I would like to take this time to give my perspective as a 30 Year PGA Golf Professional of the AJGA Golf Event that we hosted. 

 
As a young player in golf when I was 8 years old, my father gave my brothers and I an opportunity and introduced us to the game of golf at a place called Cedar Lake Country Club.  Our parents both worked and we were lucky enough to have a Family Membership so this allowed us to play all of the time.  The only restriction was that junior players were not allowed to play before 3:30 pm on the weekends.  We would get dropped off in the morning and play 27 holes per day walking, bring our lunch with us, look for golf balls on the course and get picked up around 6:00 pm at night.  This was how I was introduced to the game of golf.  With that being said, my perspective of how the young players that participated at Ballston Spa Country Club through the American Junior Golf Association Events that are hosted around the world were much different than what I had the opportunity to do.
 
The Association that these kids are a member of is producing a tremendous value for the Growth of the Game of golf.  The parents and players have the utmost respect for all of our staff and the facility.  I personally received over 100 thank you cards from each player.  They all had their own unique experience at our facility whether it was trying to break the course record of 63 or just trying to figure out how to putt our challenging greens.  Ballston Spa Country Club made a tremendous decision for all of these kids when it was decided to host an event.  I heard some negatives and very many positives also.  The experiences that these young players created by participating at our facility is one memory that they will have for their entire life and maybe one day, one of these junior players may be writing about the experience that they had here at our facility whether they become a tour player or a parent trying to get their son or daughter interested in the game of golf. 
 
I met many of the players and their parents and it was unreal to me how many of the adults made a point to come and talk to me to let me know how special of a facility and the people that we have here at Ballston Spa Country Club.
 
I was able to watch a 12 year old boy fire a 66 for his second round and to see the joy in his world at that moment of scoring that seemed even more than the joy he had of winning the Finals of the Drive, Chip, and Putt at Augusta National last spring.  I witnessed a 15 year old par the last hole for a 64 knowing that he needed that putt to tie the course record. 
We watched a 14 year old girl who happens to be the NYS Junior Amateur Champion for the past 3 years finish 2nd in the event.  We witnessed a 15 year old from Texas fire an 80 in his final round to finish with a score of +10 where 2 weeks prior, he fired a 3 round 15 under score to win in California.  The staff in the golf shop had a phone call from Pete Rose (MLB) as he personally thanked us for helping out his stepson while telling us a story of how Joe DiMaggio gave him the name “Charlie Hustle”
 
These are just some of the examples of the experiences that happened here during the week.  Not only did the players and the parents make some lifetime memories,  we had new lifetime memories brought to our facility that we had no idea were going to happen. 
 
The AJGA Staff is as Jake Devito would say, “a well oiled machine”.  They follow procedures as to teaching the players how to care for a golf course, pace of play, respect and that the game is fun.  The hold them very much accountable in each and every one of these aspects.  For example, if a player has a bad time and gets out of position, they receive a red card and they have a few holes to make that bad time up to get back into position.  If they fail to do so, they receive a penalty.  Something that the PGA Tour needs to do.  So with that being said,  I am extremely proud of all the work that the volunteers, the membership, and my staff did beginning in March to prepare for this event and to also allow these players to come and play an event here in the Capital District as they have been trying for years and we were the 1st Club to open the doors for these players.  This was a tremendous thing that the Membership did to grow the Game of Golf.  While many other clubs struggle in many states, we will thrive because of the positiveness that you all have provided.  With all the negativity in the world today, this is one week that truly brought a large smile to my face and made me feel honored to be your Director of Golf.  Thank you
 

  A couple of weeks ago, Sue Kahler organized a "Divot Party" to replace all the divots in our fairways. Unfortunately, when the original date was rained out Sue had a conflict and Mike Zegarelli stepped in to lead the attack. It was a successful venture, with about 20 BSCC Members showing up to shake divot mix into the fairway scars we all make and dread. I would like to thank the volunteers and especially Ziggy for doing what Ballston Spa Country Club does best: making our Club the best in the area, in no small part through our zealous volunteerism. With that in mind I thought it would be appropriate to bring back an article from the archives that I wrote many years ago.

Divots. Although not all golfers take divots, it is generally accepted that a divot is preferable on almost all non-teed, full shots, from the mid-irons to the short sticks, putter excluded (although I've seen some dandy putter divots in my day). You must hit down on the ball if you want your ball to get up in the air. That’s one of the many anomalies of the game. The resulting arc naturally carries the club head through the ground beneath and beyond the ball. The object created by this exercise is our topic of the day.
 
