In spite of the weather our golf season is off to a great start. Thanks to the many members who participated in Project Day and answered the call for special work days. I believe this to be the most successful Project Day ever in the sheer volume of what was accomplished. I would be remiss if I did not recognize and thank the Skidmore Golf Team and the Ballston Spa HS students for all their hard work and assistance. Many hands certainly lessens the load for all of us.

I would like to welcome the following new members to the BSCC family. 

 

We still have room for new members. I believe that the current members are our greatest source for generating the new members we require to continue to grow. If you are happy with the condition of the course, with the member tournaments, with the BSCC leagues, with the pace of play, and with the number of reciprocal courses to name a few then let your friends and acquaintances know why you are a member and invite them to join. Refer to the New Membership Packet link on our home page. Be sure they list your name so you get credit under the Member Recruitment Program. 

Mark Your Calendar

Stockholders Meeting

June 13th at 7:00 PM

There will be a Stockholders Meeting on 13 June at 7:00 PM. Purpose of the meeting is to discuss and vote on the proposed Capitol Improvement Project. Further details can be found in the Greens section of the newsletter and on the website. If you have not received the formal notification in the mail by June 1st please contact the Business Office.
      
The club calendar on our website has been updated with all known activities.Things change quickly so be sure to check back often. We are again offering the popular discounted guest passes. Passes are $35 and include a cart and may be purchased from June 13 thru June 19 inclusive. Passes are good for play during the 2016 season. See the pro shop to get yours. 

I look forward to seeing you on the course.
 
Paul

I have included our end of April Financial report in this month’s Fox write-up. There are a few things that I would like to highlight to you. First, you will notice a significant decrease in our projected cash position from where we started the year. Our goal for the remainder of the year will be to increase that number. The expense side of the report includes all of our projected onetime expenses (A/C upgrade and repair, bunker on #8, roof repairs to fix significant leak). If we can stick to our normal costs for the remainder of the year and avoid any additional unexpected costs, we can accommodate the remainder of the year. On the revenue side, we fully expect to exceed our cart fee and greens fee revenue projection of $230K. Again, if we can hit all of our targeted revenue numbers for the remainder of the year, we know we will exceed that number by $16K because that is how much we have already exceeded our revenue from our Corporate Pass Holder program (that revenue is counted in the greens fee number). In 2015, we had $27K in revenue and this year we are already at $43K. While I understand that my two assumption above are challenging, if we do, our cash position should be around $33K which would still be excellent considering all of the improvements we have made to our golf course and clubhouse.

All of the renovations are complete and just this week the new A/C units have been installed, the electrical work completed and a new air handling unit in the attic installed. The A/C has been turned on, the vents repaired and everything has been checked out. We should have a very cool summer in our clubhouse this year during those hot and muggy days. I would like to publicly thank Darryl Monast for his work and that of his staff. In addition to new equipment, there were a lot of legacy problems that they also fixed. Darryl gave the club incredible pricing on all of the equipment and on his labor costs and he made it possible for us to get all of the A/C taken care of at once. So if you see Darryl and are enjoying a cool clubhouse, pass along your thanks.

I hope everyone saw the payments terms that are now included at the bottom of your monthly bills. If not, go back and take a look at your bill.

I hope everyone is enjoying the renovated clubhouse and based on the table below, we  the membership are certainly supporting our new vendor. I can only speculate that the environment is more inviting and a place we want to spend time in and the food and beverage are meeting our expectations.  I will update the table each month so you can see how things are going.

Greetings Members. As you read this latest Fox, you have no doubt been enjoying all the club has to offer.  As you can see by the attached report there are several new members, so please introduce yourself and make everyone feel welcome.

You can also get to know the new members by reading the new member profiles on the website: http://www.ballstonspacc.com/new-members. These members have been interviewed by our own member, Joyce Bassett.

While you are on the website, please take a moment to update your own contact information.  You can update your email, phone number address, and see your GHIN number.

