Mid-Amateur Honors 9/11 Anniversary with Moment of Silence

The 22-year anniversary of one of the worst days in American history hit home at the 42nd U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship on Monday at Sleepy Hollow Country Club and stroke-play co-host Fenway Golf Club. Situated nearly 35 miles from Ground Zero, competitors at the championship’s main venue took off their hats and saluted the Stars and Stripes, which stood at half mast to honor the more than 3,000 individuals who lost their lives when two commercial jets smashed into the Twin Towers. A U.S. Mid-Amateur qualifier actually was being contested that fateful day at Bedford Golf & Tennis Club in Westchester (N.Y.) County, saving the life of Sandler O’Neill executive Jimmy Dunne, who would have been in his office inside the South Tower if not for the qualifier. Dunne lost 66 of his colleagues, including best friend Chris Quackenbush and firm founder Herman Sandler. Not a day goes by without Dunne, who qualified for the 2018 U.S. Senior Amateur, thinking about those victims and how golf kept him from being among the deceased. “For me personally it is a way to put things in perspective,” said 2023 U.S. Senior Amateur champion Todd White, who teaches American Government at Spartanburg (S.C.) High School. “We are out here competing and all of us want to win but in the grand scheme of things it is still just a game. When you look at life as a whole and you realize what lives were impacted on that day golf is inconsequential at that point.”