Ballyneal is well known as a walking-only golf club, but it’s a safe bet that the private course in Holyoke will allow a motorized cart if Ben Cox wants to play a few holes there this summer.
That would be the fondest dream not only for Cox himself, but also for the members at Ballyneal — where Cox was one of the first “honor” caddies — and many residents of northeastern Colorado.
Cox, a 2006 graduate of Haxtun High School, is paralyzed from the chest down after a spring-break accident he suffered while skiing with his dad on St. Patrick’s Day at Monarch Mountain in south-central Colorado. Cox’s mom, Melinda, said doctors have indicated there’s only about a 3 percent chance that Ben will walk again after breaking his C6 vertebra, along with his femur in three places and his nose.
But that hasn’t stopped a young man who loves golf from setting a goal to play the game again — preferably this summer at Ballyneal.
“My ultimate goal is to play again,” Cox said this week in a phone interview from his room at Craig Hospital in Englewood, where he’s been doing rehabilitation for more than five weeks. “If I have to duct-tape my hands to the club, I’ll do it.”
While Cox dreams of using an adaptive cart that may allow him to golf again, others are doing their best to help his family deal with astronomical medical bills and other expenses. In fact, one of the members at Ballyneal, Jim Colton of Wheaton, Ill. (pictured with Cox), has a novel event planned that he hopes at least will make a dent in those financial obligations.
Colton, known as an ironman of sorts at Ballyneal because he thinks nothing of walking 54 holes in a day, plans to put his golf endurance skills to the test on June 20 in a fundraiser for Cox and his family. On that day at Ballyneal, Colton will try to play at least six rounds — 108 holes, all walking — after having collected all sorts of pledges on behalf of the Coxes.
Colton had been planning his golf marathon as a benefit for the CGA/CWGA-cosponsored Eisenhower-Evans Caddie Scholarship or the Holyoke High School golf team, but when Cox suffered his major injuries, he and his family became the event’s new beneficiaries.
Though Colton knows some of the caddies at Ballyneal well, Cox had never been on his bag. In fact, the two hadn’t formally met until last weekend.
The Coxes “are a great family with a positive attitude despite a life-changing injury,” said Colton, who works for JP Morgan Chase Bank. “There’s no feeling sorry for themselves. It was real touching meeting them. I just want to help out someone who’s a good guy.
“I view Ballyneal as a second home. All the people out there are fantastic, almost like family to me. So to hear about Ben, it”˜s almost like helping out a family member.”
Colton, who blogs about the fundraiser on wegoblogger31.com, has drawn various types of pledges for his fundraiser. Many are putting up a certain amount of money for each hole Colton plays on June 20. Others are increasing their donation for each hole played beyond 100 or 108. Still others are adding bonuses for each birdie made. As of earlier this week, Colton said the total pledged would be more than $15,000 if he plays at least 108 holes.
“There’s no way I’m not playing 108 holes,” he said, noting that he”˜ll start at 4:45 or 5 a.m. and go until 8:30 or 8:45 p.m. “I’m trying to make it a fun event to rally around.”
To supplement the amount he raises, Colton would like other people — Ballyneal members or not — to play a half-marathon (54 holes) on June 20 after getting pledges for the Cox family. Colton said that if a person raises at least $500 for the cause, Colton will pay his guest fees for the day at Ballyneal. Colton hopes the chance to play Ballyneal — which is ranked among the top 100 courses in the country by Golf Digest — will provide extra incentive for golfers to get involved. Those interested in supporting Colton or in playing a half-marathon that day can e-mail him at jcolton31@gmail.com.
Colton said he typically only makes three or four trips a year to Ballyneal, but when he does visit, he doesn’t get shortchanged for golf. During a 10-day trip to Colorado last July, he played 23 rounds. For a weekend visit, it’s normal for him to fly out of Chicago early Friday morning and play 36 holes at Ballyneal that day, 54 on Saturday, then 36 on Sunday before flying back home. When playing by himself — as he will be on June 20 — he said he can complete 18 holes in two hours.
“They’ve always known me as an ironman out there,” he said. “I go all day. I could not eat lunch and just keep golfing. Some of the caddies there egg me on. And when a couple of them played 100 holes (in a day), that was my primary motivation to raise the bar.”
Colton is tentatively planning to have a different caddie carry his clubs for each round on June 20, possibly including some notable special guests.
After spending 11 days at St. Anthony Hospital immediately following his ski accident — and then the time since then at Craig Hospital — Cox has been given a tentative release date of June 2. At that point, if all goes well, he’ll return to live with his family in Haxtun, where members of the community have helped Ben’s father, Kenneth, remodel the house to accommodate Ben’s needs.
Ben, who has played many a round of golf at the nine-hole F&H Course in Haxtun, said if he can get his neck brace off by then, his “dream would be to hit the first tee shot” at one of the benefit tournaments this summer.
Matt Payne, the head professional at Ballyneal, said the club hopes to hold a “Ben Cox Day” sometime after Ben comes home from the hospital. The hope is that Ben would attend a welcome-home of sorts, and that donations would be made to help out him and his family.
The planned events at Ballyneal aren’t the only fundraisers that are helping defray some expenses for the Cox family. Wayland Baptist University in Texas, where Ben attended before transferring to Texas Tech, held a benefit for the Coxes in late March. Then early last month, most of the residents of Haxtun showed up for a benefit that Ben said raised $31,000.
Melinda Cox doesn’t know all the specifics about the huge medical bills resulting from Ben’s care, but she did say that just one bill from St. Anthony Hospital — where Ben underwent two surgeries — ran $330,000.
“I get real emotional talking about” the support shown by Colton, Haxtun residents, Wayland Baptist, Ballyneal and others, said Cox, a teacher’s aide in Haxtun who has remained with her son in Denver since the accident. “I thank God each day. It’s amazing how people have rallied around us. We even have had people down in Mexico praying for us. The part that gets to me is you don’t know how much you’re loved until something like this. It’s unreal the outpouring of love, support and prayer.”
Ben Cox is in the midst of sometimes-strenuous rehabilitation at Craig Hospital. Though he’s paralyzed from the chest down, he said he does have feeling in his arms, and in some of his fingers. Fortunately, the accident didn’t cause any brain damage. Despite what he’s gone through in the last couple of months, the former high school football and basketball player and golfer remains upbeat, something he attributes in part to strong religious beliefs.
“I’ve definitely had more good days than bad,” Cox said. “You’ve got to keep a good attitude about it. It is what it is. You can either look at it that you can’t do this or that, or you can figure out what you can still do. My spirits are good. Without God it would have been much tougher.”
Cox, who is just 30 hours short of a civil engineering degree at Texas Tech, hopes to be able to return to school in January.