Finally, as you may have noticed, we have several tee signs that have Business Sponsors.  However, there are many that are available.     If you are interested or know anyone who is interested in sponsoring a tee sign, please see Laura in the Business Office.

 

See you on the greens,

Cindy Walkanowski
Membership Chair

    As we make are way into May, the course is really shaping up very nicely. I have heard a lot of nice comments about the shape the course is in so early in the year.  The greens were aerified a few weeks ago and the holes are almost filled in.  Having an early opening with warmer temperature gives us the opportunity to aerify earlier.  It is nice to have that whole process behind us.  We now have lots of sand in our greens and good roots growing down the aerification holes.  Having greens in this good of shape should set us up good for whatever Mother Nature throws at us this season. Thanks for your patience and understanding during this very important cultural practice.

    We have been quite busy working on the 8th hole these past few weeks.  The bunker was first shaped in and the entire area was raked and smoothed to get ready for sod.  Drainage was then installed to help the area dry up after heavy rains.  A truck load of sod was delivered on project day and with lot of help from some volunteers, the sod was laid around the bunker.  The bunker liner was also installed the same day with help from volunteers.  The following day we started hauling in the sand.  It took a couple days but all the sand is in and the bunker is done.  We are now working on the surrounding areas and the new cart path that we have to install.  I’m hoping to have the entire area done in the next few weeks.  Thank you volunteers for all of your help.  I could not have gotten that much work done that fast without you.  Thank you.

    The bunker was not the only project that was being worked on on project day. The flower beds were edged and mulched.  Thank you to all who helped with that project. The outside restrooms were also painted.  Thank you to all of those people as well. The buildings look amazing.
 

                 

We are off to a great start to of the 2016 golf season.  Project day was a great success, we accomplished sodding the eight hole, staining the bathrooms on the course and the routine spring cleanup that was needed. All of this was done without a disturbance to play. I would like to thank all of those who helped make project day a huge success.

The eight hole is near completion and it's time to address the bunker renovation project that was discussed at the winter membership meeting.  In accordance with the bylaws we are seeking stockholder approval in order to move forward.  The total cost of the project is approximately $100,000. This is a multi-year project with a goal of completion within 5 years. A stockholders meeting will be held June 13th at 7PM to vote on this proposal.  

Details on the project are available on the website or someone form the greens committee can get you the information. 

The project has a five year timeframe and was designed based on member feedback about the bunkers on the course.  The bunker project will address the concerns voiced by the membership regarding their condition.

The project will be funded by an annual fee over the next five years that will be dedicated to this specific project. More details will be provided at the meeting.

A detailed hole by hole cost was presented at the December meeting and can be found on the BSCC website by going to the members section/Member Resources/December 2015 Membership Meeting.  

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS


Q.     When will work be done?

A.    Work will be done in fall based on weather and fall scheduling.

Q.     How will bunkers be chosen?

A.     The bunkers to be renovated each year will be based on need, available resources along with input from the course superintendent and the greens committee.

Q.     Will the hole be closed during the renovation?

A.     Yes, a temporary green will be in place during the work. The goal is to cause as little disruption to play as possible. 

Q.    Will the membership be notified of which bunkers will be renovated?

A.    Yes, once the project for the year and timeline has been established the greens committee will notify the membership.  

Please attend the meeting for more information. We look forward to your support of this project.


Mike

GHIN App Update

Evidently the beginning of the season brought an unprecedented use of both the Apple and Android versions of the application, and this caused enough strain on the core GHIN databases where the decision was made, without our knowledge, to disconnect the link between the GHIN service and the mobile app for all users nationwide.  This also affected those of you using the GHIN Posting KIOSK, as many of you noticed these past 2 weekends the system went into "cache" mode where scores are saved and uploaded to the servers in bulk instead of in real time.  This was also done to reduce the strain on the GHIN servers.

Unfortunately, we were also not told of the severity of the problem and I wrongly assumed that the app would be fixed in a couple of days, which is why I did not send an email out to you all sooner.

Members can be assured that all of their scoring data is intact and they can continue to post at their club or online at GHIN.com until these problems are resolved.

