Bubba Watson and his family fund donate $106,000 for new Ronald McDonald House playground

Decorated golfer and Pensacola's two-time Masters Champion Bubba Watson and his wife, Angie Watson, recently helped a 3-year-old get through the darkest times of her young life.

The Watsons' recent donation of $106,000 to the Ronald McDonald House in Pensacola paid for the refurbishment and partial rebuild of the charitable organization's playground.

"I am always outdoors playing golf. I am always a kid at heart," Bubba Watson said. "So for me to be a part of this playground was a no brainer for us."

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Rosemary Owen, 3, of Destin, just adores the playground with its new shiny play structure and slick, purplish-blue slides.

This winter, one of Rosemary's newborn twin sisters, Elizabeth, passed away from leukemia. Rosemary's surviving little sister, Catherine, was hospitalized at Ascension Sacred Heart in Pensacola for 103 days after her birth.

For those long three-plus months, Rosemary's parents, Tiffany Castricone and Lonne Owen, lived across the street from the hospital at the Ronald McDonald House while their newborn endured the many weeks of treatments.

Grandparents helped look after Rosemary, while her parents cared for Catherine.

But when Rosemary was with her parents at the Ronald McDonald House, the new playground — funded by the Watsons — became like a sanctuary from the storms facing her family.

"When we first got here, the playground had been installed but there was no rubber on the bottom, and we just thought it was being resurfaced," Rosemary's mother, Tiffany Castricone, explained. "We didn't realize it was brand new. So every day we would walk by and Rosemary would be like, 'Can I play on the playground? Can I play on the playground?' And we were like, 'Not yet. It's broken.'"

Rosemary asked about the playground every day during its construction process.

"Before it opened, we were having to go to all sorts of different parks around here," Castricone said.

It seemed like it was taking forever. But when the new equipment was fully installed, Rosemary was one of the very first people to get to play on it.

"I'd be upstairs pumping and she would be down here with my parents playing with her," Castricone said. "She just loves this playground and everything in here. It's been absolutely incredible for her."

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The playground was completed and opened for children to climb, laugh and play in mid-February, but the Watson family had not yet had an opportunity to swing by and see it for themselves until this week.

A symbolic ribbon cutting ceremony for the playground was held Tuesday at the Ronald McDonald House with the Watsons and their children in attendance.

"We don't get to see you all the time. But we think about you all the time, and when we think about you, we think about laughter and joy and kids going crazy and running around and everything that is good," Ronald McDonald House Pensacola Executive Director Summer Jimmerson told the Watsons at the ceremony.

Jimmerson said the playground helps provide a sense of "normalcy" to the parents and children who stay at the Ronald McDonald House.

"When our parents are sometimes going through something that is really, really tough, to be able to come and sit down in a relaxing place and watch their kids or even somebody else's kids have a normal happy day is a really big deal for our families," she said.

After calling his family's part in helping the project come to fruition a "no brainer," Bubba Watson added he and his wife wanted to make sure the children who stay at the Ronald McDonald House were as happy as possible.

"We want people to have fun and realize that there are better days ahead," he said. "So that is what this is all about. That is why our family came forward on this. Ronald McDonald House means so much, not only around Pensacola, but around the country. It's pretty fabulous to be a part of it, but it's not about me and Angie."

The entranceway into the playground was decked out with a archway made out of balloons for the ribbon cutting event.

"Immediately when I walked through the arch, I did get a sense of peace and tranquility," Angie Watson said. "I can't imagine what it would be like to have a sick child. I know how stressful it is just when a child has the flu or something less severe. So to go through what some of these families have gone through, I can't even imagine. So this is just a small piece that we can contribute, and we are blessed and honored to be able to do it."

The playground features a central two-story play structure with multiple slides. It is floored by a material called pebble flex that is soft, squishy and designed to help absorb the impact of a child's accidental fall.

Shrubbery and trees ring the playground, though Jimmerson noted her organization plans to soon remake the garden and rename it in honor of her predecessor, Judy Burns, the Ronald McDonald House's former executive director.

Burns, 66, of Gulf Breeze, passed away unexpectedly March 1, just months after her retirement.

"I learned a lot from her, and when she passed away, we got a lot of donations in her memory," Jimmerson said of Burns. "We decided, since it was something that she always wanted to do — now that we have this beautiful playground — let's create a garden around it that's tranquil and fun for kids, but also really relaxing for adults."

Colin Warren-Hicks can be reached at colinwarrenhicks@pnj.com or 850-435-8680.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Bubba Watson and his family fund playground at Ronald McDonald House