Barbara Leavitt golf set today Bangor Jimmy Fund event includes sports celebrities

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Local golfers will team up Monday with various sports personalities such as Fred Lynn, Bill Lee, Bob Stanley, and Ken Coleman at the first Barbara Leavitt Memorial Golf Tournament to benefit The Jimmy Fund of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

The selected-shot scramble will get started at 10:30 a.m. at Bangor Municipal Golf Course (the 18-hole course).

Some of the celebrities were on hand for a pretournament reception at Legends Sports Bar in Bangor Sunday night.

Attending tournaments such as these has become an almost weekly ritual for Former Boston Red Sox radio and television announcer Ken Coleman.

“I’ll be playing in about 36 of these this year,” said Coleman. “This is my 25th so far. Sometimes I play one, two, or three per week.”

The busy schedule doesn’t bother Coleman. In fact, he enjoys it.

“You see old and new friends alike, and it’s a great way to help help contribute to the fight against cancer,” Coleman said.

“In regard to this tournament. I guess I feel the same way everyone else does. It’s a wonderful event in memory of a very dear lady put on by a dear friend.”

Coleman was referring to Barbara Leavitt, wife of former Bangor Daily News Executive Sports Editor Bud Leavitt and longtime supporter of the Jimmy Fund, who died of cancer in 1990.

The tournament was organized in a relatively short timespan of four months. Organizers started laying the groundwork in April.

“For as late as we started, the reception has been terrific,” said co-organizer Rick O’Connor of O’Connor GMC, one of the tourney’s sponsors.

“We’re very proud to put this on. This isn’t a one-shot deal. We’d like to expand the field and get more golfers from the northern part of Maine to come down.”

Many area businesses have donated prizes and/or funding for the tournament. Prizes will be offered in contests for the longest drive on the 10th hole; closest to the pins on hole Nos. 3, 6, 11, and 16; and the top overall net scores in the selected-shot scramble.

Mowatt Fur of Brewer is offering a $12,000 fur coat for the first hole-in-one on the 11th hole (200-yard par 3). A free round-trip airline ticket anywhere in the continental United States will be awarded to the golfer coming closest to the pin on the third hole.

A benefit auction will be held right after the tournament at the course. Items to be offered include autographed pictures of Roger Clemens, Ryne Sandberg, and Lee Trevino; Frank Viola’s first pitched baseball in a Red Sox uniform; a signed lithograph of Ted Williams; and Williams-autographed baseballs.

The public is invited to come out and watch the action.

Bangor Municipal’s new nine-hole course will remain open to the public the whole day.

Barbara Leavitt Memorial Tournament AT BANGOR MUNICIPAL G.C. (Monday’s Pairings)

1A – Alden Leavitt, Sharland Leavitt, Bud Leavitt, Pepper Mooney

1B – Ed Winchester, Ann Winchester, Jeremy Roux, Mike Dowd

2 – Jay Nissen, Jim Greer, Vince Kremins, Pete Warner

3 – Bill Warner, Tom Wells, Phil Ward, Ron Ward

4 – Fred Pape, Chuck Leavitt, Joe Gallant, Joni Averill

5 – Dr. Richard Polkinghorn; Dennis Ellingwood, David Barber, Dale Duff

6 – Shawn Walsh

7 – Joe Cosgrove, Don McDuff, Mike Cosgrove, Tim Mayo

8 – Andrew Neff, Ken McGrath, Peter Calore, Kevin Keogh

9 – John Nash, Gary Powers, Don Cates, Reggie Burnham

10A – Joseph Jordan, Richard Armstrong, Bruce Stewart

10B – Kern Feeney, George Brountas, Mack Hardy, Dale Reed

11 – Rick O’Connor, Gregg Clifford, Bert Clifford, Bob Wyman

12 – Blanca Pickering, Shane Ward, Tom St. John, Brian St. John

13 – Larry Mahaney, Keith Mahaney, Jim Mullen, Garrie Murray

14 – Jim Sukeforth, Rob Brewer, Harold LeClair, Joel McCluskey

15 – Frank Jordan, Tina Colburn, Tom Gallant, Ray Lynch

16 – Dave Young, Doug Dwyer, Warren Brooks, Bill Arata

17 – Paul Hughes, Butch Furrough; Nat Crowley Sr. Nat Crowley Jr.

18 – Jim McInnis, Bob Stevenson, Mike Hosmer, Ed Matheson