Rhode Island
After chasing his golf dream, Jonathan Pannone is living another one at the RI Amateur
WARWICK — Jonathan Pannone is living his dream. It just took him some time to realize it.
Pannone, who was raised in East Greenwich, always wanted to find out how far golf could take him. It ended up taking him on a journey that brought him back home. On Monday, with his amateur status reinstated, Pannone found himself at Warwick Country Club for the first round of the Rhode Island Golf Association’s 119th Amateur Championship.
And he couldn’t have been happier.
“I wanted no regrets,” the 37-year old Pannone said. “I can look back and say I didn’t make it, but I had a shot.
“I had some great rounds and great memories — and I tried.”
Pannone was a star in high school (at East Greenwich and Hendricken), spent two years playing at the University of Rhode Island before transferring to the University of South Carolina-Beaufort, where he had an All-American career thanks in part to the help from coach Shane LeBaron.
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He wanted more. Pannone needed to see just how good his game would get.
“I wanted to give it a shot,” Pannone said. “[LeBaron] told me Mid-Am golf is fun, and if you want to play Am golf, you wouldn’t be a failure if you did.
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“But my brain, once I got going on my path at USCB, that was the path I wanted to go.”
Professional golf’s minor leagues are more of a grind than any other pro sport. While minor league baseball players are famously paid in peanuts, there are plenty of weeks where mini-tour players don’t get paid at all.
Pannone spent years driving around the country, going from event to event, trying to earn checks. He didn’t mind the grind, living out of his truck, because he was dead set on accomplishing a goal he had set for himself.
But every tournament he played, he found players with the same type of goals. There was a round during his first year where he battled to shoot even par and felt great about how he played, right up until he saw the leaderboard where a player shot 59.
Pannone was putting in the work and found some success, but not at a consistent enough level to make it a full-time job.
“I saw what the talent was at basically a fourth mini-tour level,” Pannone said. “I was basically donating to Tony Finau and Mark Hubbard all year. [Finau] was a nobody at that point, but it was like ‘cool, there’s another level.’
“You think you’re good, you’re a first-team All-American, rah rah, then a guy knocks it 100 yards by you and hits wedges just as good as you do.”
Pannone wanted to chase pro golf as long as he could, but had two non-negotiables that would tell him when it was time to stop.
“If I stopped getting nervous on the first tee, I was done competing and, if I stopped having fun, I was done competing,” Pannone said. “I never lost the nerves, but I was starting to get angry. Even if I played well, I was never happy.”
As age 30 approached, Pannone was about to get engaged to now-wife Caitlin, and started to figure out what he wanted from golf — and life. No more trying to raise money for Q-School. Fewer events. He worked under Tom Spargo at Spargo Golf and eventually took over the business.
There was time to work and play golf, but also time to have a life. COVID hit and the golf boom hit. Suddenly, there was less time to practice and play.
Last summer, Pannone failed to qualify for the Mass Open. He played in a Monday qualifier for the Traveler’s Championship in nearby Cromwell and struggled down the stretch.
On the way home, he decided that was enough.
“I didn’t want to play and travel for five grand for winning a tournament when I could make that working a week in the shop,” Pannone said. “It wasn’t a good life balance.”
Once he turned pro, Pannone figured his amateur days were dead. He was locked in on trying to succeed, but watched from afar as players he grew up playing with and against had success at the state and regional level.
“I watched Bobby [Leopold] do all of this while I was playing [crappy] mini-tour events and I was like ‘God that looks fun,’ ” Pannone said. “You get to play these events, play sweet courses and get to be around good people.”
With work going well, his wife pushed him to look into getting his amateur status reinstated. It’s a process that starts on a state level, then gets to the USGA and you cannot play professional tournaments during the time period.
Pannone was granted his amateur status back just in time to play one of the RIGA’s state amateur qualifying rounds at Fenner Hill. Pannone treated the pre-qualifier like a pro tournament, playing eight practice rounds before going out and shooting 1-under to earn his spot in the big tournament.
On Monday at Warwick, Pannone felt nerves. Warwick is his home course, but he still felt the pressure of trying to compete.
He wasn’t trying to win the tournament on Monday. He knows better. Pannone also knows his former status hardly guarantees he’ll win anything this week.
“I’m not going to just go out and dominate. There’s a reason I got my am status back,” Pannone said. “There’s a little guy on my shoulder like ‘this is awesome, you can win,’ but the realist in me is trying to take it one day at a time.”
Day 1 went fine. Pannone struggled to find fairways, but managed to grind out pars. He was 3 over though 14 holes, made birdie on No. 15 and had looks on Nos. 16 and 17 before finishing with another bird to shoot a 1-over par 71.
It put him in a good position to earn a spot in match play — the second qualifying round takes place on Tuesday — but, more importantly, he left Warwick happy about how everything was falling into place.
“I’ve gotten better over the last six months,” Pannone said. “Since I’ve gotten my am status back, I’ve looked back at it and have been proud. During it, if you had asked my wife if I thought I was failing, yeah, every time.
“If I didn’t bring money home, I was failing. If I wasn’t living anything up to what I thought my expectations were as a player, I thought I was failing. It got to a point when making that decision I was looking at most of my rounds as failures.”
That’s not the case anymore. Now, it’s joy.
“I look back at all of it and now, I’m OK with the position I’m in,” Pannone said. “I have an unbelievable wife and I get to be at home and I get to sleep at home in my own bed. It’s the best.”
Who leads at the RIGA State Amateur
Pannone’s 1-over par 70 had him tied with more than a dozen players for eighth, but the top of the leaderboard featured a few familiar faces.
Leopold, the defending state champ, looked very much like someone intending to add another trophy to his mantle. The four-time State Am champ played solid golf, then came alive late with three birdies over his final four holes for an impressive 4-under 65.
“Last year I kind of did the same thing,” Leopold said. “I’m trying to get some feels to see where my game is at and I feel like the more I play the better I get. To come out here and post a good number and really didn’t have any blemishes on the scorecard, no real danger of making a mistake out there, that was really nice to see and shows I can get more aggressive here and there if I want to.
“That’s what you want to do when you get to match play. Know your game is good enough where if I need to get aggressive here, I can, but if I can hit middles of the greens the whole time maybe you can win that way too.”
Right behind Leopold was former Prout All-Stater Bennett Masterson, who shot a 3-under par 66. Former champ Brad Valois was also in the mix at 1-under par, tying him with a few others for third.
There were a glut of current and former Rhode Island Interscholastic League stars tied for 22nd. Current RIIL state champ Rocco Capalbo, a rising sophomore, shot 71, as did former two-time RIIL state champ Max Jackson, the recent La Salle grad who’s headed to Rutgers to play in the fall.
Day 2 of qualifying starts on Tuesday morning, with the top 32 players moving on to match play. Wednesday will feature Round of 32 matches, with Round of 16 taking place Thursday morning, followed by the afternoon quarterfinals. The semifinals take place Friday morning, leading to Saturday’s 36-hole championship.
Rhode Island
Rhode Island DCYF discloses fatality of 18-year-old
(WJAR) — The Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth, and Families disclosed the fatality of an 18-year-old who was previously the subject of a near fatality notification on June 2.
According to the department, the 18-year-old died on Thursday and was involved with DCYF.
The Office of the Child Advocate was notified about the incident.
DCYF did not disclose additional information due to confidentiality laws.
The original incident that required the prior notification occurred on May 27, officials said.
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According to DCYF, Rhode Islanders are required by law to report known or suspected cases of child abuse or neglect within 24 hours of becoming aware of such cases and can do so by calling 1-800-742-4453.
Rhode Island
He grew up in the kitchen. Then he rewrote the menu, and the future of his parents’ restaurant – The Boston Globe
He became obsessed with driving around, searching for any local farm or fisherman on a dock and bugging them to see if they, too, wanted to help him with his vision.
His menu now, which reflects a reinvention, leans into a new way to present New England seafood for an old suburban fishing town, serving snacks like a smoked Rhode Island bluefish paté, raw New Bedford sea scallops with sesame and crispy shallots, chowder with quahogs and fermented hot sauce. He also makes his own pasta with milled local grains.
Today, Dion has largely taken over the business, although his mom can still be found in the kitchen.


