BY SPENCER CAMPBELL
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER
ABINGDON, Va. – Joe Eads loved the Masters.
For the past four years, Eads traveled to Augusta National in Georgia to watch golf’s greatest players square off for the coveted green jacket.
On July 26, 2008, the Abingdon native was killed in a car accident in Charleston, S.C. But Eads and his love of golf was not forgotten.
On Thursday, when this year’s Masters officially began, 87 golfers teed off in the first annual Joe Eads Memorial Golf Tournament at Glenrochie Country Club.
“Not long after Joe died, several of his friends approached us with this idea,” Randy Eads, Joe’s brother, said. “A lot of his golfing buddies thought this would be a great way to honor Joe, keep his memory alive and help out Abingdon High School students in the future.”
Joe Eads’ passion for golf ran deep. He was a member of Abingdon High School’s 2000 Virginia High School League state championship golf team.
After graduating from Abingdon in 2001, Eads attended Mississippi State University and enrolled in its professional golf management program. But Eads was also a Volunteer at heart, and eventually transferred to Knoxville and graduated from the University of Tennessee.
But golf was never far from his heart and after college Eads took a position at a golf store in Charleston.
Proceeds from Thursday’s memorial golf tournament will be given as a college scholarship to an Abingdon High School student most in need of financial aid and with the best academic record.
Randy Eads says that the family’s hope is to assist as many as four college students at a time with their tuition.
“Joe was a good kid, and he helped me out a lot,” said Brad Abel, a friend and former classmate of Joe Eads. “We figured his name would best be lived on through golf and giving back to somebody.”
Among the 87 golfers at Thursday’s tournament were some of Eads’ closest and longest-held friends, such as Jimmy Cook, who grew up in the same neighborhood.
Together with a charity dinner held on Thursday night at Glenrochie, Randy Abel estimated that the tournament raised almost $18,000 for the Joe Eads scholarship.
But on Thursday, Randy and Randall Eads, Joe Eads’ father, were just happy that the early April weather had given the event perfect, sunny golfing conditions. Conditions that probably would’ve found Joe Eads on the golf course.
“It was snowing earlier in the week and Joe loved to snowboard if he wasn’t golfing,” Randy Eads said. “So I said, ‘Well, if Joe has any control over the weather, he’s reminding us that he loved snowboarding and he loved golfing.’”
scampbell@bristolnews.com|(276) 645-2543
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