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As I write this it appears that our unseasonably wet weather has ended and has been replaced by the typical July hot and humid. Steve and his crew have done a remarkable job under very trying conditions keeping the course in excellent shape. Please see his article below for a detailed look at what it takes to provide you the very best playing conditions possible.
We are now entering our “busy season”. Lots of tournaments and outings, both inside and outside. Our course does attract a number of the track visitors during the Saratoga season. I believe a second dark day each week will increase the number of guests. We are at crunch time for the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) Event July 28 to August 1. A very dedicated group of volunteers led by our Treasurer, Rick Funaro, have been working hard to make this a memorable experience for these young golfers. I believe this is a great opportunity for BSCC to showcase our golf course and to continue to do our part in growing the game of golf.
The club calendar on our website has been updated with all known activities. Things change quickly so be sure to check back often. Below are just a couple of important upcoming dates.
14 Jul: Comptroller Al Squire 94th Birthday
20 Jul: Woman’s 18 Hole Member Guest
AJGA Event
28 Jul: AJGA Qualifier 8:00am – 12:30pm (Course Available after 12:30)
29 Jul: AJGA Junior AM and Practice Round (Course Unavailable)
30 Jul: AJGA Round 1- (Course available 1 hr after last tee time)
31 Jul: AJGA Round 2- (Course available 1 hr after last tee time)
1 Aug: AJGA Round 3- (Course available 1 hr after last tee time)
8 Aug: Senior Member Guest
17-18 Aug: Men’s and Woman’s Club Championship
27 Sep: Volunteer Recognition Event
4 Oct – Annual Stockholder Meeting
ANNUAL STOCKHOLDERS MEETING
The date of the Annual Stockholders Meeting has been established as Friday, October 4th, 2019 commencing at 6:00 PM in the clubhouse. Please mark your calendar and plan on attending.
The purpose of the Annual Meeting is to elect two (2) members for the Board of Directors who will be responsible to carry out the important work of operating your golf course. Term of office is three years.
To be eligible to serve as a Director you must have at least three (3) consecutive years of membership and be a Member in good standing. He/She must also own at least one share of stock in the club to be eligible to serve as a member of the Board.
If you are wondering what a position on the Board entails, please reach out to any of the current Board members. We will be glad to share our experiences, successes and maybe some frustrations. It is not too early to consider running for election.
See you on the Course
Paul
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Play a Round of Golf with the Next Jordan Spieth
The idea of a Pro/Am may have originated with Bing Crosby's Invitational at Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club back in 1937, which switched to Pebble Beach in 1947 and became known as the Bing Crosby Clambake, a tournament that is still played today under different sponsorship. Anyone with enough cash/clout can play in this tournament with a current star or also-ran providing they have the connections and the entry fee, which was $25,000 in 2011. Or you could roll the dice and possibly play with a trunk slammer in other tournaments for about $10,000 on Wednesday or half that on Monday.
This is beyond most golfers' budgets, but if you're going to take a chance on playing with a star golfer there's a much more economical way to do it and it will cost you as little as $400. How? By playing a round with a top player in the American Junior Golf Association. For the past few decades many golfers have played with golf superstars like Tiger Woods, Jordan Spieth, Paula Creamer, Justin Thomas Morgan Pressel, Ricky Fowler, Sergio Garcia (all of whom are AJGA alumni), and just about any other golf celebrity you can name for less than the cost of a new driver. As a bonus, the proceeds of your entry fee will benefit the Double H Ranch in Lake Luzerne, which provides year round support for children dealing with life threatening illnesses and is, of course, tax deductible.
Interested?
From July 29th to August 31st The American Junior Golf Association's UHY Albany Junior Golf Tournament will be hosted by Ballston Spa Country Club. Past members of this organization have been 22 of the past 30 NCAA 1 Men’s Champions and 23 of the past 30 Women’s Champions and have gone on to win 910 PGA/LPGA tournaments since graduating from the AJGA. On July 29th you could be paired with the next superstar on the LPGA/PGA Tours.
If you want to get a team of three friends/colleagues together to play with one of the AJGA's top players in this tournament, the cost would be $400 each, or if you'd like to play as a single it would be $450. This would include 18 holes of golf with cart, breakfast and lunch, a sleeve of golf balls, a hat and a golf towel, a value of about $200 for non-BSCC players. Registration details can be viewed at www.ballstonspacc.com
Male and female players 14-18 years old, will be coming from around the world. Each of the AJGA’s three day tournaments is run much like a professional tournament, with scorers, rules officials, snacks and drinks for the participants and timing points to enforce slow play penalties.