“If you’ve had a piece of swordfish at S.S. Dion in the past 43 years, she’s grilled it. And she doesn’t want that to end,” said Dion. “She loves it, and wants to work forever.”
His father visits every day for an hour to keep track of “all of my numbers.”
“I do it all on a computer, and he’s got every, every penny of it on paper,” said Dion.
The reimagined version has had a lot of success, growing 300 percent over the last five years.
What to eat: Try any of the snacks to start with, but be sure to get at least one of their house-made pastas for the table to share: a black spaghetti puttanesca with fried squid, anchovies, Calabrian chilies, and braised tomato. A bowl of gemelli with house-made fish sausage, rapini, pangrattato, and aglio e olio. A roasted mushroom campanelle with sautéed leeks, Brussel sprouts, tarragon, and tender pea tendrils. A perfect bolognese. There are also comforting staples from S.S. Dion’s past life: “The chicken parmesan will be on that menu for my whole life,” said Dion. “But there’s a fermented hot sauce martini on there as well.”

“I want to have that spectrum of people who have always come into S.S. and ordered what they love and remember,” said Dion. “But also there might be something exciting for someone else in their party who is more adventurous.”
You can get three courses for just $40 per person if you order from their prix fixe menu. Your options include local crudos; a funky caesar with smoked Rhode Island bluefish and sourdough croutons, calamari from Point Judith, all sorts of scratch-made pastas, and plenty of desserts.
Dion said his fries take three days to prepare, and he makes every part of their burger from scratch (an “everything” milk bun, house bacon, crispy onions, a 21-day dry-aged burger bun from Blackbird Farm slathered in a special sauce) other than the cheddar cheese it is topped with.

