San Francisco Chronicle (Sunday)
TEEING OFF ON CANCER
‘Have a Ball’ charity golf tourney has raised millions to fight disease
The charity golf tournament called “Have a Ball” was going smoothly until tourney boss Bob Hammer got a code-red phone call from one of his course volunteers.
“Hammer, you gotta get out to Hole 6! It’s insane out here, there’s 12 golf carts jammed up at the tee.”
Hammer and his wife, Kim, put on the tournament to raise funds to fight cancer. But they cram so much fun onto the Crow Canyon Country Club course — food, drink, entertainment, celebrity hosts — that keeping the golfers moving can be a logistical nightmare.
“So I drive out to Hole 6 in my golf cart and I’m ready to shoot someone,” Bob Hammer recounts. “What the hell are we doing? I get there, it is insane. There’s 12 carts, 24 golfers. I get out of my cart, there’s all these guys with beers in their hands, listening to the band. One guy looks at me, he goes, ‘Bobby, we’re good. Everybody who wants to play golf, they’re playing through. We’re drinking beer.’ ”
Playing “Have a Ball” isn’t the only way to fight cancer, but it’s one of the most fun. This year’s event, the Hammers’ 20th, will have 600 golfers divided between four tournaments, with two apiece held on July 15 and Sept. 16 — 150 golfers per tournament, one in the mornings and another in the afternoons. Running this golf circus out of their garage in their spare time, with volunteer help, the Hammers have raised $4.5 million for cancer-fighting causes, and they will bunker-rake in $300,000 more this year.
Twenty-four cancer fighting organizations will benefit. As one example, “Have a Ball” has funded 19 oncology nursing scholarships to Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City, at $12,500 each.
I’ve seen the tourney in action, and it is a well-organized mess. There are way too many food and drink pop-ups, too many bands, too many Bay Area celebrity hole hosts, all crammed into 18 holes.
Even with the shotgun start — a foursome at each of the 18 tees to start the tourney — golfers seldom finish 18 holes before the gun sounds ending play. If anyone feels cheated by not getting in a full 18, well, so far the complaint box is empty.
The field includes plenty of serious and semi-serious golfers, but even for the purists, “Have a Ball” is a mullet tournament — business in the front, party in the back. Whether ignoring or embracing the chaos, 8,824 golfers have teed it up in 19 years.
The name of the tournament is an allusion to the fact that Bob Hammer has a ball: testiclewise, he is one under par. In 1999, at age 29, Hammer noticed a lump down there. Cancer. He had surgery to remove a testicle, and doctors told him he was clean. He and Kim already had a daughter, and they had planned to add one more to the family.
Not so fast, said cancer. Hammer started getting back pains. While wrapping a Christmas present for his daughter, he collapsed in agony, gasping for breath. X-rays showed a tumor the size of a cantaloupe in his lower abdomen and another the size of a cucumber near his neck. And he wasn’t even a vegetarian.
Doctors gave Hammer a 20% chance to live. After 26 rounds of chemo, he would need surgery, which would nip in the bud his child-producing career.
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As a bonus, the surgery would come with risk of paralysis.
Just before undergoing the surgery, though, the Hammers traveled to a Lance Armstrong event. (This was before the famous cycling superstar became infamous.) Armstrong is a testicular cancer survivor whose charity raised millions. Bob met Armstrong’s oncologist, who convinced him to blow off the surgery and undergo the unconventional program that had saved Armstrong’s life and cycling career.
In 2003, Kim and cancer-free Bob welcomed a son, Josh, naturally conceived.
Back then, Armstrong preached “the obligation of the cured.” In that spirit, the Hammers decided to raise a few bucks with a golf tournament. They signed up 124 golfers, hoping to raise $2,500. They raised $50,000. Voila, the Bay Area had itself an annual Mardi Gras of a golf tournament.
Having worked “Have a Ball” a few times, I can attest that the golfers know what they’re playing for, and it isn’t the first prize of a pro-shop gift card. They love them some Hammers. They look at Kim and Bob as the Mother and Father Teresa of grassroots cancer fighting.
“It’s just Kim and me and the volunteers doing it, the golfers know that and they appreciate that,” Bob says. “They know about the relationships Kim and I have with these cancer organizations, and it has just become this big family. They understand the mission.”
The mission is maxed out, the Hammers can’t expand beyond the two-day, 600-golfer funfest. But their work is infectious. Along with Bob’s day job as development director for A Brighter Day, a foundation fighting teen depression and suicide, he does side consulting for five charity golf tournaments that aspire to capture the “Have a Ball” magic.
One of the Hammers’ regular hole hosts, KPIX-TV sports director Vern Glenn, has spun off his own charity tournament.
Hammer says he never forgets what it’s all about and how it started.
“Josh is grown now and out of the house, but there’s still these moments,” says Hammer, kicking back in the garage that does double duty as “Have a Ball” HQ and neighborhood TV sports lounge. “He came home the other day, and my daughter Shayna, and we went to a Giants game for Father’s Day. Yes, it’s still a thing. You go through everyday life, then something reminds you of something that happened 20 years ago, and why we do what we do.”
What they do is raise money, raise hope, and collect wisdom. Four Bay Area medical centers keep Bob’s phone number handy. When they have a patient diagnosed with cancer who might benefit from the support and comfort of someone who’s been there, they say, “Call Bob.”
After all, Hammer is a threetime survivor of testicular cancer. Yes, three. About five years ago a routine checkup found a speck of cancer. Doctors monitor that tiny time bomb. It hasn’t grown, and maybe it won’t. With cancer, you never know, so you just keep swinging.