SALT LAKE CITY — "It's all about Max and it's all about his foundation," said Jason Carter, better known as the "Chunky Golfer"
Utah Jazz Assistant Coach, Scott Morrison and his wife Susanne founded a non-profit called "To The Max Foundation" in honor of their 5-year-old son who was diagnosed with autism in 2022.
"Knowing what Max has to do every week, month, year, we're happy to be able to help local families pay for their child's speech therapy or get an AC device that helps them communicate if they can't speak, like Max can't," said Max's dad, Scott Morrison.
For two seasons, To the Max has been directly involved with the NBA with its custom sneaker campaign during Autism Acceptance Month. The foundation's partnership with the Chunky Golfer Open will be the first time it's benefiting from a local golf tournament.
"This is kind of like our second thing we've done other than the shoes," said Morrison, "the shoes have gone well for 2 years now, we're looking to kind of expand a little bit and this was an easy one for us, we don't have to do anything except be grateful and thankful that Chunky thought of us, it's going to be a big help to a lot of kids and the families in this area.
Jason Carter, the Chunky Golfer, couldn't wait to work with To The Max Foundation.
"I honestly thought, nothing feels right, I had been approached by people and then one of my good friends, Jon Millar, who was doing all of his shoes, he had partnered with To The Max Foundation, " said Chunky, "I started looking into it and it was like a light bulb went off...learning the stories of what Scott and Susanne went through and how they had to navigate that world, it just very quickly was a no brainer for me."
The Chunky Golfer Open is a two-day golf tournament, taking place on July 18th at Eaglewood Golf Course and on July 19th at Solider Hallow Golf Course. The event is for all skill levels with all proceeds going To The Max.
Plus, they're having a helicopter golf ball drop at Eaglewood at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, July 18, open to the public. Closest to the pin splits 50/50 with the foundation.
"What I'm learning is, good people tend to find each other, and all those people have one thing in common; that's the Utah and Salt Lake Community so it means a lot for us to be able to give back because we feel very fortunate to have laned here ourselves," said Morrison.