It's a win/win/win situation. You support the AJGA's excellent work at developing junior golf, the Double H Ranch kids benefit, and you get to play with a potential Tiger Woods, who, during your round, may even teach you how to hit a downhill lie.
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July 15th, 2019
Things continue to look very positive for Ballston Spa Country Club. We are on track collect approximately $607,000 in dues.
A further analysis of our green fee and cart revenue shows we are up $22,000 over the same time frame last year (Jan 1 - June 30). Cart revenue is down less than $1000 but our green fee revenue is up $23,000. Green fee revenue includes corporate pass holders, tournaments, guests, guest passes purchased, leagues etc.
We did discover an issue with our bunker assessment billing. There were maybe 2 dozen members who did not get billed for the bunker renovation assessment. Those include the 3 lifetime members, 2 JE couple memberships and single members who had children added to their membership. Those members will see that assessment added to their July invoice. I appreciate your understanding and we are working to understand why and how it happened so we can prevent it next year. Next year will be the last year for the bunker renovation assessment.
I would like to request your help with charging in the restaurant. When signing your receipt, please make sure that your name is on the receipt. There have been times when the wait staff has entered the wrong number and the member has signed the receipt without checking if it is their account. Of course, the charges go to the wrong account and this makes work for the office. So, just be sure the name at the top is yours and always sign it.
As always, if you have questions on anything that I have mentioned or you have been wondering about, please email me (tucats@nycap.rr.com) or talk to me when you see me at the course. I would be happy to provide you any info you need.
Sincerely,
Rick Funaro,
Treasurer
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Remember all that rain we got early in the golf season we were complaining about, it’s gone. We could use a little more now. The golf course is in great shape. I had some friends from the Cedar Lake Golf Club play at our course last month and they commented on how beautiful it is. Thanks you to Steve and his crew and to our flower ladies who do such a great job with our flowers.
There are several events going on the next two months so I thought I would give you a heads up. The Member/Member just finished this past weekend with perfect weather. July 12 is Men’s Guest Day 12pm-4pm;July 15th is the SGAENY SENIORS event 12:30-5:30. On Saturday July 20th 8am-1:00pm is the Women’s 18 hole Member Guest. On Sunday July 28th is the start of the AJGA golf tournament that runs until August 1th; August 5th Ohana Golf Event 9-1:00 and BVD Alzheimer’s Association Golf Event 1:30-6:30,; August 9, 8:30-9:00 Interclub vs Mohawk; August 11th Burden Lake Interclub 11:00-11:30; August 17th and 18th Men’s and Women’s Club Championship,
As a reminder, all golfers have to check in with the pro shop before playing. This includes any guest you may have playing with you. No one is allowed to start their round off the tenth tee without the approval of the pro shop.
Your monthly bill payments are due the month following your charges. Please pay your bill on time as we have to pay the reasturant the following month.
Our membership continues to grow each year which means we have more people playing golf. Please be considerate and keep the pace of play moving so everybody can enjoy our beautiful golf course and please replace or repair your divots and ball marks.
Hit them straight and long but most of all have fun.
Tony Lupino
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Believe it or not, it is the time of year to begin reviewing membership dues and incentives for 2020. One of the incentives for new membership and retention is the stock prepayment plan.
In 2018 the new member special included $200 toward stock prepay. In 2019, that price was reduced to $100. The original purpose of this plan was to retain membership from year to year. We wanted to encourage our members to stay for many years and become a full share holder. We believe that increasing the prepay to $200 will help to retain our current membership and meet this goal.
Another program that has been in effect for several years, is the Friends and Family Incentive plan. The BOD has also approved some changes in 2020. Currently, if a member signs up a single new member, and that new member renews his/her membership the following year, then the current member will receive a check for $200. If the new member comes back the next year, the same current member will receive a check for $100. This plan and pricing will remain unchanged for 2020. However, the incentive for bringing in a couple will be slightly reduced. Currently, members receive a check for $300 and $150 for the 2nd and 3rd year when their friends or family renew their membership. This incentive will be reduced to $250 and $125 respectively over the 2-year period. While this program has been very successful. It has also been very costly. Last year BSCC paid over $6000 to our members in this program. While we want to continue to incentivize our members for bringing in new members, we feel it is time to make an adjustment to the payment.
