The sky was blue with not a cloud in the sky, seemingly an idyllic day as I wheeled down Islington Ave. in Toronto to one of this country’s finest golf facilities where PING was gathering key accounts and the media for a product launch the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
The readership of GNN doesn’t need me to continue on about how the events of that day turned out to be anything but idyllic. The fact that the 10th anniversary of 9/11 is upon us hardly seems possible, but neither did the events of that day.
So etched in our minds is that day that we all remember where we were and in my case, it was the St. George’s Golf and Country Club, where we were sipping a morning coffee in the clubhouse when Dave Wilson of PING Canada informed us that a plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York.
We gathered around a TV to see what was going on and the early speculation that it had been an accident was scuttled when the second plane hit. While we did manage to continue with the product introduction, it seemed like a blur with the events taking place outside this little bit of paradise from a golf perspective.
He would be forgiven if it didn’t seem like paradise to John Solheim that day. The chairman and CEO was part of a head office contingent visiting from PING’s headquarters in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area of Arizona.
I dutifully did an interview with Solheim after the product introduction, but could tell he was elsewhere. Afterwards, we chatted about what was going on outside the gates of St. George’s and his first priority was getting home following news that all flights within the U.S. had been grounded.
This wasn’t a case of a business professional worried about his schedule, but more a man concerned with the well-being of his family and employees back home in suddenly uncertain times when new words such as “Taliban” and “Al-Qaeda” were starting to emerge.
There was legitimate concern in Solheim’s voice as he reached for answers, but uncharacteristically, had none like the rest of the world. From what I understand, the PING contingent flew to Calgary, rented a car and drove to Phoenix.
The reaction of Solheim made one thing clear. Work was done for the day, even if I was heading back to the office. In the golf industry, borders mean nothing and checking up on some American friends after such a tragedy became first priority.
One buddy in Tampa was outraged by the attack. A young lady in her 20s, who worked in the tourism industry in Tampa, repeatedly asked me why these people hate Americans. Even for somebody much older than this young woman, the events of this day had taken hatred to a whole new level.
One of my main concerns was a friend who worked in Manhattan. I really wasn’t expecting to get through when I called, but to my surprise, she picked up and told me how she watched in horror from her office window as the second plane went into the World Trade Center.
She was, at times, incoherent and obviously traumatized, her main concern being that she didn’t know how she was going to get home to her kids that evening with no transportation available. Not sure what to say to her, I told her to seek out co-workers and stick with them.
About a week later, I called her again. She didn’t remember talking to me.
While we certainly felt the impact of 9/11 here in Canada, I saw that day the way it affected the Americans. A few months later, I was playing golf in Scottsdale and a lady spotted an FDNY cap I had purchased along with a NYPD lid to recognize the heroic work of first responders in New York.
Knowing I was Canadian, she gave me a giant hug and thanked me for caring. How anybody with friends in the U.S. couldn’t feel for them on 9/11 and in its aftermath is beyond me, so no thank you was necessary.
About the same time, I was in St. Augustine, Fla., for the induction ceremonies at the World Golf Hall of Fame and had a nice chat with John Solheim in our first meeting since the events at St. George’s.
This time around, it was a much happier occasion as his dad Karsten Solheim was being inducted into the hall for all of the innovations he had introduced in golf equipment over his legendary career. It was good to see John proud and smiling and we only touched upon what happened on 9/11 during our chat.
Life goes on, but in all of the political discussions and changes to the world that have gone on in the past 10 years, we can never forget the impact this tragedy had on innocent people.
That’s just what the attackers would want.
