Golf Course In a Day

Course architect Bob Gettis, left, and head groundskeeper Steve Pace display the 100-year-old Wilson wood shaft golf club and vintage ball that were the grand drawing prize at the opening of the Turkey Trot GC.

The inaugural event of the Turkey Trot GC took place Saturday, Aug. 8 on The Chalet Hill.

Mason Pace “sinks” his putt on the practice “green.”

By Bob Gettis

My wife and I live in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania now and I have been playing golf for over 50 years. This year I have been playing in a Monday league at the Pocono Manor Golf Course, which was designed by Donald Ross. It was Art Wall’s home course and in 1959, Art won the Masters Championship. He may be best known, however, for having 40+ holes in one! His son, Greg Wall, is now the Head Professional. Like most golf courses, Pocono Manor has some unusual holes. The 7th is a 77 yard Par 3 shot from a cliff-top to a creekside green, and the 3rd is a 120 yard blind tee shot you send over a fairway marker to a green below. Pocono Manor is the only course that I can recall playing on with a Par 3 where you can’t see both the pin and green from the tee. The Poconos provide for some interesting challenges in golf course building, and the most significant may be the fact that our area is mostly rock just below the surface. Also, golf courses normally close from October to March when the focus changes from golf to skiing.

So, on 7/20/20 I got a call from a member of the 2020 Locust Lake Village Recreation Committee to discuss adding some more golf to the Village. Why me? For several years I have set up an Ice Golf event in our Village on Pines Lake. It is now scheduled for Super Bowl Saturday every year in February and it is a combination of 9 holes on the beach and the frozen lake. I’ve done a presentation to the local community on the history of golf and people know I collect golf memorabilia. I think that is why I got the call. We talked about different areas around our Village including the ski slope and when that was mentioned, I thought that would be perfect!

So what do you need to build a golf course in a day? You need the space, lawn mower, grass trimmer, makeshift cups (I cut Gatorade 32 oz bottles and used both halves), pin flags (I use pin flags that we have for golf carts/ATVs), pool noodles, a hacksaw to cut the noodles, a hand garden shovel, hammer, chisel, and a punch for making a hole for the pins and putting holes in the bottom of the Gatorade bottles for drainage, and bucket of beach sand. I used about 500 yards of the ski lift to layout the course. There is a 3-hole practice putting green, plus 5 holes go up the slope and 4 more come back down to complete the 9. It took me 9 hours to layout the course, mow the greens twice, dig the holes, position and level the cups with soil and sand, and set the pin flags. I have since added a few touches that complete the course, including log style tee markers, above-cup noodle inserts so that when a player hits the above-ground-cup noodle, they have completed the hole, making for a more playable and Covid compliant experience. I also designed a scorecard for the Par 29 nine-hole course and built a Turkey Trot Golf Course sign.

For the inaugural August 8 event I added a target golf hole, so that participants could win a prize if they got one of their 2 shots inside the circle, We had some accomplished players and some first timers that day. So far, maintenance has been limited to cutting the greens once a week and foot tamping some sand around the cups. That takes less than one hour! Our Maintenance staff will mow the course every couple of weeks which at this time of the year is plenty. Be it ever so humble it still is a fun layout to play and the plan is to have the course be open daily. Future plans include having a hickory event where players can borrow a hickory shaft chipping club and putter/ clubs used 100+ years ago. And of “course” we will have a special Turkey themed event around Thanksgiving. Questions can be e-mailed toBob Gettis at rbgettis@comcast.net

Bob Gettis in the Golf Club door

Longtime LLVer Ike Wade begins his swing in good form at the first tee.

Ike Wade, left, and Randall Mauger make history at Turkey Trot’s first hole as the official first twosome to play at the course.

Rayelin Henry keeps her eye on the ball as she tees off for the first hole.

Tom Travis