In the days prior to hitting a hole-in-one on the 174-yard seventh at the Country Club of New Canaan a few weeks back, John Polera had told his friends what a nice job he thought Chevrolet had done with their Corvette Stingrays and that one day he’d like to own one.
L-R: Steve Karl of Karl Chevrolet, John Polera, Joanne Boyer of Waveny LifeCare Network and Jim Darling of First County Bank. Credit: Michael Dinan
It so happened that on Monday, May 18, Polera was part of a foursome playing in a fundraiser for the Waveny LifeCare Network, where the special prize on that par-3 hole was a new, black Stingray.
“After I struck the ball [with the six iron], I saw it was going right toward the flag and I said to myself, ‘This could be a pretty good shot,’ thinking it would be close,” Polera, an attorney from Armonk, N.Y., recalled Friday afternoon from the showroom floor at Karl Chevrolet on Elm Street, his friend, professional client and fellow member of that foursome Jim Darling standing nearby.
“And it landed on the green, took one bounce and rolled right into the middle of the cup. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I said, ‘It disappeared. That ball went in.’ When it went in, I realized I had won a car. We were so excited, we wanted to run down to the green, we wanted to make sure it had gone in, because we were out so far, you can sometimes be fooled and it could be sitting behind the pin. When I went down there, it was there and I went back to take a picture of the placard that said, ‘You have won a car.’ I was so terribly excited. After that, I could barely contain myself. It’s awesome.”
It’s also a great feat and for a hugely important local cause.
The “Swinging for Seniors” fundraiser is the most important of the year for Waveny LifeCare Network, because “everything we raise in this fundraiser goes directly to support our residents’ assistance fund,” said Kristin Sinatra, the organization’s director of marketing.
That fund “supports the costs of care for people who cannot afford the cost of their care at the Waveny Care Center, the Village, the Inn and in our adult day program,” she said.
Karl Chevy’s vice president, 1980 NCHS graduate Steve Karl (“Tracey’s husband”), said the 1927-founded dealership and repair shop has been a sponsor of “Swinging for Seniors” since its inception 13 years ago.
“It’s always fun to sponsor an event like this, but you never actually expect to award the car like this,” Karl said. “A lot of dealers put up leases, and we always think that if you hit the hole, it’s nice to win the car.”
Joanne Boyer, Waveny LifeCare Network’s director of development, said minor prizes have been won in past years at the fundraiser (including a cruise that went to Robert Kennedy a few years back), but that this is the first major prize that’s been awarded as a result of a hole-in-one.
Polera said he plans immediately to upgrade in his personal vehicle to the brand-new Stingray. Asked what car he’s upgrading from, Polera said: “Well I do have a sedan, I will say—a Jaguar—so I’m sitting kind of pretty.”