While We're Young

Monday, June 24, 2013

My last post, 'The Beginning of Summer' was written the day before my second son was born.  William Crawford 'Ford' Booth was born on June 6 at 2:21 p.m.  He was 23 inches long and 9 lb. 13 oz.  My wife Erin and the baby are both doing well.  Needless to say, it has been a busy couple of weeks around the shop.  Men's member guest, the RGA City Championship, and 6.5 inches of rain have all come and gone since Ford came into this world.  The golf course has held up beautifully and obviously our team has put in long hard hours for everything to run smoothly.  Thank you to our staff and management team for the hard work.  The golf course is drying down nicely and we look forward to normal summer maintenance for the next few months.  The drainage work this winter has paid great dividends and the greens have performed very well thanks to the DryJect and Drill and Fill work.  We have been very aggressive, as always, with venting and preventative fungicide applications during these hot, wet periods. 

My two sons, Jack and Ford (yawning)  He wouldn't yawn if he slept more.  This too shall pass....I hope.

When raising children, you always think about activities that you hope they participate in.  I know that I want my children to play golf for all of the good reasons; competition, discipline, honesty, humility, and above all Fun.  In order for all of our future generations to enjoy this great game, we need to continue to grow it.  I am excited about what the golf professionals here at the club are doing to grow this game through summer camps, junior leagues, clinics and lessons.  We all need to commend Richard White, our Director of Golf, who has developed this program in conjunction with the Golf Committee for helping to grow the game.

The USGA, PGA tour, GCSAA, CMAA and other entities have really been vocal this month about improving the pace of play and in turn growing the game.  I encourage you to try some of the advice from the USGA's website and enjoy the game.  Sign the pledge, speed up your play and in turn, play more golf.  Play 9, 12 or 18 holes.  Our course actually sets up great for that.  I for one, love to Tee it Forward and play a comfortable distance.  Trust me, it doesn't allow me to set course records, but it does speed up play and makes the game much more fun.  If you ever want to shoot par from the championship tees, you sure better be able to do it from the 6300 yard tees first.  One great way to improve pace of play is to improve your game and play ready golf.  To improve your game, ask Richard, Ryan, or Patrick in the Pro Shop about a lesson.  I think you will be very happy you did.  One key element of pace of play is golf course setup.  We try and make the course as playable as possible and believe it or not, we try and keep the golf carts 90 degrees whenever conditions allow.  So please, pledge to speed up the pace of play, have fun, and help us all to grow this great game.  Now.  While We're Young.

Have a great week,
Jordan Booth
jbooth@willowoakscc.org