Golf ball drop is sight for sore eyes

SAUGUS – A flurry of 438 pink and white golf balls rained down over the sixth fairway at Bear Hill Golf Club in Stoneham following the 15th Annual Golf Tournament of the Saugus Lions Club.Benjamin Penta, the club’s second vice president, said that golfers purchased numbered golf balls for $10 each to benefit Mass Lions Eye Research.”We raised over $4,300 for eye research,” he said.Fellow member Frank Rossetti then collected the balls and dropped from the N225JM Robinson helicopter that cruised in over the course on Aug. 4. Penta said that Rossetti had acquired the helicopter from a facility in Tewksbury.”He came right up over 128,” said Penta. “He was 100-something feet in the air when he dropped them.”Penta explained that a circle, 30 feet in circumference, was spray-painted on the fairway with a flag planted in the center so that the pilot knew where to position the helicopter.Although Rossetti had done this before elsewhere, Penta said this was the first time that the Lions dropped golf balls over Bear Hill.Following the drop, the numbers on the balls were used to identify their purchasers. The three balls that landed closest to flag yielded a prize from the club.According to the Lions’ website, prizes included a night at the Mohegan Sun casino, two tickets to a September Red Sox game and two tickets to a Celtics game coupled with a voucher for fine dining in Boston.In addition to the golf ball drop, the club hosts two can drives that usually bring in $5,000, as well as comedy nights.Penta said that, so far, the club has raised a total of $13,000 for 2014.Additional information about Lions fundraisers is available at http://www.sauguslionsclub.org/events.html.