www.berlincitizen.com
Volume 22, Number 6
Thursday, March 28, 2019
It’s tee time at Timberlin DNA reunites
Berlin woman with long lost sister
By Devin Leith-Yessian The Citizen
Good weather and a rare weekend opening made for a packed day for the first rounds of play at Timberlin Golf Course.
By Devin Leith-Yessian The Citizen
Decades after being abandoned at a train station in South Korea as a toddler, Christine Pennell’s shot in the dark search for her parents yielded the surprise discovery of an unknown sister.
“Real exciting to see people, everyone is definitely ready to play,” said golf professional Marc Bayram. He said 120 people came out to play on Sunday, March 24, which was the first time the course has held the opening day on a weekend in his nine years there. “They’re ready to go, they’re ready for a new season.”
Lighter-than-normal snowfall toward the end of winter allowed maintenance crews to quickly prepare the course for play and temperatures over 50 degrees allowed for an opening day two weeks earlier than last year. The creation of the Golf Commission has also led to improvements around the course, Bayram said, such as numerous trees being taken
Cameron DaSilva, of Rocky Hill, tees off at Timberlin Golf Course in Berlin on opening day, Sunday, March 24. After moving the first day of the season up to this past weekend, the course sold out at 120 golfers. | Devin Leith-Yessian, The Citizen
down around the second hole. Golf Commission Chairperson Peter DeFazio said being able to open on a weekend allowed more people to come and enjoy the course. While he was glad to have a club in hand again, he said it was having the Timberlin
community back on the green again that made him excited. Nate LaFollette, who was in the same group as DeFazio, said it’s the camaraderie between the players which keeps him coming back. “Honestly, it’s more about the people than it’s about the golf course,” he said.
Pennell said she was welcomed into Haelen’s family during a visit to her home in Oud-Turnhout, Belgium on the way back from South Korea. "It's like the life that I was supposed to have with my sister. To see somebody that is just like me — we have the
Christine Pennell, of Berlin, right, and Kim Haelen, of Oud-Turnhout, Belgium, were reunited in February after being abandoned as children in Daegu, South Korea. | Image courtesy of Christine Pennell
same eyes, we have the same sense of humor," Pennell said. “It was more than I could ever ask for. I've never had anyone that I knew of that was actually related to me by blood or looking like she's Korean. Because I was adopted into a white family. See Sisters, A14
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After thanking everyone for playing, Bayram hit the first tee of the season and all the players got set up at their holes for a simultaneous shotgun start.
A couple weeks after the revelation, the Berlin resident was reunited with her younger sister Kim Haelen in February at the train station where they were left in Daegu, South Korea and they’re already at work on plans for Haelen to visit Berlin in August.
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