About 100 Georgian golfers hit the course at Southern Hills Golf and Country Club Friday for it's second annual Heroes Invitational Tournament to benefit Birdies for the Brave, a PGA charity that aids wounded service men and women.
The tournament started patriotically with the Star Spangled Banner. State Representative Austin Scott was on hand to welcome the golfers and speak about supporting some of America's wounded heroes.
Golfers paid $200 a ticket to participate.
13WMAZ caught up with Kurt Rothe of Brunswick. He hurt his back in Afghanistan in 2008 when an IED hit his group of National Guardsmen. Rothe said that he has had seven surgeries on his back since coming back to the United States.
"I had a surgery four months ago, so this is my second time out playing golf since the surgery," said Rothe.
Rothe said as someone who has been helped by the Wounded Warriors project, he knows that the money raised at the tournament goes to help provide services for military men and women.
You get a little bit of survivor's guilt. You look at the friends that you lost there, and a lot of them you consider your brothers. You come back, you reintegrate, and you're here," said Rothe. "It's a tough transition. You are getting back to normal life. It's a new normal, it's not what you had normal before you deployed before you went through what you went through in Afghanistan or Iraq."
Last year, they raised $62,000 for the wounded veterans organization.
You can follow Austin Lewis on Twitter at?@austin13wmaz
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