Practice green is memorial
Now that the prep golf season has begun, Greenbrier High School golfers can perfect their putting on a practice green dedicated to the memories of two fallen comrades.
Celerino Ramirez (left) and Ken Poole, with Putting Greens Direct, install a practice green at Greenbrier High School behind the softball field in Evans. A family friend of one of the teen golfers killed in 2003 proposed the idea of building the memorial to them.
Photo by Jim Blaylock
Workers completed construction Feb. 17 on a practice green at Greenbrier High that memorializes Shane Williams and Daniel Hall.
The teens were killed in April 2003 when their vehicle left Ashmore-Barden Road in Lincoln County, crashed into an embankment and flipped several times. The accident occurred while the high-school juniors were traveling to a golf tournament at Rocky Branch Golf Club, then Greenbrier's home course.
Soon afterward, Williams' family friend and Evans resident Mark Weinstein proposed the idea of a practice green to commemorate the boys.
"I was thinking in terms of what can done as a memorial, but what would also be long-lasting and have some value," Weinstein said. "When the idea first surfaced, no way in my wildest dreams did I think there would be a place to put it."
School officials offered him a spot behind the softball field to build the 2,600-square-foot, five-hole practice green made with synthetic turf.
Primarily through charity golf tournaments and a letter-writing campaign, Weinstein and other volunteers raised more than enough to build the practice green, which will cost about $20,000, he said.
"The practice field will predominantly be used by the Greenbrier golf team, but it would certainly be open to other golf teams in the area if they want to use it," Weinstein said. "All those rules haven't been worked out yet."
The green will not be open to the public, he said. Weinstein will have a formal dedication of the practice green at 9 a.m. on Friday.