Green Hill Municipal Golf Course head pro Matt Moison is normally a soft-spoken, mild-mannered guy.
“I’m a very calm person,” he said.
That’s certainly not the case when he conducts the Danny Rossetti Junior Golf Camp each summer. While addressing 70 Worcester youths, most of them ages 8-11, Wednesday on the driving range at Green Hill, he shouted instructions at the top of his lungs. He was enthusiastic and energetic — as he has been during each of the 29 junior camps he has run in his 30 years as head pro at the club.
“It’s just enthusiasm,” Moison said. “The enthusiasm you get, you give back. That’s all it is. It’s just fun with the kids.”
Moison started the junior camp his first year as head pro and has run it since except for 2020, when it was shut down due to the pandemic. In 2009, Moison named the camp after Rossetti, a former camper and Green Hill employee who died in a car accident the previous fall at age 26.
Moison is as enthusiastic about the camp now as when he started it.
“I hope so,” he said. “It’s just fun. It’s a change of pace. They all have a good time.”
“He puts every ounce of energy into this,” John Rossetti, Danny’s father and a camp volunteer said of Moison. “He’s nonstop. This is the third day, and you can hear him all over the camp.”
“Golf can seem kind of stuffy,” said Pam Rossetti, Danny’s mother and a camp volunteer, “or for only rich people, but when the kids come here, everything is fun. He has a lot of energy for it.”
“The kids are crazy about him,” John Rossetti said. “How could you not be?”
Moison said he yells so loudly, he lets others answer the phone in the Green Hill pro shop for two days after the camp because his voice is so worn out. He probably would have to skip answering the phone even longer if he didn’t use a megaphone at times during the camp.
Campers received three days of instruction on the range and the practice green, as well as lunch and water and juice breaks — all at no cost. During the latter part of the third day, they slid down a Slip ’N’ Slide on the hill between the range and the practice green, played tug of war and played Where’s Waldo? It turned out that Waldo was hidden behind a tree on the 10th hole. Each camper received a free Where’s Waldo shirt this year. Some campers wore shirts from past camps, including one with a Sasquatch on it.
On the range, Moison challenged the campers to hit the ball farther than Ken Engstrand, an 89-year-old camp volunteer.
“I don’t think of it as I’m 89,” Engstrand said. “I’m here to teach the kids and enjoy it. I don’t worry about my age.”
At the camp a couple of years ago, Engstrand joked that he was going to stick a tee between the toes on the front foot of a young camper named Leah McCluskey to prevent her from moving her foot. Leah knew he was joking, but the image worked. She stopped moving her front foot and began hitting the ball better.
This year, Leah, 12, helped out at the camp, which her brothers Jason, 10, and Ryan, 7, attended.
Moison also challenged the campers to hit the ball farther than Bruce Chansky, a 77-year-old camp volunteer, and a blind-folded Jonathan Rossetti, Danny’s brother.
Jonathan, 43, managed to hit a 7-iron about 160 or 170 yards even though he couldn’t see.
“It was tough,” he said. “I actually didn’t even expect to hit it, but the fundamentals of golf. Just follow through with your swing, and you’re good to go no matter what.”
Moison even challenged the campers to hit the ball farther than my 7-iron shot, and 10-year-old Cayden Nordberg did by a lot.
Even though Cayden is only 4-foot-7½ and 75 pounds, he can drive the ball nearly 200 yards. His mother and father taught him how to play.
“The instructors have fun, the kids have fun because at the end of the day,” Moison said, “it’s about celebrating being a kid, it’s not about golf.”
The camp has been around for so long, children of former campers take part. Moison gets a kick out of Green Hill golfers telling him that many years earlier they had taken part in the golf camp. Colin McCarthy, Green Hill assistant superintendent, told Moison last week that he attended the camp as a youngster, and he remembers hitting golf balls out of shaving cream.
“That was a one-year experiment,” Moison said, “because the shaving cream would get in the kids’ eyes, and it would sting a little bit.”
