Golf Dream
September 11, 2008
Bowling
Green, Ky. - Eric Baumgarten loved golf.
In the final months of a lifelong battle
with cystic fibrosis, Baumgarten had one wish. He wanted to play golf with Franklin’s Kenny Perry, a PGA Tour professional and a Western Kentucky University Hall of Famer.
Thanks to Hospice and others in the WKU family, Baumgarten got his wish on Oct. 13, 2005, at the Club at Olde Stone in Bowling Green.
“Eric wasn’t sure what was going to happen,” his mother, Cathy Priddy, said. “Then Kenny Perry walked in. He was just elated. He told me ‘Mom on that first hole I thought my legs were going to give out.’”
It was a day that Baumgarten’s family and Perry won’t forget.
“His wish was he wanted to play golf with me and I’ve never had that request –ever -- brought to me,” Perry said.
If you look closely when Perry tees off in the Ryder Cup next week, you’ll see a blue bracelet on his left wrist. It’s the cystic fibrosis awareness bracelet Baumgarten gave him after their golf outing.
“I wear the bracelet to honor him,” Perry said.
“Obviously they bonded,” Priddy said. “Eric said he’d rather play golf with Kenny Perry than with Tiger Woods.”
Perry said he was honored to help Baumgarten achieve his dream. “In those three holes, he made a big impact on my life,” Perry said.
“It was one of the highlights of his life,” Priddy said of her son’s golf outing with Perry.
Baumgarten died on March 12, 2006. He was 25. His room at the family’s home near Smiths Grove includes a shelf of photographs, golf balls and a hat signed by Perry. “We chose to leave that as it was,” Priddy said. “It was his tribute to Kenny.”
Priddy has an album of photographs from the golf outing and 
kept newspaper articles from Perry’s 2008 hot streak when he won three PGA Tour events and qualified for the Ryder Cup. And when the U.S. team faces Europe at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Priddy and her husband, Kenneth, will be watching on TV.
“It was a wonderful experience,” Priddy said of the day Perry helped make her son’s dream come true. “It was something he never dreamed of happening. It became a part of us following Kenny from that day forward.”
“Everybody always asks me what’s the blue bracelet is for,” Perry said. “Is it for tendinitis? And I tell the story about Eric. It touches everybody.”
“Kenny hasn’t forgotten him,” Priddy said. “Obviously he made an impression.”
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