John Concannon, Publicity
For whatever the reason, and in spite of repeated statements to the contrary, the renovation project for the Ironwood golf course is underway amid concerns on the part of several members that the renovation is for purpose of course beautification. This is incorrect. The primary purpose for the renovation is to install a new, improved, more reliable and efficient irrigation system. A limited number of other improvements, including removal, resizing and relocating of several bunkers, the replacement of some grass areas with granite (gravel), and leveling and moving of a couple of tee boxes are included in the plan. Beautification of the course is not a goal of the plan, but, may be a by-product of it.
Congratulations to Jack Lehmkuhl and Ed Cauffman on their holes-in-one during a recent play day. While the Ironwood course yielded only one Ace during all of 2015, three have been scored so far this year.
The three month trial of a new tee box policy is complete. The few comments that were received were positive in nature. As a result the Board of Directors has voted to make the policy a permanent one and it is now in effect.
It is hard to believe that our season is almost half over. It is not too early to ask members to consider doing more than signing up each week for a guaranteed tee time and to consider volunteering to serve in some capacity on the board of directors or on one of the committees that support the league and make it an enjoyable experience for the members. You can contact me (my phone number and email address is in the directory) or any member of the board for that matter.
Recently, one of the headlines on the internet’s Yahoo stories of the day was, “The cancer of slow play at the professional level.” The article goes on to talk about a policy of fines levied on pros for slow play in the U.S. and the European PGA policy of penalty strokes assessed for slow play on individual players. The article brings out the fact that slow play is a problem at all levels of the sport. IMGA obviously does not have, nor should it have, similar remedies for slow play and there doesn’t seem to be a generally acceptable solution to the problem of slow play as our problem is more directly related to physical injuries/disabilities, or in some cases just plain old age. Hopefully, a heightened awareness of overall pace of play on the part of all golfers and an increased patience and understanding toward individual players will help the situation. Maybe attitude is the answer!