Sean Passananti last saw his father when they played a round together at the now closed Tallgrass Golf Course on Long Island. The father, Horace Passananti, had taught his son to play and it had become something special they shared.
“It was just, just a really good time to spend with my dad,” Passananti told The Daily Beast on Tuesday. “And we did it whenever we got a chance.”
What would be the final father-and-son round was Sean Passananti’s 32nd birthday, June 10, 2001. His father was his usual ebullient self, seeming to smile with his whole being and delighting in blasting the ball great distances.
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“He was really good at hitting bombs,” Sean Passananti recalled. “He was a big, strong guy. He could hit like 300 yards sometimes. That's all he cared about. And having fun. His score didn't really turn him on.”
Passananti added, “And that was the last day I got to spend with my father.”
The father was vice president of claims for Marsh & McClennan and he had been at his desk on the 100th floor of the North Tower for two hours on the morning of Sept. 11 when the plane hit. Sean Passananti figures his father would have been one of those who sought to help others if he had been able.
Horace Passananti
Family Handout“Basically they found pieces of him through DNA, so I don’t know,” Passananti said. “Maybe he was blown up, because he was certainly close to the explosion.”
Passananti added, “Not knowing is a terrible thing.”
Passananti did become certain of one thing: The Saudis were complicit in the attack. He joined 9/11 for Justice, a steadfast alliance of first responders, survivors, and families that lost loved ones, founded by Brett Eagleson, whose father had died in the North Tower. Eagelson had also loved father-and-son golf. Eagelson was in his early teens and neither was good at the game, but just being out on a course seemed a perfect way for them to spend a few hours together.
“You’re out in the sun, fresh air, and there's nothing really to do other than have to talk to each other and engage,” Eagelson recalled. “So it’s a great way to do that.”
Brett Eagleson, son of Sept. 11 victim Bruce Eagleson, sits in the dugout at a baseball field where his father use to coach July 2, 2021, in Middletown, Conn.
Jessica Hill/APBoth Passananti and Eagleson were outraged when the Saudis began an effort to “sportswash” their reputation by buying their way into professional golf two years ago.
Both men were heartened when the PGA moved to block the effort, using 9/11 for Justice’s talking points and citing declassified documents that the group spent 22 years collecting to establish that Saudi Arabia had supported the hijackers.
“We thought that finally, once and for all, we had a real American ally, somebody that believed in integrity,” Eagleson said. “You know, an organization that’s supposed to be based on integrity, you know, the game of golf is, you know, thought of to be a game about morals and ethics and, and, and doing what’s right.”
The PGA bashed the Saudis month after month, citing their human rights abuses, execution of gays, the Jamal Khashoggi murder, and how they they bankrolled 9/11.
A picture of the missing Bruce Eagleson is hung outside the 69th Regiment Armory in New York, 13 September, 2001, where friends and relatives of person missing from the World Trade Center attack can fill out missing persons forms.
TANNEN MAURY/AFP via Getty“The families thought, ‘Where has the PGA been all these years? We could have used them 15, 20 years ago to be on our side,’” Eagleson said.
Then on Tuesday morning came what Passananti calls “a slap in the face.” He learned from a news alert on his cellphone that the PGA had decided to merge with LIV Golf, which is backed by billions from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
“I’m really contemplating, what do I do?” Passananti said. “Because, I’m not watching Saudi golf.”
Eagleson said he wondered: “Did they just use us to get a better higher payday? Did they use our documents and use our blood sweat and tears and our pain to negotiate a higher price?”
Passananti noted that the betrayal came on the anniversary of D-Day, when so many Americans sacrificed all. “I got my American flag flying on my house every day, and I'm embarrassed to fly it right now,” he said.
He is certain that the Saudis prompted the PGA double-cross the same way they have managed to escape any blame for 9/11
“This is what Saudi Arabia does,” he said. “They buy their way. They just have more money than God. So their money allows them to get away with murder. And now they bought American golf.”
He will turn 54 on June 10, which will also mark the 22nd anniversary of that last sublime game with his father. He will continue to fight to keep the Saudis from using their billions to sportswash themselves.
“The last thing I want to be doing is flying around the country to protest Saudi golf,” he said. “I just want my life back, but somebody’s gotta do it. You gotta stand up.”
