Brothers, family and friends, play for fun and to raise money for a good cause
TINA L. SCOTT
EDITOR
Sid Sukow and Mort Sukow, brothers of the late Russ Sukow who died on January 21, 2013, at the age of 69 after complications of carotid artery surgery, enjoy getting together with family and friends to play some fun rounds of golf, remember Russ, and raise money for a good cause.
Most years they raise money for a cause related to their brother, Russ, or to support a sport he once played.
Each year proceeds from the Russ Sukow Memorial Golf Outing are donated to a different charitable cause in the area. This year, the Golf Outing was held on June 19, 2021, and it raised nearly $500. [“I threw in a few bucks to make the $500.” Sid said.]
Merrill Youth Hockey Association receives proceeds
The Merrill Youth Hockey Association were the recipients of this year’s proceeds.
Carmen Klug, a member of the Board of Directors of the Merrill Youth Hockey Association; together with brothers and hockey players Lucas and Peyton Hagenbucher; met brothers Sid and Mort out at the memorial stone that sits at the edge of the Merrill Golf Course in memory of Russ Sukow. It is on the hole where Russ “Tee’d off, and he shot out of bounds, and he par’d the hole,” Sid said, sharing the story of his brother, Russ, and his golfing claim to fame. “He hit the ball out of bounds, he re-tee’d his third shot, and he hit his fourth shot in the hole from 400 yards. He got a par,” Sid said. He expression showcases both pride and love for the brother who is no longer here to play a few rounds with him on a great day for golf.
Sid and Mort presented the representatives of the Merrill Youth Hockey Association with a check for $500.
The Board of Directors for the Merrill Youth Hockey Association will decide where the funds will be used, likely at their Sunday, August 8, meeting, Stacy Hagenbucher [mother of the two hockey players] and Klug said. They are hoping the funds will be used to purchase equipment.
“All of the players that want to play that can’t afford to buy their equipment on their own – we buy all of that, so we’re constantly updating and trying to make sure that we have nice equipment for people to use,” Klug said. “We don’t charge anything for that. So that’s probably what we’ll suggest, and hopefully the Board agrees.”
A really fun golf outing
“We had a full 36 teams – 144 golfers,” Sid said. They advertise the outing online and at the golf course. “We cut it off at 36; we don’t want anymore than that. That’s two teams per hole. If you have any more than that, you end up with three teams per hole, and that just gets to be too slow.”
“It’s an interesting outing,” he shared. “They put two holes in the green, and you don’t know where the other hole is. Obviously, there’s the hole with the flag in it, but then the mystery hole will be cut out, maybe 30 feet to the left. You don’t know it’s there until you get up there. So when you hit, and you think, ‘Oh, man, did I miss that shot!’ And you get up there, and your ball might be this far [he indicated a few inches with his fingers] from the other hole. And you can put it in that hole.”
Essentially, players get two extra opportunities to get a great shot.
“It’s really, really fun, and I think that’s why it’s so popular,” Sid said. “And it’s because of my brother. I mean, everybody liked him, and we have quite a number of people from Gleason that come cause they knew him really well.” [The Sukow family corporately owns property on Doering Pond near Gleason and has multiple cabins out there. The grandfather of the Sukow brothers was a logger, and hence the name of their corporation, Doering Logging, LLC.]
Each year they take that fun time and turn it into a donation to a worthy cause.
“We try to do a sport that he played,” Sid said. At least as a rule, anyway. “We’ve given to the Merrill Baseball Association, last year was Jessi’s Wish – they didn’t have their fundraiser because of COVID last year, so we thought that’d be a good year to give them the $500.”
“We’ve given to Gleason First Responders, because we have a cabin and a bunch of land up in Gleason, so we donated to them a few years ago,” he said. “Then we gave it to Merrill Baseball Association, now it’s the Merrill Hockey [Association], and next year is probably gonna be Bowling, at the bowling alley.”