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As we make our way into summer the course has really shaped up nicely. Men’s member guest tournament was a huge success. I received a lot of compliments on how good the course looked and played. It is hard to believe that some of our fairways and rough areas just a month ago where under water. Some of those areas where completely saturated the entire spring. Now that we have dried out, we are able to mow everything. Last week we aerified some of the worse areas of the fairways that were damaged from being too wet in the spring. After we cleaned the plugs up, we filled in the bare areas with divot mix and seed. These areas should fill in over the next few weeks and we will have lush fairways tee to green. The fourth green surround is filling in nicely. The sod lines are disappearing, and the turf surface is getting smoother and smoother. The green extension sod will be cut higher for the summer months. I think we might kill the sod now if we try to scalp it down to regular green height now. The weather is just too hot for something like that. After we aerify in September we will lower the height. The cooler fall weather will be better for the grass.
Now that summer is hear we are in just a maintenance mode. Mowing and setting up the course daily takes up most of our time. The hot weather actually made the turf dry out enough where we had to turn on the irrigation the past week. Seems strange to see the heads running. I haven’t run a single tee or fairway head till this past week all season. I have also been spraying to stay ahead of disease on the grass. Fungal diseases are the biggest problem we face. The heat and moisture are a perfect environment for a fungus to grow. I try to spray at low rates more frequently to stay ahead of an outbreak. Once you get a disease really established it takes a high rate of chemical to nock it out. So far so good. The turf we have is in good shape. We just got to keep up with water and sprays and we should be in good shape for the summer. As far as mowing we cut greens every day and tees, approaches, and fairways Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays. Off course this is based on weather, tournaments, and turf conditions. We try to stick to a schedule but sometimes things get in the way. If we are too wet then we can’t mow. If there is a tournament at 8:00 on a Monday or Friday, then we can’t get everything cut in just a few hours in the morning. If we top-dress greens then we will have to skip mowing greens until the sand gets worked into the turf canopy. We did not aerify greens at all this spring due to the weather raining every day. So, I went a little heavier than a sugar coat a few weeks ago. Try to catch up with sand that should have been worked in during the spring. We try to give you the best conditions possible every single day. Trying to keep a constant schedule is one of our main goals. |
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Beginning next month I'll be reprinting a series of articles from 2007 wherein I recounted what history I could dredge up from BSCC's beginning to the 1970's or so. While researching the Gleanings article in this issue I came across the following article I wrote in 2005, which seemed like a good teaser for the coming Club history series.
A Conversation With Harold and Bill
2005 marks the 80th anniversary of our Club. Like everything else that's four score or more years old, it has experienced many changes. I sat down with Bill Eldridge and Harold Arff, probably our two oldest Members, to get a feel for what it was like in the Good Old Days.
Bill is 85, legally blind and an avid golfer. He joined BSCC in the early 50's when he worked locally for the Federal Government and remained a Club stockholder for 30 years after being transferred to Pennsylvania, returning every month in the summer to play the course. He held several positions on the Board, including President.
Harold Arff is Mimi Jacobs's father, 90 years old, still a player and a Member since the early 30's. Harold also was on the Board and was the Secretary-Treasurer when the Club bought the land to expand to 18 holes in 1967.
Harold joined out of high school in 1933, although he had caddied here while still in school. One of his regular customers was A.J. Schultz , owner of one of Ballston Spa's knitting mills. In 1933 it was difficult for anyone to find a job. The National Relief Act was in force and Harold went down to the mill to apply for a job.
"I saw all these men with families waiting in line to get a job and I felt bad - I just didn't have the heart to take their job. But Mr. Schultz arrived just as I was about to leave and he saw me. The next day he called and gave me a job because he recognized me as his caddie. I worked there for 14 years."
Doug Welch was the Caddie Master and "Towel Man", handing out towels to the Members for their showers and receiving tips. Both Harold and Bill caddied at BSCC - there were no carts or trolleys in those days - and they recalled that the racing season brought the jockeys to BSCC and they were great gamblers and tippers.
One fellow who stood out in their memory was Marty Madden, brother of a beer czar in NYC. Marty used to smoke Egyptian cigars and special cigarettes and would tip $3-$5 for 9 holes, much higher than the usual 50¢. One day, Marty ran out of cigarettes and Doug Welch jumped on his bicycle and went to Saratoga to get him some more, as no store in Ballston Spa carried his brand. Doug got a hefty tip for the service.
"Doug was a hell of a golfer and taught us to play cards," Bill remembers. "We used to play cards over in the maintenance shed and if Doug was winning he would forget about his Caddie Master duties because he was making more money at cards."
