Lt. Col. Dan Rooney was sitting on his couch watching the PGA Tour one afternoon about three years ago when a thought struck him: It seemed like the Tour was the only major sports league that didn’t observe the national anthem. It also made him think of one of his favorite phrases: virtue is belief in action.
“A lot of people believe things,” Rooney said in this week’s episode GOLF’s Subpar Podcast“but do you take action?”
Rooney, the founder of Folds of Honor, which provides educational scholarships to spouses and children of fallen or disabled military service members and first responders, contacted PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and asked to bring the national anthem into golf. (He also reached out to another friend, Jack Nicklaus, to help the effort).
It worked. Folds of Honor Friday is now incorporated into dozens of PGA Tour, PGA Tour Champions and Korn Ferry Tour events.
“As of this year, we have over 50 events that now observe the national anthem,” Rooney said. “The partnership we have with them is called Folds of Honor Friday, where we award a minimum of 13 scholarships (there are 13 folds of the flag) in each of these PGA Tour markets. It was a put-it-on-my-tombstone moment: it brought the national anthem to the PGA Tour. And it’s one of those things that we never thought about. red, white and blue on Friday and they play the national anthem … it’s really nice “.
You can listen to the full interview with Rooney hereor look YouTube below.
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