The 122nd U.S. Open Championship wrapped up last month at The Country Club in Brookline, and thanks to the generosity of one individual a number of local high school golfers and coaches were able to attend the renowned event.
Bill Locke — who grew up in Reading, attended Austin Prep and learned the game of golf at Thomson Country Club — purchased upwards of 200 tickets for both practice days leading up the tournament and actual competitive rounds. He then made numerous calls to offer them free of charge to a slew of different high school golf programs across the state.
“We ended up with close to 100 kids from 12 different schools being able to attend,” said Locke, who began playing at The Country Club in the 1970s and has been a member ever since.
“The funny thing is I didn’t intend for this to be a large scale event; tickets were tight, but they had a member website where you could exchange tickets,” Locke explained. “When the tickets came up for sale people were putting them up for the whole week, so I just took a bunch of them and gave them out.”
There was no catch; Locke’s intentions were pure and heartfelt. The Acton native vividly recalls the first time he made it over to The Country Club, and simply wanted today’s aspiring young golfers to experience the same thing.
“I remember as a kid growing up at Thomson, I remember how excited I was the first time I ever stepped foot on the grounds (at The Country Club),” he said. ” I was 15 years old and we were there for the Walker Cup (1973); it was amazing. I knew it would be the same for these kids, and they were thrilled.”
Locke also had some help from PGA star Rory McIlroy, who kindly offered up a number of his own practice round tickets for the kids as well. Among the schools fortunate enough to be able to send players and/or coaches to one of the rounds at this year’s U.S. Open were Beverly, Peabody, Danvers, Hamilton-Wenham, Gloucester, Austin Prep, Lowell, Maynard, Chelmsford, Billerica, St. Mary’s Lynn, and Lynn Classical.
Beverly High golf coach Craig Wiley and three of his former captains made it over for Friday’s second round, and the afternoon certainly lived up to the hype.
“I mean, it really was like Christmas in June for these kids. It was a huge surprise,” said Wiley. “Three of my previous captains all came out and two of them had never been to any professional event at all. So for their first experience to be a U.S. Open … they were blown away. They were very appreciative of Mr. Locke and couldn’t say thank you enough.”
Peabody coach Peter Cronan echoed those sentiments after being able to send a group of his current players for a practice round.
“It was pretty incredible,” he said. “I didn’t get to go and partake in it, but I had a couple of the parents go with their kids and another group of kids were able to go as well. It was finals week (at school), so they went down early enough to experience a practice round, which is sometimes even better. There’s more interaction with the players, less crowds. They had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience.”
Danvers coach Ryan Hayes said he was able to send three of his seniors: John Curran, Jack Murphy and Connor Horn. They, too, had an incredible time at one of the Open’s practice rounds.
It was a surprising and extremely generous gesture from Locke, one that dozens of players, coaches and parents from across the area won’t soon forget. After all, it’s not every day that a major golf championship is held in the state of Massachusetts — and even more rare to be able to attend in person.
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