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OT - Tony Finau on Feherty

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George Pazin:
Many apologies for the OT topic. I don't do this often on here, but I hope you'll understand why after reading this. Tony is my favorite golfer I've never met. Here's why:


I'm but a lowly self-employed t shirt printer, as many on here surely know. I've been printing for 25 years, and for one of my clients, a little over a decade. About 5 years ago, this particular client's mom stopped by the shop, with a couple sisters. They were and are wonderful Samoan women. The main one, I'd been printing for her son's soccer organization (they run a league for children who are disadvantaged in opportunities, literally driving a van around picking the kids up and driving them to fields to practice or play - and they won a national Futsal title a couple years ago!) for 10-15 years. He was a really nice guy, big and soft spoken, heart of gold. (Sadly, he passed at a young age from a heart attack.) Before he had passed, his mom stopped by one day with her sisters, asking about t's for their family reunion. They showed me an old shirt from a prior reunion, and I said, do you want yours to say "Finau" as this one does, and I pronounced it correctly. The mom looked at me surprised, and said, how do you know how to say that? And I smiled sheepishly and said, I'm kind of a golf nerd, and there's this guy who is a bit of a phenom named Tony Finau, and I assumed your name is pronounced the same way. She said to me: That's my nephew!


So I've followed his career more closely ever since. I've traded many emails with them as he climbed leaderboards with increasing regularity, though lately it's become so commonplace that I don't even bother anymore, I just do it when I see them, at work and elsewhere.


Trust me when I say, this family is special. I'm lucky, I get to print for a lot of great people, but this family, they are the nicest by a wide margin, absolute hearts of gold. Every single one of them, and I've met about 10 of them. I run into them occasionally in the area, and each time they greet me with a wide smile, and I am quick to return it. If I had a problem and needed someone to help, they would be the first people I'd call, outside of my family, and I know they'd be there, lending a hand.


What does this have to do with architecture? Nothing. This is just about life. Please take some time to watch the Feherty show with Tony if you can, and please root for him (which is really easy to do). He doesn't need your support, he'd doing fine on his own, but it can't hurt...


Thanks for your time, if you've read this. I just had to share it with my golf friends. Moderators, please feel free to delete the thread (after a few days, please :)).

Ira Fishman:
Wonderful post and wonderful story.


Ira

Mike Sweeney:
We surf with a bunch of Samoans. They are really great people, they have a zest for living life in the moment, and they love sports - https://www.againstallenemies.com/2019/1/13/18181317/unsung-heroes-draws-attention-to-the-success-of-the-polynesian-community-in-football-ken-niumatalolo

Along the lines of what George said, the Samoan, Hawaiian, Puerto Rican and Kiwi surfers have zero attitude towards our Autistic surfers:



Bringing it back to GCA.com, it was interesting to hear how Tony Finau started playing Skins Games for big money, or rather money that he did not have. I could not help but think that John Kavanaugh would have been an easy target if he lived in Utah.  :D ;)

astavrides:
Nice to hear, George. I didn't know there were Samoans in Pittsburgh. Tony does seem like a really good guy. I look forward to watching that episode of Feherty. Nice to see diverse backgrounds on tour. One of the golf magazines had a good article on the background of Jose de Jesus Rodriguez recently.

Ryan Hillenbrand:
I remember seeing a tournament he competed in when he was like 17 - it was a million dollar shootout in Vegas. He was featured quite a bit as a long hitting phenom and one who had forgone this amateur status to play in this is tournament. I was fearful that one day he'd be cautionary tale of kid who gave up on college to chase money and ended up homeless.

I was glad to see him resurface on The Big Break if only to see that he and his brother had a good head on their shoulders, and even happier to see him make it to the big time. And really happy when he didn't destroy his ankle running around at the Par 3 tournament.

While I'm not sure I'd recommend my son take that path, its nice to see that dreams come true and there are happy endings. (insert Robert Kraft joke)

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