CHAPEL HILL -- Brian Clemens never really played golf.

Clemens, in whose honor the fourth annual Brian Clemens Memorial Golf Tournament will be played on Sept. 20, was more interested in cooking and gardening than golf.

He was more likely to be found puttering around a bed of African violets than putting for par. He thought more about green thumbs than green fees.

He died in 1994.

Though it may seem ironic that the golfing links should be a setting for a way to memorialize Clemens, it is somehow fitting, that the tournament that bears Clemens' name should take root and grow so quickly.

In just its third year in 2003, the tournament raised close to $10,000 for the Clemens' designated charity: the Chapel Hill Inter-Faith Council for Social Service (IFC) shelters.

This year's tournament will take place at The Crossings Golf Club off N.C. Highway 98 in Durham.

"Oh, he'd hack around" a golf course, chuckled Anne Clemens Holway, Brian's surviving sister and event coordinator. "I know he'd play chip-and-putt, because we had one in the town where we grew up. But I think it's kind of cute that he wasn't even a golfer.

"He was more into plants and growing things ... and he was also a cook. He wanted to go to the Culinary Institute of America."

Holway laughed at the notion that a cook-off fundraiser or a plant sale might have been more up Brian's alley.

"Oh, he'd have gotten a kick out of it," she said. "But it probably wouldn't have raised money."

The one-day tournament will cost $60 per person, which will include 18 holes of golf, cart fees, a southern-style barbeque dinner, a silent auction, raffles, prizes, awards to the top three finishers and special contests. Additionally, prizes will be awarded for the two longest drives; there will be two closest-to-the-pin contests and three hole-in-one contests.

The format will be a four-man captain's choice, and players may enter in teams or individually. Check-in time is 11:00 a.m. The shotgun start is at 12:30 p.m.

Clemens' youth was surprisingly tranquil. Born in 1963, he spent his childhood in Pennsylvania and was considered highly intelligent and active.

But he was challenged by drugs from his early teens into his 20s, and he had to work hard to beat his addiction. With solid support from family and friends, a strong value system, and through his own determination, Clemens turned the corner and got himself clean.

However, echoes of Clemens' former addiction came to haunt him with a terminal illness. He moved to the Triangle area for progressive medical care

The IFC's Community House gave Clemens a shelter from which he and his girlfriend would direct their AIDS activism work and advocacy for substance abuse recovery, which garnered the attention of many local media outlets.

Eventually, illness claimed Brian Clemens' life, but not before he made it known to his family that he wanted them to support the IFC.

"We see our fair share (of addicts) come to the shelters, and, of course, that was Brian Clemens' situation," said Natalie Ammarell, IFC President and Brian Clemens Tournament board member. "We see both the alcohol and the drugs."

Ammarell downplayed the IFC's ability to work the kind of miracles which occurred toward the end of Brian Clemens' 31 years of life.

"Every time I read Brian's story, I just think that he was really ready to turn some kind of a corner," she said. "He hit us at the right time, and we were able to help him."

Still, Clemens felt compelled to give back to the IFC.

"Before Brian died, he told our parents, his girlfriend, and I that he wanted us to support the IFC," Anne Holway explained.

Enter Anne's new husband and current event chairman Matt Holway, a golfing enthusiast, who, ironically, had never met Anne's brother.

"When Matt and I were engaged and planning (a wedding), Matt was very touched by the fact that he'd missed meeting my brother," Anne Holway explained. "So when we decided to play golf on the day of our (evening) wedding to help fill up time, Matt was thinking, 'Ooh, we could do it as some sort of a benefit.' It all just went from there."

Matt Holway said he knew he'd found true love when his fiancee recommended that he and other wedding guests play golf on the morning of their October 2000 wedding.

"I'm like, 'Whoa, I'm marrying the right woman,' " he said.

But it was Holway who decided that a day on the links might provide the windfall of an ideal setting for fundraising.

"Anne said that the IFC was really important to her brother," Holway recalled. "And it helped him get straight, so why don't we raise money for the IFC?"

Holway's love of golf and inherent dedication to charity made for a perfect marriage to serve as preamble to vows taken later that day.

"The first year, we raised $500 and change," he said. "It was on our wedding day, so there wasn't anything terribly organized about it.

"We had four, five, or six foursomes that year. We just charged a flat rate for the golf and we raised the five or six dollars difference in the discount for having so many people. We also charged for mulligans. When it was getting near our first-year anniversary, we said, 'Hey, that was fun: let's do it again.'"

