She has been doing this for 15 years, so Val Skinner knows what’s coming. This does not, however, make it any easier for her, does not offer any power to fend off her outpouring of emotion. The tears are going to come anyway.
Skinner, a six-time winner on the LPGA Tour who now makes her home on the Jersey Shore, each year recognizes new “Heroes’’ presented by her “LIFE’’ Event charity golf outing in New Jersey that has raised nearly $10 million in its 15 years.
Each of the “Heroes’’ has a breast cancer story to tell, and every one of them is moving. Skinner, while introducing each of them, is a lock to break down in the midst of the introduction — living proof of the passion in her soul when it comes to her relentless pursuit of educating and eradicating.
“LIFE’’ stands for “LPGA pros In the Fight to Eradicate breast cancer,’’ which has been the centerpiece of the Val Skinner Foundation.
Skinner began this mission when her close friend and fellow LPGA competitor Heather Farr died in 1993 at age 28 as a result of breast cancer that was misdiagnosed when she was 24. On her death bed, Farr implored her friend to do everything she could to use her death as an agent for change with the disease.
“Never forget this,’’ she told Skinner.
Skinner has paid back that last wish of Farr’s and continues to pay it forward, educating women and raising money for a cure.
At the event, LPGA players are paired with amateurs for a day of golf and a lunch program.
On Monday at Mountain Ridge Country Club, in West Caldwell, N.J., one of the LIFE “Heroes’’ was a young woman named Annie Goodman, a Fox News producer who is battling triple negative breast cancer that traveled to her ovaries and brain. Goodman has undergone more chemotherapy sessions than she can count.
The other was a woman named Aimee Parani, who was diagnosed with breast cancer while pregnant and was initially told to terminate her pregnancy. When she traveled to New Jersey to see Dr. Deborah Toppmeyer from the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, she was told she did not have to abort and gave birth to a healthy daughter despite having gone through aggressive chemo.
“Cancer does not take a day off,’’ Skinner said. “This message begins with Heather Farr’s early departure in mind.’’
To commemorate the 15th anniversary of the event, Skinner invited five players who are considered legends in women’s golf — and all five knew Farr.
Pat Bradley (31 wins, including six majors), Amy Alcott (21 wins, five majors), Hollis Stacy (18 wins, four majors), Jan Stephenson (16 wins, three majors) and Laura Davies (20, four majors) represent 116 wins and 22 major championships among them.
They joined a number of the game’s young stars including Brittany Lincicome, Jessica Korda, Anna Nordqvist, Sandra Gal, Brittany Lang, Christine Kim, Brooke Pancake and Cheyenne Woods.
They all come for the cause, and because they are drawn to Skinner’s determination.
“Val has a unique passion about her. She’s had it for a long time,’’ said Alcott, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame. “It transcends this room. You don’t get that kind of caring and that kind of giving out of yourself.’’
This year’s event was the first for Stephenson, a pioneer of sorts who brought sex appeal to women’s golf with her pin-up model looks. She called the day “emotional’’ and “close to my heart’’ because her 92-year-old mother is a breast cancer survivor and she also has a sister who’s been touched by the disease.
Stephenson, like Skinner, was a close friend of Farr’s.
“I remember when she first got her diagnosis and they said, ‘Oh, it couldn’t be breast cancer, you’re only 24,’ ’’ she said. “They blew it off. Nowadays, that would never happen.’’
Thanks, in part, to the awareness Skinner has raised. Bradley praised Skinner’s “constant knocking on doors and calling people to help find the money to find a cure.’’
“I was at the first [LIFE Event], and to see how it has grown and to see the passion that Val feels for the foundation is incredible,’’ Bradley said.
“You can talk to just about anybody in the world and they know someone or have family that has been affected by cancer,’’ said Lincicome, who has been a regular participant in the LIFE Event since she emerged on the LPGA Tour and who lost her grandmother to breast cancer and has an aunt currently battling the disease. “To see how much money Val raises here in just one day really shows how much she cares about eradicating this disease. Hopefully, in 15 years, we’ll be here celebrating something else.’’
Skinner’s hope is someday she can pass the torch to one of the younger players, such as a Lincicome.
“I’m no longer in that platform like they are, so the hope is to inspire them, make it matter to them, for them to see this is for them,’’ Skinner said.
Every year, when she introduces a new “Hero’’ or two at her LIFE Event, Skinner said she is reminded of Farr.
“I was with her right before she passed, and she literally almost grabbed my shirt, pulled me into her, because she knew I did this [charitable] stuff and I was always looking for a little more purpose in my job,’’ Skinner recalled. “That’s why she talked to me about it. It’s a big responsibility when you have an intimate moment like that with a good friend that relying on you … and [the emotion] just resurfaces. I can’t help it.’’
There is no need to.