The weather cooperated, which by the standards of this tournament counts as tradition breaking rather than tradition holding. The Shute Family’s Annual Golf Outing for the Tunnel to Towers Foundation has been played in 45-degree drizzle and 100-degree heat, and this year, on September 11, at St. Anne’s Country Club in Feeding Hills, Massachusetts, it drew another full field of golfers, another lineup of sponsors and another round of proof that a small Connecticut town can move real money toward a national cause.
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Another successful Tunnel to Towers event!
“The generosity and support of the people of Suffield never ceases to amaze me,” said Dave Shute, the tournament’s founder and organizer. “The farmers, the shop owners, private citizens, the golfers rain or shine, are incredible.” He pointed to the same instinct showing up elsewhere in town: when Suffield residents raised money and packed three trailers of supplies for Hurricane Helene victims. “We are blessed to have such great support from such a great community.”
Shute would know something about instinct and community both. He served with the United States Navy Seabees for more than twenty years, retiring in 2016 as a Senior Chief Petty Officer, and saw duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. That background is not incidental to the tournament; it’s the reason the tournament exists. Shute has said plainly that he is driven by not forgetting the families of America’s fallen, and the families of those who care for the catastrophically wounded. The Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which builds mortgage-free homes for Gold Star and fallen first responder families with young children, and specially adapted smart homes for catastrophically injured veterans and first responders, was, in his words, “the perfect match for the Shute Family Foundation.” Dave and his wife Kim live in Suffield with four children and five grandsons.
Looking at this year’s tournament in isolation, it’s easy to miss how small it started. The first outing, in 2021, was just family and friends: 38 golfers played the day after Thanksgiving in weather that never rose above 45 degrees. It raised $1,800, which the organizers still describe as a surprise. Whatever that first year proved, it proved enough that people came back.
The growth since has been close to linear, then not. In 2022, 120 golfers played through a 100-degree day and raised $5,000. In 2023, the tournament moved to September 11 for the first time, a decision that gave the event its shape going forward, and drew a full field of 144 golfers, raising $13,400. By 2024, the Suffield Fire Department was bringing a ladder truck to suspend a Tunnel to Towers banner over the course, and four police departments—Hartford, Agawam, Connecticut State Police and Suffield’s own—sent representatives. That year’s total was $26,500, and Dan DeLeon, a representative of the national foundation, attended for the first time.
Then came 2025, another sold-out field, a new Platinum sponsorship tier, and an anonymous donation of $100,000, which the organizers attribute, in their own words, to grace rather than growth curves. The cumulative total crossed $137,500. DeLeon returned to accept the ceremonial check.
This year’s tournament, by the organizers’ account, has cemented something less quantifiable than the dollar figures: a regional reputation. The event is now recognized across central Connecticut and western Massachusetts as one of the more effective Tunnel to Towers fundraisers in the area, in part because of a structural choice that outsiders often don’t notice. All tournament expenses, greens fees, the dinner, the sponsorships that pay for signage and staffing, are covered separately, which means every dollar raised in donations reaches the foundation. That is a rarer arrangement in charity golf than most participants realize, and it is the reason a relatively modest-sized event in a small town has managed to move six figures to a national cause. The entire team was thrilled to have raised over $70,000 this year, exceeding their $50,000 goal, meaning this community has generated over $250,000 for a very worthy cause.
None of this required a headline year or a single dramatic gift. Mostly it required the same farmers, shop owners and private citizens Shute keeps thanking, showing up again, in whatever weather Friday in September decided to bring, because the tunnel and the towers are not history to this town. They are neighbors.