The Great Moe Norman

I got an email from one of our members, with a link to a wonderful little documentary video about the late Moe Norman.

Most Canadian golfers (of an age!) will have heard about Moe, his exploits on the golf course, his unusual but highly consistent ball-striking, and his rather eccentric personality.

We also have a family connection to Moe: my brother Paul's wife Sandy is Moe's niece. Her mother is Moe's twin sister.

Here's the link to the video, please feel free to pass it along:

http://bit.ly/fbA5Vo

Goodbye, 2010 Season

I couldn't resist. One of our members emailed me this comic. Of course, it's a bit of an exaggeration, but I'm often surprised at the number of golfers that play in horrible conditions. And that's OK, God bless 'em!
For example, yesterday was our final day of golf here at Victoria Park East, and we had between 30 and 40 players. The weather was actually great in the morning, but just before noon a cold north wind picked up and it was brutal (I made the comment that "it's so windy, you can start at our course and finish at another one!")

What The...

And can anybody tell me how to get rid of those annoying "hover" ads that have suddenly appeared, on certain key words in my posts? I can't seem to find a setting anywhere (but I'll keep looking). I certainly wasn't aware that this would happen.

Looks Like It's It's Almost Time

It's Sunday morning, November 21st, and I'm watching a few flakes of snow hit the ground. So we'll probably pull the pins on the 2010 season this week, as the long-range forecast calls for colder weather and some snow.
I've been, well, somewhat lax in posting on my blog. Not because I didn't want to - there's lots to post about - but because time flies. So often, I've sat down to post, and got interrupted, and never got back to it. Excuses, excuses... time to look ahead.
Some interesting points I'll cover in the next few days:

-Q-School 2nd stage is on, and my cousin Bryan DeCorso is playing in it. Best of luck, Bryan!
-The 2010 golf season had it's highs and lows: the tournament business rebounded modestly, but public play stayed fairly flat. I've talked to a few other golf course owners who've reported the same results
-Looking ahead to the 2011 season, we've decided to offer more membership options in the "Intermediate" category (ages 19-45) to try and entice some more members in this age group
-The HST pissed everybody off, but we didn't experience the hit that we had anticipated
-Our new golf course, Victoria Park Valley, has been put to bed for the winter, and work will resume in the spring. 17 of 27 holes have been seeded.
-I've had some great comments from our members this year, both positive and negative. We like to hear these comments, because we understand that there's always room for improvement. Within reason, we can always make effective change.

Looking forward to posting more in the near future.

New Golf Course Update

Here are 2 pictures taken last week at the new Victoria Park Valley site. In the top picture, I'm standing on (what will be) the parking lot, looking south. The roof you see in the background is a bungalow that we intend to renovate and enlarge into a Pro Shop/Lounge.

The picture on the bottom shows the growing grass! I'm standing beside the A3 green, looking out over the reservoir at the A4 green. That's the pump house on the right.

Lots done, but still lots to do! More to follow...

Eat Your Heart Out!

OK, I just have to gloat a bit here.

Our team won the annual ProAm Scramble here at Victoria Park East yesterday, with an impressive score of 56 - that's 15 under! That's us, from left to right: Pro Paul Westaway, me, Randy Doucette, and my friend and guest for the day, Manoj Prajapat.

Gloat #1, Manoj got an ace on the 11th hole. That automatically got us the one and only Skin.

Gloat #2, my putts were actually dropping. And good putts, too - not kick-ins!

Gloat #3, we all bet on our team, and paid $85 on a $5 share!!!

Gloat #4, did I mention Manoj got a hole-in-one?

Ok, enough gloating...

It was a great day, and always a fun event. Thanks to all the members and area Pros for their participation (and not ribbing me too badly for winning!)

Definition of "Tournament"

I had an interesting discussion with one of our members not long ago, about whether I should be able to apply the word "tournament" to describe his golf day with a bunch of friends.
We've become used to applying this word to any group that books more than 4 tee times, but I do see his point, and we had an interesting back-and-forth (in a friendly was, of course).
Here's Dictionary.com's version of Tournament: "a trial of skill in some game, in which competitors play in a series of contests..." Pretty simplistic.
Anyways, I would ask one question to determine if the word "tournament" could fairly be applied to a group of golfer:
Is score being kept, with intention of determining a winner? If the answer is Yes, then it's a tournament. The come-back argument was: "Well sure we kept score, but we had no prizes, didn't have a dinner... we just golfed, had a beer and went home."
So... where is this going? Well, it got me thinking about how we traditionally market the Tournament concept, and how the times are definitely changing: the days of the "big company" tournament with big numbers and big prize tables are (arguably) waning. Don't get me wrong, they're not totally gone, it just ain't what it used to be. But we have noticed a rise in the smaller, more intimate type of group coming out for a "golf day"; instead of the whole company, it's a particular department.
Our member had a point: don't call it a tournament, call it a fun day on the golf course. And maybe an opportunity just presented itself here...