Breaking the Silence in Mental Health: Welcome to QuietLine & Plus 3 Golf

Brett Emmers
Aug 20, 2025
3 min read

Updated: Sep 25, 2025

Suicide was the second leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 10-14 and 25-34, the third leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 15-24, and the fourth leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 35 and 44.”

-National Institute of Health, 2022

There were nearly two times as many suicides (49,476) in the United States as there were homicides (24,849)

-National Institute of Health, 2022

Sports were my entire identity—basketball, baseball, golf, cross country. Competition was who I was. But in college, everything changed.

During my freshman year at East Carolina, I sprained my ACL. That injury led to inflamed nerves in my left ribcage ultimately leading to a redshirt. The following year, I sprained the same ACL again, and everything began to unravel. Lost touch internally.

The real battle wasn’t the physical rehab. It was the unraveling of my identity, goals, dreams… “get over it” “move on” “not that serious” “go talk to someone” …right? Simple in theory. Harder in the moment.

It felt more like being blindsided by myself. I wasn’t prepared for that type of pain and isolation. A self-betrayal? The lack of tools or even life-experience became obvious. What happened next was the self-isolation. That quiet became familiar.

But it was that same silence and isolation that lived in the stories of so many others.

Once I began opening up, I immediately started seeing the ripple affect. Its everywhere. It’s in the locker rooms, backstage, classrooms, and veteran homes across the country.

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among people ages 10–14 and 25–34.
It’s the third leading cause of death among ages 15–24.
In 2022, there were 49,476 suicides in the U.S.—nearly double the number of homicides. (NIH, 2022)

We can’t afford to stay silent anymore.

Where We Started

Plus 3 Golf began with a simple mission: bring people together through golf, music, and community—and use that platform to spark real conversations about mental health.

Over the past few years, we’ve:

Hosted tournaments for the Department of Tennessee VFW
Supported the VFW Southern Conference
Launched the Keith Whitley Memorial Celebrity Tournament in Nashville
And now, we’re co-coordinating the Joe Diffie Classic, a two-day golf and music event this September

But along the way, we realized something: people are ready for more than just another tournament.

They’re ready for a movement.

Awareness to Action: QuietLine

QuietLine will be our flagship program, a peer support system with a certification program built to reset the cultural baseline around mental health.

Stories as Medicine. We collect lived experiences of trauma, resilience, and recovery and use them as training tools.
Safe Pathways. We create spaces where conversations about suicide, anxiety, and pressure are normalized and protected.
Curriculum. We turn real stories into lessons for schools, athletes, veterans, and musicians.
Certification. We train and certify advocates to lead these conversations in classrooms, locker rooms, and communities.
Integration. We embed mental health dialogue directly into performance culture — alongside practice drills, music rehearsals, and leadership development.

At its core, QuietLine exists to make sure performance never comes at the cost of well-being.

Our Vision

Our goal is simple:

Make QuietLine training as common as CPR training.
Bring it into schools, athletic & musical programs, veteran networks, and other performance industries to bridge mental health gaps with certified advocates.
Advance junior development with brain health programs that embed resilience training through our lived experience curriculum, — ensuring the next generation learns that performance should never come at the cost of well-being.

This is why Plus 3 Golf exists.

This is why QuietLine exists.

What’s Next

We’re weeks away from launching QuietLine.

Now is the time to join us—whether that’s by becoming a supporter, a competitor or musician, a donor or sponsor,

Being quiet is no longer an option.

Jack Nicklaus said, “Resolve never to quit, never to give up, no matter what the situation.” QuietLine is built on that exact resolve—ensuring no one quits on themselves because of silence.