Central Florida is consistently ranked as one of the top tourist destinations in the United States, if not the world. With warm weather year-round and over 150 golf courses, it is a hot bed for residents and visitors to enjoy a relaxing day out on the course. Sir Knight Bob Riffle, Sr. understood the opportunity presented here and proposed that our council embrace this opportunity and put it to work to raise money for a worthy cause.

Being a part of a young parish like St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church, parishioners can find plenty of opportunities to help improve our parish community. With recent efforts by groups to remove the Ten Commandments from public areas, Riffle believed we can embrace this challenge while beautifying our parish grounds. Bob found a company that created Ten Commandment monuments through an initiative called “Project Moses”, and in 2008, he proposed and received approval from council members to hold an annual golf scramble to raise funds and build the monument and create a place for visitors to meditate around the monument. On May 9, 2009, Council #1462 held its first golf event. In 2011, two and a half years after the first golf scramble, installation of the Ten Commandments monument and landscaping took place. Finally, on Sunday, March 18, 2012, Council #10462 and St. Isaac Jogues Parish officially completed the project and opened the grounds to everyone.

In the five years following this event’s inception, Council #10462 found great success in raising money through the golf event. The Knights were able to expand fundraising efforts to include personalized bricks which aided in the construction on a raised altar at St. Isaac Jogues Church. All of these efforts started with the vision of Bob Riffle, Sr. In 2014, our Council decided it was time to make a name change to the event. To honor the founder of not only this event, but also the man who helped re-establish Council #10462, the scramble became known as the “Bob Riffle Golf Classic” through the 2021 event. With the number of contributions we have had through the years of many Knights, carrying out the mission Bob set forward with the establishment of this tournament, we decided with the blessing of Bob Riffle to change the name to the “Commemorative Golf Classic“. This way, we can honor all of our Knights and their efforts in our community.

In the first thirteen years (2009-2021) of this event, Council #10462 has raised almost $50,000 in funds for organizations such as Beta House, Russell Home, Boy Scouts of America, Special Olympics, Central Florida Children’s Home, JMJ Pregnancy Center and St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church. We are excited to continue this tradition and hope that our charitable efforts will continue to help those in need in our community and our parish. We hope that you will consider being a part of our golf event either as a player, a volunteer (great way to earn service credit hours for youth) or a sponsor. If interested, please contact us at golf@kofcatstisaacjogues.org for more information.