PROVIDENCE — The calls come in periodically to Sgt. Michael P. Wheeler, head of the Providence police Gang Intervention Unit. Usually, it’s the mayor’s office or the police chief, asking him to show a visiting dignitary or official the mean streets of the West End or Smith Hill, known breeding grounds for gang violence.

But a call last year caught Wheeler off guard: Brad Faxon wanted to spend a night shift in the city’s worst neighborhoods.

“Is there a different Brad Faxon, or is this Brad Faxon the golfer?” Wheeler asked. It was Brad Faxon the golfer, arguably the state’s most famous professional athlete. Wheeler was surprised that someone who has earned nearly $18 million on the Professional Golfers Association tour was interested in the lives of the Hanover Boyz, Young Bloods, Oriental Rascals and other street gangs engaged in drive-by shootings and other criminal activity across the city.

Faxon met Wheeler at Providence police headquarters. He figured the golfer would spend a few hours with him and head back home to Barrington where he lives in a multimillion-dollar house with a sweeping lawn that overlooks Narragansett Bay.

“You can see as much as you want, or as little as you want,” Wheeler told his celebrity visitor. “It’s up to you.”

Faxon wanted to see it all and he was in no hurry to cut the night short.

Brad Faxon, 47, has led a charmed life as a professional golfer. He has walked with kings and played the world’s most majestic golf courses — Augusta National, Pebble Beach, as well as tournament-level courses in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, Germany and France. But Faxon has never forgotten the less fortunate. For years, he has been involved in two philanthropic organizations — the CVS/Caremark Charity Golf Classic and the Andrade/ Faxon Foundation — that have pumped about $20 million into charitable causes. Andrade, is Billy Andrade, a professional golfer from Bristol and Faxon’s close friend.

A year or two ago, Faxon and his wife, Dory, attended a graduation ceremony for Year Up, an intensive training program that provides struggling young adults from the city with skills, college credits and corporate internships.

At the ceremony, Providence Police Chief Dean M. Esserman talked about “burying too many of our children.” The words struck a chord with the Faxons. They met Teny O. Gross, executive director of the Institute for the Study & Practice of Nonviolence, who also attended the graduation. Faxon was interested in the institute and its mission to combat gang violence.

He had several conversations with Gross and met the institute’s streetworkers, many of whom are ex-gang members who have spent time in prison for murder and other serious felonies. He also spent time reviewing “Gangs of Providence,” a multimedia presentation that The Journal produced early last year.

Gangs flourish in Providence, which is tied with New Orleans as the third-poorest city in America for children under the age of 18. Only Brownsville, Texas, and Hartford, Conn., are worse off.

Faxon’s interest grew and he arranged to spend the second shift — 3 to 11 p.m. — with Wheeler on patrol.

It was an eye-opening experience. Faxon said the first thing that struck him was the police presence outside a middle school — he can’t remember which one — in a tough neighborhood. It was a chaotic mid-afternoon scene with a palpable sense of danger.

A few hours later, Wheeler stopped a car with two members from Laos Pride, a Laotian gang that is based on Smith Hill. The men had a shoe box with $20,000 in cash and they told Wheeler that they were carrying the money “because they didn’t trust the banks.”

Wheeler told Faxon that many Asians feel the same way about the banking system, but it also makes them targets of armed home invasions.

Faxon, who has four daughters, said he was struck by how many children, many under 10 years old, are roaming city streets after dark.

“I was almost in a place that could have been Vietnam,” he said. “That blew me away.”

Faxon said they also dropped by New York Systems in Olneyville and had wieners. He said a “beautiful girl,” about 16 years old, pushed her infant inside in a baby carriage. The mother was hungry and didn’t have enough money for food. Wheeler, who knew the teen, reached into his pocket and helped cover the tab.

Faxon wondered: How will this young girl and baby survive? Who is the father? Where do they live? Will she bounce from boyfriend to boyfriend every three months? “It breaks your heart,” he said.

Faxon, who was not recognized on the street, returned home around midnight, deeply moved by the experience.

“Am I living in the real world, or are they living in the real world?” he thought to himself. “What is the real world?”

Faxon and his representatives don’t like to talk about money and how much he has personally contributed to the fight against gang violence, but the Andrade/Faxon foundation made an initial donation of $20,000 to the Institute for the Study & Practice of Nonviolence.

Gross, the head of the institute, said that Faxon calls him periodically and asks him questions about the gangs or what he can do to help the city’s struggling youth. He said that he’s impressed that someone of Faxon’s stature and financial means has expressed an interest in a world so far removed from his own. This was a guy whose interest went beyond writing a check.

“He’s a very thoughtful person,” Gross said. “He is educating himself about another part of America that really needs help. I don’t push him and I kind of leave it up to him where it leads.”

Faxon wants to learn more and make more of a difference. He said that he will recruit the other pro golfers from the state, names like Andrade, Brett Quigley, Dana Quigley, Patrick Sheehan and Brad Adamonis, to get them involved in the effort.

“I’m going to go out there and make them do it,” he said. “We were born with silver spoons in our mouths. I can see this getting to be more and more of a priority as life goes on.”

He said that he’s also going to try to convince Tom Ryan, chief executive officer of CVS Caremark, the nation’s largest drugstore chain; and Paul Salem, co-founder and senior managing director of Providence Equity Partners, to get involved and join Wheeler’s gang unit for a tour of the city.

Salem and Faxon are neighbors in Barrington.

He also plans on recruiting several New England Patriots players at a fundraiser in a couple of weeks.

“I’m trying to get all my feelers out there,” Faxon said. “You can’t explain this to someone without getting them to see it themselves.”

bmalinow@projo.com