This annual golf tournament is held each year in loving memory of our son, Ryan James McPhee. He was born on March 29, 1995, our first child, and was a healthy, fun-loving kid. Sports were his passion - his first interests were soccer, hockey, baseball, but as he got older, golf became a more interesting hobby for him. 

​

He had an ordinary childhood until the late fall of 1999. It was then that his exhaustion, paleness and bruising were diagnosed as Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Our family was devastated at this news. He started a 2-year course of treatment that included chemotherapy. Doctors were amazed at how well he handled the medications, and after just one month he was in remission. We carried on throughout the many months that followed, now with a new baby daughter, and thought maybe he had beaten this disease. He continued on to graduate from preschool, start kindergarten, play sports, and no one except close friends and family even knew he was battling cancer.

​

Treatments ended in early 2002, and life started to become normal again for Ryan. We took a trip of a lifetime, courtesy of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and spent a tremendous week in Disney World. Life was sweet for this 7-year old. Then disaster struck him again. His leukemia came back in the fall of 2003. Again chemotherapy, and now some radiation, were his course of treatment. He never let on to school friends or teammates what was going on with him. He just wanted to be treated like everyone else. He continued to excel in school, made the Hilton Heat Travel Soccer team, took golf lessons, started to play the drums in the school band - all while fighting for his life.

​

One of the things he started to get involved in was Camp Good Days and Special Times. First, he wanted to sell kazoos for them at their annual Kazoofest during the holidays. First it was just him with family, and then the next year he had his teacher and classmates join him. Then came the summer camps at their site on Keuka Lake. He was scared to leave home that first summer of 2004, but he knew he was safe with familiar nurses and other cancer-fighting children his age there. It was such a tremendous week for him - fishing, playing soccer, climbing, singing around the campfire, woodworking - so much in one week. He couldn't wait to go back the following summer, and he did. He had even more fun that summer of 2005 - seeing some familar friends' and counselors' faces. We just knew it was a special place right here, and not far from home. That was Ryan's last time at camp. He relapsed a second time in January 2006. He struggled with treatments, and the hospital couldn't do much more for him. We took him away to Boston for some new immunotherapy treatments, which did rid him of much of his cancer, but also much of his strength. We knew his time with us was growing shorter, and we took him back home in April 2006.

​

Ryan died on June 29, 2006. He has left a huge void in the lives of so many people. His courage and strength, however, taught many of us lessons in life we might not have known otherwise. It is in his memory that we come together on this one day each year to play golf, enjoy each other's company, and most importantly, raise money for this organization - Camp Good Days and Special Times - as a way to thank them for giving Ryan such happy memories, and for continuing to give so many children those same opportunities.