Alex Litt and Cory Sullivan have been trying to get into better physical shape for their long walk next week at the Onion Creek Golf Club in Austin, Texas.
“We’re training the best we can,” said Litt, a 35-year-old Stanton graduate and Jacksonville native. “We both love golf. We’re going to find out how much.”
Their motivation likely will be strong enough to get them through what promises to be a 16-hour day: while they walk 100 holes of golf in the Texas summer heat and humidity, Litt and Sullivan will be holding their fathers’ love in their hearts and know that for every step, every shot and every hole, they will be helping raise money and awareness about the devastating disease that claimed Sullivan’s father John 14 years ago and has left Litt’s father, long-time Baptist Health cardiologist Marc Litt, wheelchair-bound .
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Litt, a Stanton graduate and a partner at a private equity fund, and Sullivan, who is from Austin and founder of Health Hospitality Partners, will tee off at daybreak on June 19 — the day after Father’s Day — at Onion Creek for their “100 Hole Challenge to Beat ALS.”
Carrying their own bags at the start (friends and family will share the caddying duties as the day wears on), the two will walk every step of what is the equivalent of five and one-half rounds of golf, their way of bringing attention to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord which still has no cure.
They’re already gotten a substantial head start, thanks to “Member for a Day,” a website that auctions off rounds of golf for charity at private and high-end resort courses that have been donated by those facilities or their members. The site also enables people to use it as a platform for other fundraising ventures and there’s a link for anyone who wants to pledge amounts per hole for Litt and Sullivan.
Golf created a lasting bond
Before they hit their first shot, they will have raised more than $200,000. And Eric Sedransk, who founded Member for a Day, has been one of the driving forces behind the project since his father also passed away from ALS.
“It’s a pretty small, cruel world for those of us who have relatives with ALS,” Sullivan said. “But we’ve formed a pretty tight bond.”
Litt graduated from Vanderbilt and Sullivan from The Wharton School at Penn. They never met until they were both working in New York and found themselves in the same circle of friends who enjoyed happy hours, lunches and golf when they weren’t climbing the ladder on their respective business ventures.
They bonded over their love of golf.
Litt’s family are members of the Sawgrass Country Club, but he first learned to play the game at the Palm Valley nine-hole course.
“Palm Valley was where I fell in love with the game,” said Litt, who grew up in Mandarin and went on to captain the Stanton golf team and play soccer for the Blue Devils.
Sullivan’s father, who ran the famous McMullen’s restaurant in New York in the 1970s and 1980s, also introduced him to the game at the Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, NJ — where Sullivan became even more passionate about golf while caddying.
Sullivan is a member at Onion Creek, the historic Austin course that was the site for the inaugural Legends of Golf tournament in 1980, the two-man team event that has been credited for the launch of the PGA Tour Champions.
‘Relying on hope’
Litt is a 5 handicap and Sullivan is scratch. But they won’t be worried about their scores at Onion Creek — just the cause.
“I think golf is the closest reflection of any sport to life and its ups and downs,” Sullivan said. “For us to go out and play 100 holes is intended to be a metaphor for how far we have to in this fight against ALS. In golf, you’re playing against yourself and in a way, that’s ALS. You’re playing against your own body. Your mind is a prisoner of what’s happening to your body.”
Sullivan said the effort required to play 100 holes in 90-degree heat pales in comparison to the day-to-day struggle of an ALS patient.
“Both of our fathers were inspirations to our families about how they handled it,” he said. “Playing 100 holes of golf will be nothing compared to what our fathers went through.”
Litt that without a cure, “you’re relying on hope every day.”
“Every day for my Dad is a struggle, just to swallow or drink water,” Litt said. “You can’t do the things you used to love doing, all the things we take for granted. All Corey, Eric and I can do is find something to galvanize people to think about what families who have someone with ALS are going through. “
A chance meeting in ‘Nowhere’
The planned marathon almost didn’t happen. About 12 years ago, when Sullivan had invited Litt to Austin to play at Onion Creek, they talked about using golf as a vehicle for a charity event involving ALS.
But when Litt began working in San Francisco the two lost touch.
It was golf that brought them together again and rekindled the idea.
In July of 2021, Sullivan and 15 friends took a golf buddy trip to the Big Cedar Lodge in Missouri. When they were coming off the golf course and heading into the grill room, another group of friends was walking out.
Sullivan spotted Litt among that group.
“Go figure that,” Sullivan said. “In the middle of Nowhere, Missouri.
The two had a moment, long enough for Sullivan to invite Litt to Austin again the following spring to play a few days of golf. He remembers the first conversation about playing a marathon day of golf for ALS.
“No. 4, North [course], left side of the fairway,” Sullivan said. “We both prefer to walk, and we both hit down that side. We started talking about seeing another example of a 100-hole charity event and he said how cool it would be to do one for ALS. I was in. We started brainstorming then and there.”
The decision to use Onion Creek was simple: the club’s relationship with Sullivan. But Litt said it won’t be the last 100 Hole Challenge and he hopes to bring one to the First Coast in the future.
“Jacksonville will be an important one given my family’s roots in town and my father’s presence in the community as a cardiologist at Baptist for over 30 years,” Litt said.
The funds will be split between ALS Associations in Florida and Texas.
Slow play won’t be an issue
Litt said he’s been working with a Jacksonville personal trainer, Chris McCaffrey, on getting ready for the marathon. Other than that, it’s a matter of numerous bottles of water, energy drinks and sunscreen.
“The most we’ve ever played in one day was 45 holes,” Litt said. “We’re going to carry our bags as long as we can, rely on our friends and family to help us after that and we might even get a few celebrity caddies. We’re training the best way we can, given our schedules, but I’m pretty sure we’ll be ready.”
They’ve even mapped out a routing plan. They will play the front nine of the original course six times, calculating that it will take an hour for each side.
“That will get us through half the day,” Sullivan said.
They will move to one of the other courses for the final 46 holes.
“I’ve talked to some people who did a golf marathon and it’s one time when you don’t want to be a slow player,” Sullivan joked. “We’re going to play by the rules, but we might be giving each other some putts by the end of the day.”
No one watching them will quibble over the strict rules of golf.
But they will celebrate what a couple of friends with two common bonds — their love of golf and their fathers’ love — will have done to combat a dreaded disease.
“It’s miserable, overwhelming and all-encompassing,” said Litt. “There are no support groups when you have a parent suffering from this disease. You have to go find them on your own.”
Litt and Sullivan will find plenty of support in the dirt and the heat at Onion Creek.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville native Alex Litt, friend Cory Sullivan to play 100 for ALS