I Love This Picture

A great 'Fall Golf" shot: Hole Lakes #1 at Victoria Park Valley, taken with my humble phone. If we could only have days like this all October, we'd be very happy! Click on the pic to enlarge it.

My Yearly Treat

Every year, usually on the first Monday of October, we enter a team into the Hulbert Memorial, an Ontario PGA event. It's a real treat for me because we get to play some fabulous courses, and this year the tournament was held at Thornhill Golf and Country Club. This wonderful Stanley Thompson-designed golf course - my first time there - is celebrating its 90th birthday this year. Fortunately the weather was great, sunny and mild most of the day. And needless to say, it was fun to play this challenging and very scenic golf course. Here's a view of the first hole, taken with my modest phone camera:

It was fitting for Thornhill to host this event during its anniversary year, because Arthur Hulbert was its head professional during the early part of the 1940s. Mr. Hulbert passed away suddenly in 1945, and left his family with little means; and so the area golf pros held a benefit tournament to raise funds for the Hulbert family. The event continued, and now the Hulbert Fund benefits Ontario PGA pros who are in need of emergency support.

Ryder Cup All Around

Is it just me, or does the hubbub surrounding the Ryder Cup match seem a little more intense this year? Sure, the Rory/Tiger thing is good for some buzz, and Snedeker is in fine form - or has been, anyways.
Here's a great article from Bleacher Report, as well as some great pics, leading into today's match: Bleacher Golf - Ryder Cup

                                Here's Team Europe

I don't usually hear this much excitement about a match, outside of The Masters. And we'll take it!

The "August Shuffle"

It was quite a week here at Victoria Park East.

Usually, we aerate our green during the Monday and Tuesday of the last week of August; but this year, David DeCorso engineered what I would like to call a "surgical strike" of aerating - with all his staff on board and some help from a local company, he managed to aerate all the greens, fairways, and tees in a 3-day period! Talk about cracking the whip! So the inconvenience to golfers is minimized. In the past, fairways would have been done some time in September, and tees after that. The aerating bonanza moves over to our new Victoria Park Valley on September 4th. Here's one of the crew (actually that's my son Alex), cleaning up around the freshly-aerated 1st tee.

This is also the last day of our successful string of Junior Camps. Gordon Crossman can now relax a bit, and get ready for his fall lesson schedule (it's never too late in the season for golf lessons!).

Also at this time of year, some of our staff head back to college or university, and so it becomes a bit of a challenge for us to maintain a balanced schedule. September is our second-busiest month for tournaments and events; but the shorter days can work in our favour, in terms of staffing all of our departments.

And of course, the 2012 PGA Tour calendar is almost on its last page, with 3 more playoff events and 6 more tournaments to round out the year. Saskatchewan's Graham Delaet's exciting finish at last weeks' Barclay's vaulted him, like, 60 spots up the FedEx Cup standings, so that was great to see. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for him to have a great finish this season.

                                                      Graham Delaet

2012 Club Championships!

On the Civic  holiday long-weekend of Saturday August 4 to Monday August 6, Victoria Park East held its annual Club Championships. We had a great turn-out this year with the most people in attendance ever! With members bringing their spouses and children, it was a great weekend overall! The weather couldn't have been better for our players as we had a hot one on the Saturday and bringing the tournament to an end on the Monday with a tad cooler temperatures. A big thank-you goes out to all those who participated in the tournament and to our sponsors Wally Escott and Sandy Ferguson of Speedpro Imaging.  Congratulations to this years Club Champion, Dennis Back and Ladies Club Champion, Lori Bishenden!  Looking forward to next year!

25th Anniversary of the Guelph Wish Fund

On Saturday July 14, Victoria Park East hosted the 25th annual Guelph Wish Fund for Children Golf Tournament. It's great to be involved in this event, and 25 years is an excellent run.
What started as a "Club Challenge" among a few service clubs in the Guelph area, soon became a full-on tournament with a dance afterwards. Now it's one of two major fundraising events for the Wish Fund, the other being the Dinner & Dance Gala in February.
Here's my post last year, about the event and Ron Asselstine's well-deserved retirement from the committee:
http://victoriaparkgolf.blogspot.ca/2011/07/fun-games-whole-lot-more.html

Below is a picture of Christine and Barry Scutt, winners of the Alan Ferris Memorial Award and golf committee members since day one.

Congratulations Christine and Barry, and thanks to all who participated.

A Four-Year Wait

Golf will return to the Olympic Games in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, after a 112-year absence. So I guess another 4 years of waiting isn't so bad.
Interestingly, the 1904 gold medal winner in mens' individual play was a Canadian, George S. Lyon; but in team play it was a sweep for the U.S. team.
Needless to say, golf's inclusion in the 2016 (and also committed in the 2020 games) is huge for the sport. The global exposure to all age levels will be significant, and we anticipate that interest in golf among young people will surge - similar to what we saw during the crest of Tiger Woods' career.

Here's a photo of the venerable Mr. Lyon "back in the day".