So what would Danny Rossetti think about the camp still going strong?
“I would hope that he would just smile,” Moison said. “He was that kind of kid, always smiling, always laughing, and I hope somewhere he’s smiling with us.”
“He would be like Matt is right now,” John Rossetti said. “He was nonstop energy and nonstop talking, but he loved the kids.”
“He’d love it,” Jonathan Rossetti said. “He’s looking over us now. He gave us the sunshine.”
John Rossetti remembers Danny picking up him and Pam early in the morning at Logan Airport in Boston the year before he died and Danny being so determined not to be late for the start of the camp that day. He arrived at the camp right on time.
“This place is magical,” Pam Rossetti said. “People will come here that know how to hit the ball and other kids will know nothing. By the second day, they’re hitting. I don’t know how it happens. There’s just something magical here.”
At the camp many years ago, Moison informed Zack Luthman’s mother that her son had potential. Luthman went on to become director of instruction at Green Hill before becoming a golf pro in California. Last week, Amelia Kenadek, 9, reminded him of Zack.
“She was crushing the ball,” Moison said. “She doesn’t play golf, but boom, boom, boom, beautiful golf swing.”
“My favorite part is on the driving range because we get to hit as much as we want,” Amelia said.
Jonathan Rossetti has attended the camp since it started 30 years ago. His brothers Danny, David and Matt Rossetti also attended the first year of the camp. David volunteered this year. Jonathan’s 10-year-old son Gabe, was a camper this year.
The Rossettis buy ice cream for the campers on the final day each year.
As Joe Limoli was about to attempt a 15-foot par putt on the 18th green with the campers watching on Wednesday, Moison shouted that Limoli had won several club championships and that he never misses a shot.
“He said, ‘He’ll make this putt,’ and of course I didn’t make it,” Limoli said. “It put a lot of pressure on me with all these kids expecting you to make the putt.”
Nevertheless, Limoli was happy to see the campers enjoying themselves, and he carded a 77 to match his age.
Worcester CC moves up rankings
Worcester Country Club improved from 10th to ninth in the latest Golf Digest rankings for all golf courses in Massachusetts.
Worcester CC head pro Andy Lane pointed out that in the last few years the club jumped from 17th in the state to 12th to 10th to ninth.
“To be in the top 10 is an incredible reflection of what our membership gets to play each and every day,” Lane said. “It’s a testament to our superintendent Adam Moore, his assistant Scott Strong and their whole team for all the effort they put into this place to make it better each and every day.
“Moving inside the top 10 is a hard thing to do,” Lane added. “It’s a special list once you’re in the top 10 so it’s humbling and flattering to move up a little bit, and we’re excited to keep the momentum going here as we approach the 100th anniversary of the first Ryder Cup.”
In 2027, Worcester CC will celebrate the 100th anniversary of hosting the first Ryder Cup. The club celebrated the 100th anniversary of hosting the 1925 U.S. Open earlier this year.
Lane said he believed WCC may have been ranked in the top 10 before, but not for a long time.
A recent restoration of the course by noted architect Gil Hanse helped WCC move into the top 10.
“The restoration had a huge factor in that,” Strong said. “Just in terms of all the greens being nice and level and not having those little berms on top of them. Everything looks like it’s floating where it should be. Gil’s team did an amazing job, and MAS Construction did a ton of work, too, and they’re great.”
Strong said he thinks Worcester CC should be ranked even higher.
“I think the top 10 is unbelievable out of over 400 courses in the state,” Strong added, “but I think we’re just as good as some of these other places, if not better. We’re still only a year out from the restoration.”
Strong came to Worcester CC in 2016. He previously coached baseball at Southern New Hampshire University where part of his job was lining baseball fields.
“I needed a change,” he said, “and I always did field maintenance and all that jazz. So it was kind of a perfect little transition.”
Ideas welcome
You can suggest story ideas for this golf column by reaching me at the email listed below. Comments are also welcome.
—Contact Bill Doyle at bcdoyle15@charter.net.
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