The Bruce Edwards Foundation Benefit Dinner Raises More Than $1 Million for ALS Research
Travelers Championship – August 5, 2016
“The Bruce Edwards Foundation Benefit Dinner, held by the Travelers Championship, generated more than $1.1 million to support research in the fight against ALS. A total of 116 tables were sold at $10,000 each for the event at the Connecticut Convention Center. In addition, Bubba Watson donated $100,000 and Brian Gay contributed $10,000, which he won during the tournament’s closest to the pin competition at The Umbrella at 15 ½.
World Golf Hall of Fame member Tom Watson, best-selling author John Feinstein and Travelers Executive Chairman of the Board Jay Fishman, who announced in August 2015 that he had been diagnosed with ALS, hosted the event. Other speakers included Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy, PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem and CBS Sports Anchor Jim Nantz. Attendees included dignitaries from Travelers, the Travelers Championship, the state of Connecticut and the PGA TOUR. Members of the Edwards family, golf fans and a number of TOUR players and caddies also participated in the event.”
Tom Watson Fights For Bruce Edwards, Jay Fishman And 30,000 Others
The Hartford Courant – By Jeff Jacobs – August 6, 2016
“Jay Fishman was talking about the 1942 movie “The Pride of the Yankees” early Friday evening inside the Connecticut Convention Center. He was talking about Lou Gehrig and Gary Cooper and how sensitive the film standards were seven decades ago.
“There were only two scenes in the movie that even attempted to demonstrate the disease,” Fishman was saying. “One was when he fell off his stool in front of the locker and the other was when he was trying to tie his bow tie and couldn’t.”
Sitting nobly in his wheelchair, speaking from behind his non-invasive air ventilator, Fishman offered a faint smile. He knows amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — Lou Gehrig’s disease — is far rougher than a bow tie untied. He knows the muscles will go and the speech will go and ultimately a final breath will be robbed. He knows it will happen to him.
“But my life has been blessed,” Fishman said. “And you take a responsibility.”
It was that moment, Tom Watson walked up to Fishman to shake the hand of the Travelers executive chairman.”
Tour players come out to support ALS at Travelers Championship
Golf Digest – By Brian Wacker – August 6, 2016
“One by one they came. Bubba Watson. Matt Kuchar. Zach Johnson. Jim Furyk. Padarig Harrington. Hunter Mahan. Too many to name them all. Caddies, too.
Never mind that tee times had been moved up the following morning at the Travelers Championship because of impending bad weather. Tour players can be a fickle bunch, particularly in the face of their routine being re-routed, but it didn’t matter on this night.
Jason Day, Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson aren’t in the field, but they provided signed pin flags to be raffled off. PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem, Hall of Famer Tom Watson, CBS’ Jim Nantz, Connecicut Gov. Dannel Malloy and best-selling author John Feinstein, who emceed the evening, were also on hand.
The words were emotional but the actions spoke louder, a show of support for a man who has been afflicted with a crippling disease, even if that man insisted the $10,000-a-table dinner wasn’t about him.
Travelers executive chairman Jay Fishman was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as ALS, in 2014. The 63-year-old whose company helped save a dying tournament a decade ago is mostly confined to a wheelchair to get around these days and in need of a non-invasive air ventilator to help him breathe, but what his body can’t do (simple things like being unable to scratch his head when it itches, for example) he makes up for in spirit and drive.”