Golfers teed off at the Bottoms Up Invitational Golf Tournament at Brooklawn Country Club in Fairfield to raise money for colorectal cancer.

“Today” host Craig Melvin and his wife, sports reporter Lindsay Czarniak, started the event to raise awareness and funds in honor of Craig's brother Lawrence Meadows, who died from the disease in 2020 at age 43.

"We needed to do something to raise awareness, to get more folks screened, to raise money for research," says Melvin. “…When it became apparent that he wasn't going to survive, he asked me to make sure that after he was gone that we continue to raise awareness and so we have."

Officials say colorectal cancer is the leading cause of cancer related deaths in men under age 50, yet it is less known and less funded than other less deadly cancers.

Last year's event raised $1.1 million for the Colorectal Cancer Alliance, the nation's largest nonprofit organization dedicated to ending the disease.