9/8/2020
At this time, tee equity and safety are the areas of focus for the committee. We have already seen at Mad River that many of our golfers who drive the ball less than 140 – 150 yards are benefitting from our new yellow tees and enjoying their game more. As these tees are formalized, we feel that even more golfers will choose to move forward. The committee will be working with Carrick to ensure that we provide the variety and choice of tees to support the game best suited to our members. An excellent article
“Setting up Courses for Success” about tee placement is available on our web site under Golf Course and another through this link, by Lorne Rubenstein written for
Score magazine Article.
Safety is always a concern and we do have situations around the course that need to be addressed. Some require that we wait for the resolution of the land transfer and re-zoning before finalizing recommendations. However, hole # 12 is a situation that needs to be addressed. Happily, we are seeing more young members and guests as well as some of our long-time members capable of hitting a longer ball. Like the rest of us these are not always straight. The alignment of the fairway and placement of the bunkers on #12 sometimes places the bag drop and practice tee areas in the line of fire especially from the Blue and Green tees. We have asked Carrick for suggestions as to how we can mitigate this situation and once received and reviewed by the committee we will bring a recommendation to the membership before any changes are made.
We enjoy a course that is presented to us in terrific condition, so it is difficult to imagine that some of our trees may be causing issues. As the club has aged some of the trees have become overgrown, often blocking sunlight and long views of the course. Chad and his crew are increasingly challenged to maintain the conditions to which we have grown accustomed. We have some agronomic and playability situations that will require some tree removal. This is not taken lightly but, is necessary for the long-term health of our course. One thing to keep in mind is that for every tree taken down, another is exposed. We saw on #17 that a small change along the left side of the hole had a dramatic effect on the sight lines and the playability of the hole.
Grounds Chair,
Bob Cook