Dogwood golfers hit links for ill member

Very little will keep the golfers off Dogwood County Club today, according to Brian Blackford with the Dogwood CC. Especially with a cause at hand.

"Unless it's lightning," said Blackford, "It's hard to keep a golfer off  the course."

Dogwood will be hosting a fundraiser tournament for Marietta native Brad Koster. Koster, 22, has been diagnosed with sarcoma, said Nick Crane, one of the tournament organizers. He's been undergoing treatment at the renowned Memorial Sloan‑Kettering Cancer Center in New York since mid‑April. Koster is expected to continue treatments there for another five to six months.

Sarcoma is a soft‑tissue cancer and occurs in such places as muscles, tendons, fat, blood vessels, nerves and joints.

But Koster is expected to be at Dogwood today when the tournament begins. Crane said Koster had to fight with his doctors to be allowed to fly home for the tournament and Koster will return to New York on Sunday,

"It's just an inspiration for him to be there," said Nick Crane, one of the tournament organizers. "It's something to look forward to besides another . chemotherapy treatment,"

Blackford expects 240 golfers to hit the course today in the tournament, which will have two shotgun starts. The morning start will be at 8:30 a.m. and the afternoon start will be at 2 p.m.

The idea for the tournament

sprang from Crane. who was scheduled to be to the same group with Koster and his father Randy Koster at the Dogwood member‑member tournament. Crane was asked to say a few words to the players that day on Koster's behalf, but thought to himself, "we need to do more than that," he said.

Crane asked a daughter of one of the course's owners what else could be done and a tournament was suggested. The spots in the tournament sold out quickly.

"It's unbelievable," Crane said of the response to the tournament. "It's incredible. It's great for the members and the owners of Dogwood to give up a day for one of their own."

An auction will be held between the two rounds and Blackford said nearly every course in Cobb County has put rounds of golf up for bid. Companies such as Pepsi and Chick‑Ffl‑A also have contributed.

"it's amazing how everybody has come together to support this," Blackford said.

Koster, - a longtime player at the Dogwood Country Club, was an athlete at The Walker School and is  a senior at the University of Georgia in December. He was working with Lucent Technologies in Atlanta when he was diagnosed with cancer in March.

Koster was a second‑team pick to the 1996 Marietta Daily Journal all‑Cobb County basketball team.

"If I had a child, I would want him to be like Brad," Crane said. "He was the picture of health and to just be stricken with something like this, it's mind boggling."