When a well-known golf club member dies, the people who remember him fondly – family and friends – sometimes decide to do something to honor his or her memory.

It might be a memorial golf tournament or a tee plaque honoring the person.

Rocky Knoll Country Club in Orrington has decided to honor Joe Kacer of Brewer, who died of brain cancer on Aug. 16, by naming the club’s senior champion trophy for him.

“He was our first seniors champion,” said Rocky Knoll manager Bob Phillips, “and we thought it would be good to name the trophy in his honor.”

The first presentation of the Joe Kacer Trophy will be made to this year’s seniors tournament champion, Chuck Thompson of Brewer, in an 8 a.m. ceremony today at Rocky Knoll’s putting green before the weekly Seniors League competition. Local minister Roger Tracy will speak and members of the Kacer family will attend.

Kacer had been a member since the club opened in July 2000, according to Phillips.

“He was the seniors champ the first and second years and the President’s Cup champion the first year,” he added.

While he may have been competitive, he kept the game fun.

“He was very well-liked. He joked around a lot,” said Phillips. “Everybody seemed to like him.”

After he became ill, he found it difficult to play.

“I think he only played two holes this year,” said Phillips. “He was too tired. He could only hit the ball about 100 yards. He didn’t want to embarrass himself as a player.”

Kacer’s absence from the club was noticeable, said Phillips.

“A lot of people asked about him,” he said.

Before joining Rocky Knoll, Kacer had played at Bangor Municipal Golf Course, and he made a similar impression there, said Bangor head pro Brian Enman.

“He was an overall nice guy,” said Enman. “He came out, played golf, and had a good time.”

Phillips said, “He was a very nice buy to get along with.”

Nine more

The partners of Rocky Knoll have been planning on making the golf course 18 holes since before the first nine were finished, and now the second nine is closer to becoming a reality.

Phillips has preliminary plans set up for the nine, and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection will be evaluating the effect the golf course may have on the area. It’s mostly wooded currently, but there are a couple of wetland areas that the holes will be routed around.

The DEP will be studying soil tests and other reports before making its recommendation, which could take several more months, according to Phillips.

“We had hoped to start work this fall,” he said, but that may not be possible.

A couple of years ago, it was thought that the 10th hole, which will head down through the current driving range, might be a 635-yard par 6, but that’s not currently the case.

“Right now, it’ll be a 670-yard par 6,” said Phillips, stressing that would be from the back tees.

It may not stay that way, though. With two other par 5’s on the back, the nine would be a par 38 of about 3,600 yards from the back markers.

“We might scale [No. 10] back and make it a par 5 or we might shorten one of the par 5s to a par 4 and have it a par 37 on the back,” said Phillips.

He might also shorten one of the par 5s on the front, probably No. 4, to a par 4 and make the front nine a par 35 so the whole course would be a par 72.

The driving range will be moved to the left of the clubhouse.

Part of the back-nine design includes a pond that is much larger than the one in front of No. 8. Most of it will be to the right of the 18th hole, but it will intrude about halfway across the fairway. Players may hope that it isn’t as much of a ball magnet as the one on 8.

“A diver went in the pond on 8 once a year for three years,” said Phillips. “Over the course of those three years, he pulled out about 17,000 golf balls.”

Leavitt Tournament update

This year’s Bud and Barbara Leavitt Memorial Golf Tournament, which raised more than $250,000 over its 14 years to benefit the Jimmy Fund, had to be shelved and attempts to find another company to take it over have not panned out.

“When [senior vice-president] Rick O’Connor retired, we kind of retired the tournament altogether,” said Ryann Tash, a senior marketing coordinator for Unicel.

The tournament committee was made up of three or four Unicel employees, primarily, and O’Connor was one of them.

“We usually started around March or April,” said Tash, “but most of the man-hours came in the last couple of months.

“I figure it was about 20 hours a week per person since June.”

Tash said it was a hard decision not to continue the event since O’Connor had been one of the driving forces behind the event from the beginning.

But “it had grown so much, and we had such a small group of people, it was hard to continue doing it,” said Tash.

Both Tash and the Jimmy Fund have tried, and are still interested in finding, a company which can take it over.

“Our goal was to find a local business that knew the history of the tournament through sponsorship participation or player participation,” said Tash.

It wasn’t easy to let go of the event, according to Tash.

“It kind of became our baby,” she said. “It’s hard to adjust [to not doing it].”

Dave Barber can be reached at 990-8170, 1-800-310-8600, or by e-mail at dbarber@bangordailynews.net.