"The next year we maybe raised $2,500," Anne Holway said, "and last year we raised (more than) $9,000. Initially, this year, we wanted to double that, or at least look at raising $15,000, but we've since been a bit discouraged by (the economy)."

Matt Holway said proceeds primarily come from donations and not the green fees.

"It's through private donations and (the purchase of) mulligans and stuff," Holway said. "We say, 'It's a good time for a good cause, so bring your wallets.'"

"We sell a package (including) two mulligans and a throw, where you actually throw the ball," he added. "Say you've hit a great long shot, and then the ball rolls into the sand trap right off the green. You can pick the ball up and throw it, and it wouldn't cost you a stroke.

"We call these 'cheats,'" Holway explained, "and how you (buy and) employ these cheats is almost more important than how you play the game."

Holway said another creative "cheat" was afforded through the purchase of a "string."

"You measure the string out," he said, "and if you're two inches short on some putt, you just cut off two inches off your string. You can do that as many times as you want to until you've used up the entire length of string."

Matt Holway said some golfers are getting wise to the ways of "cheating," however.

"We found that last year's folks employed cheats in ways we hadn't even thought of," he said. "One person was on the fringe, so they tossed the ball onto the green. (It went in), and they ended up with an eagle with a very long throw. We get all kinds of weird stuff like that going on. It's thinking 'outside of the box.'

"The point is, we make the game so silly, that no one takes the golf too seriously. It's about coming out, hitting the ball around, enjoying a beautiful day, and raising money for a very worthy cause."

University Ford is donating a car for a hole-in-one, Holway said. Also, Pro Golf Discount is giving $1,000 for a hole-in-one. STS Meetings and Incentives and Wright Travel put up two airline tickets for a hole-in-one.

Recently lost sources of funding have made charitable donations imperative for the IFC.

"This year, we lost $349,000 in one fell swoop," Ammarell said. "It was a federal grant that funded Cold Start. The Feds caught us by surprise be changing directions and priorities. We have never been able to get a good explanation (why). We're assuming it was just some political thing, and our federal money got pulled out. The Board kept the program going until June 30, and we've worked with a number of agencies in town to rethink and reconfigure our resources and do things differently.

"We're happy to come up with anything (from the Tournament)," Anne Holway said, "but the IFC is really hurting this year."

The loss of funding has already changed some of the ways the IFC operates, resulting in the segregation of men's and women's facilities within the IFC shelter system.

"We've thought that perhaps the women needed to be separate from the men," Ammarell said, "so we're trying to turn this negative into a positive."

Ammarell said that no other event helps the Chapel Hill IFC the same way the Brian Clemens Memorial Golf Tournament does.

"Having the proceeds coming from the Clemens' event has been wonderful," she said.

"The only other major event that benefits us is the World Church Council's Crop Walks. We benefit locally from that, but it isn't the same thing. It's not Brian Clemens and Matt Holway saying, 'We need to do something.' We just don't have anything else like that."

While the tournament is in the business of giving miracles a fair chance, neither Anne Holway nor Natalie Ammarell said the tournament has worked any magic with their golf games.

"My golf game's in a slump right now," sighed Ammarell. "I was okay (last year), because I had a lot of throws and cheats though."

Still, Ammarell said her place and the place of IFC is in the thick of things where the event is concerned.

"I played last year, and I invited the Triangle United Way president to play, and we had a ball," Ammarell said. "I told Matt when it was over that I really wanted the IFC to be closer to them and more a part of it. It's been nice, and it feels a lot more collaborative."

Matt Holway said those interested in getting involved with the tournament as a player or a sponsor should visit the Brian Clemens Memorial Golf Tournament website at "http://www.brianclemens.org" or call 361-5337.

Matt Holway admitted that the event can play havoc with the emotions.

"I didn't know Brian," he said, "and it's still emotional even for me. And each year, when it's time to give out the prizes, Anne will get up and say a few words at the closing ceremonies, about Brian, how meaningful it is to the whole family and how his memory lives on through this."

And while Clemens' life may hardly have been a bed of roses before his untimely death, his eventually cleansing, his clarity of mind, his generosity of spirit, and his legacy are helping to sow seeds for change in others' lives.

And that legacy is "growing."

Randy Young can be reached at chnsports@nando.com

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