Charity Says Men Crashed Golf Tournament For Sick Kids

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A local foundation wants to know the identity of two men who they say crashed their charity golf tournament, putting the foundation out hundreds of dollars.

Wishes & More is a local charity that helps children with terminal and life-threatening illnesses.

"I think they should be busted. I do. I think they should be busted," said Karla Blomberg, the charity's president. "At the very end of registration when there was nobody else around, these two gentlemen -- loosely -- came up to the registration table and said, 'The Lynns, oh we're with the Lynns.'"

The Lynn family signed up to play in the fundraiser two weeks ago at Edinburgh USA in Brooklyn Park. But they couldn't make it. The person at the registration table told the men she knew they weren't the Lynns. When she said it would be $150 to play as friends of the family, the men laughed and walked away.

But they didn't exactly go away. They were seen golfing, and later helping themselves to food at the banquet.

"One of them is holding the card that was on the cart that said 'Joe Lynn and Jeff Lynn,' and the Lynns never did make it, so they didn't know anything about it," Blomberg said.

An organizer who talked with the men when they tried to sign up said they spoke with Australian accents. But people who saw them driving around the course and golfing later on said they didn't have accents. And they appeared to be having a great time.

"Very brazen. And as you can see again by the photos they had a good time doing what they did," Blomberg said.

Nobody who played in the fundraiser, nor anyone who's a member of Edinburgh, has been able to identify them.

As in the movie "Wedding Crashers," the two men crashed the tournament, organizers say.

Edinburgh golf pro Don Berry doesn't know whether to laugh or cry; and he hopes this isn't the start of a trend.

"I've been here since '88...24 years," he said. "And we've never had anything like this happen."

Blomberg said between golf and food, the strangers put them out about $300. She said that money could have gone a long way to helping with scholarship money for a sick child.

Samantha Hurd said she and others are sharing the photo of the two men on their Facebook page trying to find the identify of the duo. Hurd has a shop on Etsy, and for the rest of August, she's donating 25 percent of each sale to help cover the $300 loss.