“The world just seems to get more and more artificial, and there’s a really blurry line between what is human and what is manufactured,” he said. “It just feels good to be authentic to my place.”
What to drink: Start off with a bang and get the “Low Tide Hot N’ Dirty,” which uses a nori-infused Lime Rock gin, fermented green chili, yuzu, and topped with a spicy seaweed chip. Or their bacon fat-washed maple old fashioned. The beer list has a ton of local brews from around New England, while the wine list has some interesting choices for the area: a Primitivo from Puglia, an Austrian riesling, and a chenin blanc-viognier from Napa.

Don’t forget dessert: The bananas foster bread pudding is baked in a cast iron pan drizzled with rum caramel and topped with pecans and vanilla ice cream. The chocolate pot de creme uses miso caramel, beetroot meringue, salted cashew crumble, and fennel. Or you can order a basque cheesecake topped with flaky sea salt and orange zest, or a traditional affogato that’s drowned in a double shot of espresso from Borealis Coffee Company, a small-batch local specialty roaster.
Final say: S.S. Dion is one of those legacy restaurants that found further success after reinventing itself when the second generation took over. Dion has dreams of opening his own restaurant with a different concept and to potentially do it in Providence. He’s looking for locations, but isn’t ready to sign a lease yet.
“I’m really happy with where S.S. is now,” said Dion. “But what chef doesn’t have dreams of opening a dozen more restaurants?
“I’d say that’s what’s next,” he added. “I’d like to start something else soon.”
S.S. Dion, 520 Thames St., Bristol, R.I., 401-253-2884, ssdion.com. Raw bar $3.5-$165; salads $13-$18; snacks $9-$25; scratch pasta $14-$38; entrées $25-market price; Sides and sauces $1-$7.

Alexa Gagosz can be reached at alexa.gagosz@globe.com. Follow her @alexagagosz and on Instagram @AlexaGagosz.
Rhode Island
Clergy sex abuse bill passes RI Senate on unanimous vote. What’s next
Newest clergy sex abuse lawsuit bill gives victims ‘hope,’ Neronha says
A new bill gives clergy sex abuse victims a path to sue the institutions that may have been responsible for their abuse as children.
PROVIDENCE – Victims of clergy sex abuse scored a long-sought victory in the Rhode Island Senate on Wednesday, June 3.
Legislation to allow the victims to sue the Catholic Church – and any other institution that failed to protect them from molestation when they were children – won unanimous Senate approval and now goes to the House for final votes.
The fast action from Senate Judiciary Committee approval – to a full Senate vote – within an hour and a half was not unexpected after the announcement on Monday of a compromise backed by the Senate’s top-tier Democrats, including Senate President Valarie Lawson, Majority Leader Frank Ciccone and Senate Judiciary Chairman Matthew LaMountain.
If passed, as now appears likely, the legislation will allow the victims of sexual abuse by clergy to sue the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence and any other entity that knew, but failed to stop – or concealed – the abuse they suffered as children at the hands of trusted elders.
The legislation would also provide the long-ago victims – many of them now in their 60s and 70s – with a two-year window to revive claims currently barred by expired time limits.
The compromise – after years of pleas and inaction – follows the long-awaited release on March 4 of Attorney General Peter Neronha’s report detailing the systematic cover-up by the Catholic Church of the sexual abuse of more than 300 Rhode Island children.
His report laid bare, for the first time, the scope of more than a half century of alleged child sexual abuse by Rhode Island Catholic clergy and the breadth and depth of the alleged cover-up, which often included destroying key files or shuffling priests from parish to parish, where they would reoffend.
Sen. Mark McKenney, the lead Senate sponsor, told colleagues that the proposed new law not only states “this conduct unacceptable, but from now on, the institutions that have enabled it will be held accountable as well.”
As to whether the law would survive a legal challenge, McKenney said the Rhode Island Constitution “contains a provision that is somewhat unique in the United States: a victims’ rights clause. That provision has been largely overlooked in the debate that’s gone on about the constitutionality of this and … previous versions of this bill,” but retired U.S. District Judge William Smith drew attention to it when he testified.
He said Article 1, Section 23 “of our constitution provides that crime victims, including child sexual abuse victims, not only may receive compensation from perpetrators, but also, and this is a quote from the constitution, ‘Shall receive such other compensation as the state may provide,’ with that power ‘entirely committed to our authority as the General Assembly.’”
Co-sponsor Dawn Euer applauded “the victims and survivors, both the ones that we know of and the ones that we don’t, as well as the ones that we have lost. The strength and courage that it takes to go through what [these] people have gone through … is incredible.
“And then to be able to come up here and advocate …. for passage of this legislation over years [of] legislative turmoil and back again, it’s really incredible the strength and determination that you all have shown,” she said to the group of survivor-advocates in the Senate gallery.
“We get used to it,” she said of the process by which “the proverbial sausage is made. But for issues like this that have real impacts on people’s lives, it can be an additional trauma,” she said of the year after year of public hearings and testimony, followed by inaction.
On Wednesday, she said, the Senate sent the “strong signal that Rhode Island stands with survivors and victims.”
This story has been updated with new information.
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