned a full scholarship to the University of Wisconsin thanks to the Charles “Chick” Evans Scholarship Fund.

No, she’s not a golfer. But Frederick, who also plays violin for the Milwaukee Youth Orchestra, knows the game “was really a blessing.”

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Anthony Adelizzi – Truly an inspiration, this young man who was diagnosed at a young age with Autism Spectrum Disorder was a “Power Fades” feature in September.

https://www.powerfades.com/archives/2023-09-20

Thanks to selfless work by Bob Miller of the NEPGA and Anthony’s parents, John and Dianne, young Anthony became enamored with golf and from an early age dreamed of being a Class A professional.

“Kids wouldn’t play with me,” he said. “I knew I was different than most.”

In truth, he has a deeper soul and is more determined than most and thanks to great mentors at The Hyannisport Club, Anthony Adelizzi not only became a Ouimet Scholar he was chosen to be guest speaker at the annual banquet in April of this year.

Currently he’s enrolled in the PGM Program at Methodist University in North Carolina.

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Maya Williams – When she started working at Southern Hills CC in Tulsa, Okla., in the summer of 2019, this young woman didn’t know what to expect. Then came the Senior PGA Championship (’21) and PGA Championship (’22) and the enthusiasm resonated.

“If I were to select one word to describe why I love my job as much as I do, the word would be community,” she said.

Little did Maya know that the community included a group of people who were at Southern Hills CC for a period of time well before her. Gil Hanse, Jim Wagner and their colleagues at Hanse Golf Course Design did superb restoration work at this Perry Maxwell gem.

When Wagner came up with a “Caveman Scholarship Program” that would honor students who are employed at clubs where HGCD had done work, Maya Williams was overwhelmed to be selected.

https://www.powerfades.com/archives/2023-12-13

“The Caveman Scholarship has changed my life,” said the young woman who is studying early childhood education. “I spent my summers working three jobs, in addition to babysitting. My family became reliant upon me to assist (financially) during my sophomore year.

“The scholarship has allowed me to focus on my education and relieve my family of more financial burdens.”

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Nik Kroisi – A request from “Mass Golfer”  that was warmly embraced – to write about a kid from Longmeadow whose love of golf helped him fight an insidious drug addiction – brought an introduction to this passionate young man.

http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?m=11753&i=795887&p=14&ver=html5

Kroisi, who in a most circuitous way became friends with PGA Tour member Zac Blair and now caddies for him, flat out tells you that golf saved his life.

“I am an all-consuming person. With golf, I love watching it. I love playing it. The coolest part of the game is the camaraderie. You are part of a golf fellowship,” said Kroisi, who has been sober for 14 years.

“But when you’re in a drug addiction and become all-consuming, it is so dark. You don’t have camaraderie. You don’t have a fellowship.”

To Kroisi, and to Maya Williams, and to Anthony Adelizzi, and to Zindhi Frederick, and to Bob Beach, cheers to a passion to be admired, a commitment to serve, and for reminding us that there is still so much goodness in golf.