I apologize for the disruption in services over the past 11 days and hopefully these issues will be reconciled early next week.  This failure is unacceptable and I apologize to all of your members who have been frustrated with the failure of a relatively simple application to do its job.

Sincerely,

Bill Moore
Executive Director, NYSGA


Member/Member Event

This year we have something new and exciting for the event.  We have a sponsor for the event.   One of our Corporate members, Luis Pabon and BMW of South Albany,  have put together a package for you this year that includes Under Armour Shirts and Hats with the BMW Logo on them for all players.  In addition to this, they will be sponsoring the Lunch on Day 2 for all of the players.  Along with the Tee Gifts, there will be an opportunity to win a 2 year lease for a BMW X1 for a hole in one on #6.  As well as a special prize for the overall net winning score for Day 2 for both Men and Women.  The  18 hole better ball of partners NET Score winner will move on to the BMW Golf Cup finals in Pinehurst.  This will surely be a great event added to our schedule. The finals will be an individual Net event.  I would like to thank Luis and BMW of South Albany for their generous sponsorship.


Member/Guest Event

It’s quite hard to believe that we are discussing the Men’s Member Guest Event already seeing that the season just seems to have gotten underway.  But, it is not too far away. Begin to look for your partner early to secure a spot in the event for the 2016 Season. More details and information to follow.

Hopefully most of our members are back from points south, and have had a chance to see the new renovations to the clubhouse. Henry's on the Green opened in mid April and held an open house on the 22nd. It was very well attended and great to see every bit of the clubhouse being used. I think a great time was had by all who attended. This is their first venture as Golf Club vendor, so please be patient as I'm sure they still have a few kinks to be worked out. I think most of you will agree that they are a nice addition to our club. They have been scheduling live entertainment for most Friday's, so be sure to stop in and enjoy the music. If you have any comments or recommendations, please forward them to me as we want to make this a great year at the club.

Following is a list of some upcoming events:

Friday May 20th
5:30pm Margarita Tasting Golf Event
8:30 - 11:30 pm Gravity with Justin Joyner in clubhouse

Sunday May 29th
4pm – 9pm Bruce Springsteen Tribute with musicians Jeff Brisbin and Marcus Rugiero

Steve has been Ballston Spa Country Club's Superintendent since 2005 and it was time to sit down, have a chat, get to know more about him and remind ourselves we have the best course superinten- dent in the region.

Tell me about your upbringing, education and the road you took to BSCC.

Well, I was born in Elmira New York and raised on the family farm in Bradford New York in the Finger Lakes area. It's a beef farm and my grandfather has the adjacent farm, so between them there's about 500 acres. I have one sister, Rachel, who is four years younger than me.

And you are?

I'm going to be 36 on the 23rd of this month. I attended Bradford High and worked for a couple of summers at Lakeside Country Club, a really neat semi private course overlooking Keuka Lake, very similar to BSCC. I loved working there. It's located in the village of Penn Yan, which is short for Penn- sylvania/Yankee and has a population of about 5,000.

I went to SUNY Cobleskill for a 4 year BS degree in turf management. Part of the BS program at SUNY requires you to do a semester of internship. I was thinking about Corning - a pretty good course, they have an LPGA event there - but my advi- sor, Bob Evans, the guy responsible for Cobleskill's great reputation for turf man- agement, pushed me to think higher and mentioned I should consider Bethpage. A former student of his, Craig Currier was superintendent there and because he was preparing for the 2002 US Open, needed lots of experienced help.

Nice start to the résumé. You ended up working for Craig after you graduated in December 2001.

It was the perfect time to start there. There had been no snow that winter, which was great because there was so much to do before the 2002 Open in June. They were expecting record crowds, a record number of corporate tents and they knew at that point they'd probably be hosting the Open again in the near future (2009), so a lot of things like electrical lines and score boards were permanently installed.

And you eventually moved up to become responsible for the Black Course, the US Open course.

