A Wisconsin golf course offered special rates to golfers who made tee times for Wednesday, the 12th anniversary of the September 11th attack. Tumbledown Trails put a coupon in the Wisconsin State Journal that advertised a $9.11 rate for 9 holes and a $19.11 rate for the full 18.

There was a quick Internet backlash to the advertisement, most of which focused on the course’s use of a tragedy to make money. Tumbledown Trails swiftly canceled the promotion and apologized via its Facebook page.

We would first like to apologize to everyone that we have upset or feels we have disrespected in anyway. By no means did we mean to do this. Here is what we will do this Wednesday 9-11: We will still let all that have tee times booked play for the previous rates we posted. Then for all other golf that day we would like to donate the $ difference between our normal rate and the previous price for the day to the 9/11 Memorial. We hope that everyone will now see this as a positive as we really meant it to be. Again we do sincerely apologize for offending anyone & hope that you do accept our sincere apology. Thank you.

That should have been that. The golf course realized its advertisement was tacky and offensive, then made a sincere apology. It was a miscalculation and nothing more. But after the advertisement went viral, the Internet wackos came out, making death threats to the manager and threatening to burn down the clubhouse at the family-owned course. That led to this message, posted late Monday night.

Please stay tuned to see if we will be open on Weds 9/11. We are now worried about what people will do/say to our staff & do not want anything to happen or get out of control. Sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused anyone.

This is the third year the golf course has offered a 9/11 promotion, but the first year anyone complained about it.