Harold recalls caddying for a Saratoga Springs gentleman who he thought was just another businessman but who in fact was a member of the Mafia. "After the guy missed a putt, I hit his golf bag in frustration. The guy tells me never to do that again and pulls a big gun out of his bag to show me why."
During WW II a few Members kept the course alive. People like Neil Hodsell and then President Tom Curly, along with Dean Fuller and the greenkeeper who lived across the street from the 7th green and worked on the course with his sons.
Prior to the Club's expansion to 18 holes in 1967, the 9 hole layout was: #'s 1 and 2 were the same as today, although #1 was a par 5 with the tee near the maintenance shed. Today's #18 was the 3rd hole, today's #10 was the 4th. To play #5 you climbed up steps to what is now the 17th tee and played to a green past the #5 bridge. Holes 6 through 9 were the same as today's.
The Pro Shop was a small room with a desk and a cash register about where the kitchen is today and the locker room was today's bar room and had two sinks and two showers. The Members used to move all the lockers to one side every month to hold their dances and other parties. There was a porch where the trophyless room is now.
There was a small bar and kitchen with six small tables run by Andy Henderson. He would buy a cooked ham or roast beef and some liquor and beer. There were no concerns about liquor licenses or DWI in those days.
Bill was on the Board when it was decided to raise the price of a beer from 35¢ to 55¢. "I told them to keep it to 50¢, because if you charge 55¢ they get 45¢ change and won't want to break another dollar for a second beer. Give them 50¢ back and they'll order another beer." Shots were 50¢, mixed drinks were 75¢.
Harold recalls the purchase of the land to expand to 18 holes. "I was Secretary-Treasurer at the time and our President was George McDonough. We invited Duke Teal and another fellow from Schenectady Savings Bank for a round and beat them, then went to Ecobelli's for a drink, showed them our statements and got the loan on the spot for $100,000.
Gino Tuchi and a fellow named Archie did the layout and of course Gino went on to continue his golf course development career, creating Eagle Crest Golf Club.
Bill recalls other incidents - getting in trouble with President Harold Heritage for purchasing a $100 carpet for the ladies' locker room and he recounts the day in the 1950's when everything changed at BSCC.
"Men and women paid the same $45 annual dues but women weren't allowed to tee off before 11AM on weekdays and 1PM on weekends. One Saturday morning I was getting ready to go golfing and my wife had her golf shoes on. I ran a few errands and when I got to the Club at 10 AM there were about 20 women on the first tee. I asked them what was going on and they replied that since men and women paid the same dues, the women shouldn't have to wait to play golf. There was a big to-do but after a couple of weeks the BOD changed the rules to let women play whenever they wanted. We were well ahead of the rest of the courses in the area in this regard."
Several Pos were remembered. A fellow named Campbell loved his drink, Tim O'Connell was Pro in the 1930's, a Mr. Farina in the 1960's as was Dick Osbourne.
The biggest change noted by Bill and Harold was the manner in which the Club was used then versus now. In the heyday of the Country Club life, things were different. Members used the Club as their principal social hub. They had monthly dances with local bands providing the music; volunteer work was much more prevalent (editor's note: maybe that's why we're still the most Member hands-on course in the area), and there was a sense of family at the Club.
These days (2005) Harold and Bill still play together. Harold is Bill's "eyes" and tells him where his shots end up. These quiet gentlemen have done much for our Club over the years. If you see them on the course it wouldn't hurt to say "Thanks for the Memories."
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The Fox, March 2006
The Club built a new office in the cart barn, made renovations to the bar area of the clubhouse and built a larger office for Steve in the maintenance shed, thanks to the work of Randy Alexander, Don Gallagher and Bill Martin.
The Board signed a 5 year contract with a new restaurant vendor, Home Style Caterers. The new restaurant vendors name it Villagio Green.
Mike Zegarelli organized an Adopt-A-Hole project wherein volunteers repair divots, weed gardens and spruce up other areas of the hole they “adopt”.
Todd announced the return of Matt Riggins to the Golf Shop as well as Micah Herzel and Shane Meyers.
April 2006
Steve Solsky reports on the work he’s done during a very mild winter, including the removal and replacement of 20 truckloads of contaminated sand (dirt), from the bunker on #7 and the rebuilding of the bunker.
The Villagio Green menu is published. Sample prices:12 cut pizza - $11.99 Large Caesar salad - $5.99 Hamburger - $5.49 cold sandwiches - $5.99.
President Rick Funaro reports the plan to plant two sugar maples and one red oak around the ninth green.
May 2006
Bruce Kay, John Paolucci and Carl Iovinella are running for the Board of Directors.
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