Baltusrol Top Contributor To Caddie Scholars 3rd Year In Row
Baltusrol Golf Club was presented a recognition flag as the top contributing club to the New Jersey State Golf Association Caddie Scholarship Foundation at the annual CSF Trustees Dinner on Thursday, June 19, at the Essex Fells Country Club.
Baltusrol was the No. 1 contributing club for the third consecutive year, providing a record $77,210 to the CSF. Accepting the award for Baltusrol were former NJSGA president Tom Paluck and Baltusrol representative Rick Wolffe.
The other top five contributing clubs that received recognition were Echo Lake Country Club ($55,825), Canoe Brook Country Club ($42,175), Manasquan River Golf Club ($40,815) and Upper Montclair Country Club ($40,200).
“This is about a group of people who come together for a common cause and deliver a great result,” said NJSGA president Frank O’Brien. “The Caddie Scholarship Foundation helps give young people a better start in life. That they achieve a 96 percent graduation rate speaks volumes.”
“We should not be resting on our laurels,” said CSF chairman Ed Batta. “So many more kids need our help. We are preserving the traditions of caddies in golf. We are helping clubs and helping communities. We should all be proud of that.”
It was another banner year for the Caddie Scholarship Foundation which set a new record with $867,680 in donations received. This year, the CSF will surpass $11 million in donations in its 67-year history after surpassing the $10 million mark in 2013.
A total of 203 scholarships were awarded from a pool of 260 applicants. According to Batta, $446,484 was awarded to 100 automatically renewed scholarships (sophomores and seniors), $159,900 was awarded to 37 juniors who reapplied, $106,600 went to 27 new-in-college recipients, $147,000 to 37 new freshmen, and $7,000 to two Rutgers students in the turfgrass program.
Grade point averages ranged from 3.0 to 3.5 and the average SAT score was nearly 1,200, according to Sheila Menendez, CSF Director of Education.
“Every year I say it, that I’m surprised by the quality of our applicants. We send out e-mails to students confirming the awards and this year we received 40 responses from parents telling us how much the NJSGA has helped them and enabled their child to go to college. They tell us they truly appreciate what we are doing,” she said.
“As much as the students are reaping the benefits, all of us reap the benefits in helping these kids,” she added.
Of interest, the King family of Spring Lake became the first to have father-son recipients in Bill King, the head pro at the club and son, William King IV of St. Rose High School, winner of a $6,000 William Y. Dear Scholarship. Bill King, who graduated Rutgers as a NJSGA Caddie Scholar, is a lifetime sustaining donor of the CSF.
The Lazzarotti triplets, caddies at Echo Lake, freshmen Chris, Mark and Matt all received CSF awards. There were 14 brother-brother recipients and one brother-sister combination. More than 40 scholarship winners received a minimum of $6,000.
Ben Del Vento Sr., vice-chairman of CSF, noted that the foundation will soon receive its largest gift ever, from the Babs and Warren Collins estate. Del Vento met the Collins while caddieing at the club and received a CSF award to Rutgers University over 57 years ago.
“The Collinses have made the largest cash gift in the 67-year history of the Caddie Scholarship Foundation,” Del Vento proudly announced. “Our motto will always be ‘Education is the most precious gift.’ The precious gift we give to caddies is something they can carry for the rest of their lives. The people who give do it as a labor of love.”
Jack Rupple, who caddies at Essex Fells and is a rising senior at the University of Maryland, is the recipient of the Col. John McHugh Memorial Scholarship.
He spoke of how the scholarship has helped him achieve his dream of studying abroad in England.
“The Caddie Scholarship Foundation helped me get to where I am now and where I am going,” said Rupple, who is working as a development manager for Global Showcases.
Claude Fusco, a member of Echo Lake, announced the institution of a legacy scholarship in the name of his late son, Claude Fusco III.
“I’ve always been a fan of caddies. I’ve seen how hard they worked and how they wanted to succeed in life. My son loved to caddie. I wanted to do something for my son’s memory. I want to give kids an opportunity that they may not have had otherwise,” Fusco stated.