I was fortunate because most of the supers for the 5 Bethpage courses were offered great jobs at other courses after the Open and some took their assistants with them, so Craig asked me to take over Black. He knew I had the upstate farm work ethic, like himself and he'd taught me so much while I was there.

But you left in 2005.

It didn't take long to figure out I could never afford a house in the area. A friend of mine bought a small house to rent out and paid $450,000 for it. A state park worker is doing well to make $40- 50,000 a year, and life was so hectic and expensive on Long Island.

You met your wife Annie there.

Annie worked at an outdoor environmental school at BOCES in Caumsett State Historic Park - she taught kids who would come in on field trips to learn about environmental issues. Her family owned a house in the park, so that's where she grew up. The state gave interns free housing and I lived with two other interns in a dormitory right next to her school, so that's how we met.

Why did you choose BSCC?

Todd Manderson grew up with Craig Cur- rier, or went to school with him near Cedar Lake. He'd been asking Craig about any possible superintendents he might know of, and Craig mentioned my name.

What was your first impression of BSCC?

I interviewed some time before Christmas 2004 and the course was covered with snow, but I was impressed with the bunkering and mounding around the 8th and 9th . The pictures I'd seen and the description I'd heard from Todd were pretty nice. The shop was very good as well and the equip- ment was in decent shape.
Any initial challenges emerge once you got out on the course?
Oh, yeah. I mean the trees - the course was in tough shape because of all the trees. We had a lot of cleanup to do - they must not have done much cleanup the fall before. I have to get the cleanup done as early as possible in the new year. I can't wait around for Project Day. I mean, I just can't stand it.

It was quite a change for the club.

It's best to clean out the trees early and if you get rid of the excess and dead trees, when a storm comes through we hardly get any damage anymore.

How many trees do you figure you've taken down?

I’ve only taken down about 100 trees a year, so over a thousand at this point. Oakmont, site of this year’s US Open, took down 5,000 in one year a few years back.
         

What is the most important thing you've learned about our course?

You can never aerify enough. When I began here we aerified once a year and then for some rea- son we didn't aerify for 2 or 3 years - I can't remember why we stopped. Those non-aerified years correlated to some of the toughest conditions we’ve had on the course because we didn't have any roots on the greens. We have a great root system now and I've learned that pushup clay greens can't be aerified enough. The more they're aerified the better they'll survive harsh winters and drought conditions because of their deep root system. They also recover faster from aerifica- tion. When I first came here, ball marks were deep and just black soil, terrible drainage. Since I've been here we've probably raised the height of the greens by two inches.

Can they be too firm?

You'll never get to all-sand greens because there's always going to be root decay and other or- ganic matter. Most PGA courses are 90% sand. Our greens have a long way to go to get to 90% sand. We're doing exactly what the USGA told us to do.
What's your biggest challenge at BSCC?
The biggest challenge is we have such a high population of Poa Annua. It's a grass that only works in perfect conditions.

It's very invasive.

Yeah, you get to this time of year and bare spots are just going to be taken over by Poa.

What are you looking forward to?

I'm hoping the bunker project is approved in June so we can get all the bunkers done the right way, like we did the new one on #8, with liners and drainage. In the long run this saves us money and gives us superior playing conditions. Our tees need work as well. So many are uneven and most of them are small, which means more work for the crew. You can't effectively rider mow small tees and they get beat up faster because of the limited space.
It would be great if we could organize a late May divot filling party, maybe serve pizza and get all the divots filled. Bob Miskanin, Mike Zegarelli and some other members are really good at doing this but we need a full scale effort. That would be great.

Rakes in or out of the bunkers?

Ideally, we like them with the handle end of the rake sticking out, so the members don't have to bend over or go into the bunkers to get them. Mowing is not a problem either.

Were you ever a golfer?

Yes, shot around 90. But I haven't golfed since I started working.

Have you ever taken a vacation?

Not since our honeymoon, several years ago. I have so much to do, I love having projects and right now with Michael being only two, it's difficult anyway.

Are you happy at BSCC?

Yes. We've got green covers, good roots, lots of sunshine and air movement and a great crew. I'm happy.