NORTON, Mass. – Because of Hurricane Harvey, Chris Stroud was unable to fly home to Spring, Texas, which is about 20 miles north of downtown Houston, after missing the cut last week at The Northern Trust.
He is about the only person who hasn’t been in that house the last few days.
“We had 20 people come to my house, including kids. They have been there since last Friday. They made a ton of food. I have a generator,” Stroud said on Wednesday at the Dell Technologies Championship. “We were set up for this type of thing, and not thinking we would ever use it like this, but obviously it came in handy.”
Stroud said his family and home have escaped any damage from the storm, but his neighbors haven’t been as lucky, and his house has become an impromptu shelter; even Stroud’s truck, which he describes as a “show truck” that’s about 4 feet off the ground, has been useful in the flooding.
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“It can go in about 5 feet of water so they were using my truck to get around the neighborhood to go help people and pets and just everything,” he said.
Following the lead of Houston Texan’s defensive end J.J. Watt, who has raised over $5 million for those impacted by Hurricane Harvey, Stroud plans to donate $10,000 and 10 percent of his winnings this week at TPC Boston to the relief effort.
The PGA Tour and Dell Technologies also announced on Wednesday a donation of $250,000 to help those impacted by the storm.
Stroud, who tried to fly home after missing the cut last week but was unable to travel because of the storm, said his neighborhood received about 40 inches of rain and a tornado caused damage to nearby houses.
Stroud needs a solid week at TPC Boston to advance to the third playoff stop and admitted that it’s been hard to focus on golf the last few days. But he received a text message from Kelly Gibson, a former Tour player who went through a similar situation when Hurricane Katrina devastated his hometown of New Orleans, that has helped.
“I didn’t get to read it all. It must have been 70 lines of a text, and he was telling me how he compartmentalized it when he was playing,” Stroud said. “When you’re on the golf course, focus on the golf and when you’re off the golf course, focus on what you can do to keep your family and everything safe.”
Source: Internet
