By Victor Greto
SHAWNEE ON DELAWARE, Pa. – The thwack of Jeff Linsenmann’s club as it sends a golf ball hurtling into the Delaware River is like a sharp pain in the side of Ethan Huner.
Huner, a naturalist who is part American Indian, is paddling with the Delaware River Sojourn, a group of canoeists and kayakers traveling down the river. While Linsenmann hit golf balls, the group pitched tents by the side of the river.
“People just don’t understand,” Huner says. Golf balls are dangerous to the wildlife; they can be mistaken for eggs by birds and fish.
Linsenmann’s eyes are set on an island in the middle of the river, just across from the Shawnee Inn and Golf Resort, where he and his family are staying. He’s showing his sons he can knock a golf ball hundreds of yards.
Most of the time, Linsenmann’s shots plop into the river just shy of the island. But he occasionally makes it, and lets out a yell.
But it’s a mistake to think that Linsenmann, who says he pours concrete for a living in Allentown, has no regard for the river. He’ll be the first to tell you it’s the river’s beauty that draws him and his family to the inn.
The Shawnee Inn sits on the southern edge of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. The river becomes increasingly wider here, and more sedate.
While he watches his sons imitate him and weakly tap golf balls into the river, Linsenmann reminisces about the inn.
“Arnie Palmer met his wife here,” he says. “There’s a lot of great celebrity history here.”
First built in 1911, the inn was bought in 1943 and expanded by bandleader Fred Waring, who got his celebrity friends – from Jackie Gleason and Perry Como to Lucille Ball – to spend parts of their summers here.
The golf course itself is on an island, which in part explains why Rab Cika, a National Park Service employee standing nearby, says nothing.
“Keeping the river preserved is a private-public enterprise,” he says between thwacks of the ball. “If I talk to them, I’d have to talk to the guys on the links who sometimes hit their balls in the river. How fair is that?”