Golf

Columbus golfer saves drowning man off the coast near St. Andrews − then finishes his round

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2 hours ago

October 2, 2024

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Columbus golfer saves drowning man off the coast near St. Andrews − then finishes his round

Billy Radebaugh was hoping to break par, not become a hero. Then an enjoyable round of golf in Scotland turned into a numbing call for survival that the Columbus businessman never asked for but felt compelled to answer.

Heroism is not something to be sought. Quite the contrary. If possible, it is to be avoided, because to save the day means the day first needed to be saved. A child requires rescuing from a burning house. A heart attack victim needs immediate CPR. Better that no heroics are ever needed than for someone to have to step in and tamp down potential tragedy.

Heroism also is not something you script. There is no five-year plan. But that does not mean it “just happens.” It requires action. A need arises. Trouble calls. Do you answer? A decision must be made.

Radebaugh chose to answer. Courageously. That is heroism. The marketing business owner from Dublin, having fun on a golfing trip with buddies, dropped his clubs and swam into the frigid sea off the eastern coast of Scotland to rescue a local man who would have drowned if not for the help of a hero who wasn’t looking to become one.

Two worlds collide in Scotland

Two things were happening at once within a quarter mile of each other on Sept. 19 in St. Andrews, Scotland. Xiang Li, who goes by Kevin, was with his father-in-law collecting whelks in an estuary near West Sands Beach. Radebaugh and seven buddies were on a golf trip that included stops at Carnoustie and the Jubilee course at St. Andrews Links.

Those two events – hunting sea snails and birdies – were about to converge into a single terrifying event that thankfully has a happy ending.

Radebaugh, 43, was on the No. 7 green at Jubilee with playing partners Steve Boyle of Dublin and Lawrence Gross of Upper Arlington when a woman approached asking if the men had a phone available to call in emergency help for a man struggling against the strong currents in the North Sea.

The golfers immediately used a range finder as binoculars to spot Li about 200 yards offshore. The local man from Dundee, Scotland, had not noticed the tide come in and he and his father-in-law were swept into the sea and cut off from the mainland, even as the 45-degree water rose to his neck and the currents kept them from swimming ashore.

For Radebaugh, it was decision time.

“I run down a cliff of rocks,” Radebaugh said Monday, recalling how the golfers had been told the previous day never to enter the water because “it’s the deadliest water in the world … the current will suck you to the bottom and won’t let you out.”

Radebaugh reached the beach and yelled to Li, asking if he needed help. The answer: a garbled “yes.”

“And the next thing I know, Billy is stripping down to his pants,” said Gross, who immediately began worrying about his friend. “It was surreal, like out of a movie, and Billy didn’t hesitate at all.”

Boyle, who “has 11 or 12 years on Billy” knew it was up to the younger golfer to attempt the rescue.

“We looked at each other and I was, ‘I can’t get to this guy,’ ” Boyle said. “He used an expletive and said, ‘I’m going.’ ”

Finding humor in midst of stressful chaos

The three golf buddies can laugh openly about it now, given the rescue was a success, but there was a moment of awkward levity when Radebaugh handed his expensive new rain jacket to Boyle with instructions: “Don’t let this get dirty.”

Radebaugh stripped off shoes and shirt and began walking toward Li, who was about 150 yards away. Walking quickly became swimming as the water deepened. Upon reaching Li, Radebaugh realized he was in for the fight of his life.

“The coldest water I’ve ever been in,” he said, adding that Li had been in the sea just short of an hour, which explains why he suffered from hypothermia when Radebaugh finally pulled him ashore.

Struggling against the current, Radebaugh had one shot at snagging Li, who had gone under the surface a few seconds earlier.

“The currents are taking him, so I had to time it and catch him at the same time,” Radebaugh said. “If I miss, we both could be gone. I’m trying to keep my head above water and focus on him, and I get about 10 feet away and he goes under and doesn’t come back up. What he told me later is he took his last breath. He thought he was dead. I got to where I thought he was and swooped my arms and just nipped his shirt with my two fingers, and grabbed and pulled him up.”

As the current began sweeping the two men farther out, Radebaugh’s adrenaline kicked into overdrive. The former high school athlete at Upper Arlington in football, basketball and baseball, but not swimming, fought multiple currents until he was out of gas, about 70 yards from shore.

“I would go to reach for the ground, where hopefully I could stand, but I just couldn’t,” he said. “The first two times I didn’t touch, and finally the third time my toe just touched the bottom, and I felt more relief than anything.”

Li was dead weight, so Radebaugh carried him to dry land, where Gross, Boyle and Radebaugh’s caddie began hitting Li’s chest and rubbing his shoulders to get him to clear his lungs of water. It worked, but instead of celebrating, a sense of dread came over the first responders when Li mumbled that his father-in-law was still in the water.

Another body to save? Or something else?

Undaunted, Radebaugh began to re-enter the ice bath to make another save, having used the range finder to spot another head bobbing in the distance, but Gross and Boyle stopped him.

Good thing, too. The bobbing head belonged to a seal.

“Thank God I didn’t go try to save a seal,” Radebaugh said, managing a chuckle.

It wasn’t until about an hour later, when the Scottish rescue services informed Li that his father-in-law was safe – the current had washed him almost a mile in a separate direction and onto a different beach – that the near-tragic story could be declared a happy ending.

Actually, that’s not accurate. Radebaugh’s day was not a total win until he returned to the No. 8 tee to continue his round.

That’s right. The hero in soaked pants insisted his group finish the round. After changing into a dry pair of rain pants and slipping back into his shirt and shoes, Radebaugh teed it up at No. 8 and “hit the longest drive of my life,” then finished the round 7-over. Super impressive, all things considered.

It gets better. The St. Andrews powers that be have extended Radebaugh and his friends an open invitation to play there anytime they want, as well as tickets to the 2027 British Open at the historic Old Course.

This hero stuff has its perks, even if you didn’t go looking for them. And those perks are not limited to material benefits.

Courage and bravery and throwing yourself into the fray to help others impacts not only the physical but also the emotional. Even the spiritual. Clearly, Radebaugh, Boyle and Gross suspect something bigger at play than a golf round interrupted by an emergency situation.

For one thing, the woman who told them Li was in danger? She disappeared without a trace. The Columbus trio tried to find her afterward with no luck. Li’s guardian angel, perhaps?

Then there is this: Sometimes it takes serious trouble and trauma to help friends realize how much they mean to each other. And how precious life truly is. Boyle cried when Radebaugh made it back to land safely.

“I got emotional when he got ashore,” Boyle said. “I just gave him a hug, like, ‘You just saved a man’s life.’ It was raw emotion. When Billy was getting near him and I saw him go under I was like, ‘This could end very badly.’ I’m man enough to admit it.”

Water rescue a ‘life-changing experience’

Gross called what happened in Scotland a life-changing experience. And not just for Li.

“If you do all the calculating and the odds, it just makes you believe that it wasn’t (Li’s) time,” Gross said. “And it made me really start reassessing the things in life that I think are real important and what’s not important.”

Gross finished with this: “I’m glad it happened to me and glad everyone was safe. It really was one of the most heroic acts of selflessness that I’ve ever gotten to witness. He really put himself at risk for a stranger. Billy just said, ‘I’m not going to watch this guy die today.’ ”

“I would (agree) almost verbatim,” Boyle said. “I couldn’t have been prouder to witness that. I was looking at Billy saying, ‘There’s no way we can make it.’ And he just said, ‘I’m going.’ ”

A choice that required a decision. It was life or death, and Radebaugh never wavered. Life won.

Salute.

roller@dispatch.com

@rollerCD