FIRST SHOT
Message from the CSGA Executive Director - Mike Moraghan
A Bright Future
S
ometimes you get a glimpse of the future and
your optimism is suddenly renewed. You see
with your own eyes that the doomsayers are
wrong, and that the next generation of humans not
only won’t be the last one, but will likely accomplish
extraordinary good.
A few of us get to see this every year in June
when we interview candidates for the scholarships
we administer through The CSGA Scholarship
Fund in Honor of Widdy Neale. Five of us, Dr.
Richard Zanini, Ed Silver, Bill Wallace, David
French and I use our combined 300+ years of life
experience to quiz a dozen or so applicants who are
headed to college in the fall.
We do this at New Haven Country Club in
a heavily paneled meeting room. We wear jackets
and ties. There is more white hair in the room
than one would find at an AARP convention. We
expect that the young interviewees, who appear
Connor Looney
4 | CSGA Links // September, 2016
before us individually,
will be intimidated.
Wallace, French and
I try to lighten the
atmosphere in what
we know Dr. Zanini
prefers to be a formal
setting.
They
have
been instructed by Dr. Zanini to make an opening
statement and then be prepared to answer questions
from the panel. These are 17-year-olds who have
worked at CSGA member clubs, so despite our age
differences there is a bit of familiarity and common
ground. Sometimes nervously, their personalities
invariably emerge, and we learn of their aspirations
and their dreams. We smile. We laugh. They are
instantly likeable, and we are inspired by their
earnestness. We leave wishing only that we could be
giving them even more financial assistance to offset
the staggering cost of their college education.
There is another annual event that leaves
a similar feeling. Every August the New England
Junior Invitational brings together seven junior
golfers from each of the six New England States
for a 54-hole competition. Chuck Claffey, our
CSGA Junior Golf Chairman and I get to spend
three days with a team of our top juniors. It is easily
one of our favorite events of the summer.
We drove the team up to New Hampshire in
two vehicles. Riding shotgun in the passenger seat
next to me, Jason Liu was reading a book about
solar power and alternative energy. A rising senior
at Loomis Chaffee School, Jason explained that he
was doing research for a project he was working on
with one of his teachers. He said their goal was to
convince the decision-makers at Loomis to install
solar panels at the school.
Jason is the highest ranked junior golfer in
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