IACF’s 3rd Annual Golfing for Giving Tournament Raises Funds

By Jawahar Malhotra

HUMBLE: Although located in the town with a forgiving name, there is nothing too forgiving for the uninitiated in the challenging 18-hole golf course located 45-minutes north of downtown Houston and just east of the Bush Intercontinental Airport. It is a well-respected course which area golfers love to try their shots at and has been the site for the Indo American Charity Foundation’s Annual Golf Tournament and where the third such was held this past Saturday, May 4 on a pristine you-couldn’t-have-asked-for-better-weather kind of golfing day.

About 50 golfers – mostly Indian American, but with several mainstream friends and colleagues in tow – descended on the golf links to take part in the Golfing for Giving tournament that lasted over four hours and raised over $12,000 for the coffers of IACF. The money will eventually go towards the many non-profits and education initiative that the IACF supports. Included, just for the fun of it, were a couple of non-golfers like IACF President Murthy Divakaruni and Pratham Past-President Swatantra Jain whose son Dr. Ajay Jain was the chair of the event.

Other IACF Board Directors Anu Bala, Surender Talwar, Vanitha Pothuri and this reporter handled the logistics of the event in registering the 12 teams and making sure they were well stocked with lunch, a goodies bag and dinner, which was catered by Madras Pavilion of Sugar Land. Talwar and I drove the entire links in a golf cart, handing out cold water bottles and taking pictures of the teams at the holes.

Three teams won for the first place and the tiebreaker was the total handicap, which gave the team of Pradeep Gokhale, Jorje Puig, Jose Madrigal and Ash Shah the final victory. The Longest Drive was won by Kirk Bolos and the Hole In One was won by Charlie Hall.