Editors note: This is the first of a series of stories about local high school athletes and their jobs during their summer.
There have been at least two occasions this summer when three Savage brothers have carried golf bags in the same foursome at Ruth Lake Country Club in Hinsdale.
The brothers don’t utter a word, but Danny Savage said that after a few holes, one of the golfers will ask, “Are you brothers?”
When one of the Savages replies yes, inevitably the next response is, “I can tell.”
Despite the differences in ages, the similarity in appearance is striking. Each of their sturdy faces features laughing eyes, a broad nose, engaging smiles and a strong chin. After a summer on the links, their cheeks are rosy from the sun.
Danny Savage, a Hinsdale South senior, is in his fourth summer working for Marko Tatic, who’s spent 13 years as caddie master at the private course a half-mile southwest of Hinsdale Central.
Danny Savage and his brother Patrick, a Hinsdale South freshman, are top-rated A caddies. Their younger brother, Emmett, who is in his first summer, is rated B and a few weeks ago carried two bags for the first time.
With six Savage siblings, parents Erin and Kevin are happy for any peace and quiet.
“Mom likes us out of the house,” Danny Savage said.
Danny Savage began caddying at the suggestion of his father. He said his father was a former caddie himself, toting bags for members at Knollwood Country Club in Lake Forest.
Their brother, Brendan, is a fourth grader who will likely caddie when he’s older, Danny Savage predicted.
All of them, as well as younger sisters Molly and Maeve, belong to the Hinswood Kahunas swim team in Darien.
Danny Savage has juggled commitments to football, swimming and water polo this summer around caddying. With football practices beginning around 6 a.m. Mondays through Fridays, he arrives at Ruth Lake around 10:30 a.m. ready to carry a bag. Sometimes he must wait up to two hours to get a call, while his younger brothers are already on the course carrying bags for morning tee times.
“I go from practice and get some food and go straight to here, then I wait for a loop,” he said.
According to Danny Savage, an average tip is around $75 per bag.
Some days, he attended football practice, worked a loop at Ruth Lake and competed for Hinswood at a swim meet that evening. On Sunday nights, he plays for the Lyons water polo team.
At 6-foot-2, 195 pounds, he is a rare three-sport athlete during the school year. He’s a linebacker/tight end in football, a freestyle sprinter in swimming and a hole offensive player in water polo.
Church mission
For five days each of the past two summers, Danny Savage took a break from all of his sports commitments to go on a volunteer mission with his church.
He and at least four other area athletes returned July 11 from a trip to the Winnebago Tribe reservation in Nebraska. The youth ministry group at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Darien combined with two other youth groups to help with building improvement projects, such as painting a church and landscaping around the grounds.
The Mount Carmel contingent included 19 youth members and four adult chaperons. Among them were recent Hinsdale South graduate Sarah Leganski, a state-qualifying cross country and track and field runner, and two members of the Hornets boys cross country team, Chris Joseph and Charles Thuruthiyil. Lyons distance runner Noelle Mennemeier also was part of the group.
“I enjoy helping people and seeing different (places),” said Danny Savage, who also joined the church’s mission trip to Buffalo, New York, last summer.
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Since she will be a freshman at St. Louis University in the fall, Leganski is doneparticipating in mission trips. For her fourth and final summer of volunteering, she returned to the same reservation that she had visited in 2013.
“It was an amazing way to end my trips,” Leganski said. “I went there two years ago. This experience was completely different. My group pulled weeds, mowed lawns, raked yards and cleaned up a church.”
The youth group from Darien drove four vans to Nebraska. The combined number of volunteers from the three churches numbered close to 60.
A typical work day lasted from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. They slept on air mattresses in classrooms at the local elementary school. Danny Savage said some of the kids relaxed by playing basketball in the school gymnasium or touch football outdoors. In the evenings, they gathered to talk about each of their projects.
On the final night, the tribe held a ceremony at its church and fed all the volunteers.
“The kids are phenomenal. It’s amazing what they do in a short period of time,” said Dorothy Grantham, Mount Carmel’s director of youth ministry. “They put their all into it and really work hard.”
Twitter @geomwilcox