Admit it: this is the first article you've ever read devoted entirely to divots.
 
The divot is, and has been, a component of the game that gets very little ink, and I am here to right that wrong. Divot Man to the rescue.
 

Illustration by John Bowler

“Divot” is exclusively a golf word, meaning "a lump of turf dislodged during a stroke". We are all familiar with the signs asking golfers to, "please replace your divots" found on most golf courses. We see divots fly almost every time a pro hits an iron on televised tournaments. If the camera were to follow a pro's divot, it would be seen to mime a shot's trajectory in miniature. Given some of the drivel we hear on golf telecasts, it would be refreshing if once in a while, we got some divot commentary, for the divot can tell us as much about a shot as almost anything else.
 
 
The way I envision it, there would be a divot-cam devoted exclusively to recording each golfer's mining efforts. From time to time, a slo-mo replay would follow the flight of the divot as it arced through the air, zooming in on the dormant clump as it came to rest. This would be followed by a short divot analysis between the announcer and the caddie as he replaced the sod.
 
Announcer: How would you describe this turf, this shot detritus, this agricultural agglomeration, Fluff?
 
Fluff, after a discrete eye roll: Well, as you can see Rossie, this divot has excellent tri-dimensional symmetry, with a very uniform taper from front to back, as well as a consistent thickness, suggesting a swing plane that would generate backspin. As you can also see, the trench left by this divot points directly at the hole. I'm not at all surprised that she holed the shot.
 
When you think about it, the divot is the only evidence we have of our swing. The only tangible archive that can supply a clue as to why we pulled that last shot into the clubhouse. We hardly ever take the time to examine this grassy document and that's a shame.
 
Let's get back to that well-known plea to replace your divots. There is a movement afoot (or possibly underfoot) to amend the phrase to read, "Please leave your divot where it lies; in fact we'd be real pleased if you took a couple of extra swats at them to discourage anyone else from replacing them."
 
Divots have entered the same realm as forest fires. There are good arguments to suggest that some forest fires should not be extinguished by Man. There are also logical reasons why divotectomies should not be healed by re-attachment, but by natural replacement.
 
If you are playing on Bermuda grass, the underground root system will replace the grass within a few days without requiring any action by the golfer. If your course is primarily bluegrass, or bent, there is little chance of it re-rooting itself unless there are cool evenings and moist soil conditions. The most likely fate of a divot is to be rudely displaced the next time a course mower passes over it. The practice of supplying every cart with seeded sand to fill in divots is spreading (see what I just did there?), and with good reason.
 
In closing, I'd just like to point out that the term "divot" in golf is unique in the sense that it describes both the wad of agrarian gobbet you displace (please replace your divots), as well as the area it used to occupy (my ball ended up in a divot).
 
Which just makes divots all the more fascinating, don't you think?
 

The Fox, June 2006

The course is hit with five inches of rain in less than a week.

Tournament Results

4 Person Scramble:

Women 1st – Anne Jorgenson’s
Team 2nd – Ginny Charbonneau and Betty Thornhill’s Team

Men 1st Net – Leo Bouleris, Steve Ludwin, Dave O’Connor, Ron Symanski
Tied 2nd Gross – Tom Hudy and Chris Brady’s Team
                          –Tom Highfield and Rick Moran’s Team
 
 2nd Net – Todd Duval and Winston Wachtel’s Team
 3rd Net – Mark Thornhill and Bob Charbonneau’s Team  

Breakfast Scramble: 1st: Rick Funaro, Anne Jorgenson, Cindy Walkanowski
                                  2nd: Mike Radzevich’s Team
                                  3rd: Bruce Kay’s and Ginny Charbonneau’s Team
                                  4th: Pat Joseph’e Team
 
July 2006 
Tournament Results
President’s Cup: 1st Net: Jack Cottrell(65) , 2nd Tucker (66), 3rd George Mahoney (67), 6th Paul Steves (69), 8th Bill Glyndmyer (71)

Women’s Member/Member: 1st Gross - Sue Kahler, Mimi Jacob (71) 2nd Gross – Kate Oppedisano, Fran Wayand  (71) 1st Net – Anne Jorgenson, Cindy Walkanowski (55) Paulette Martin, Barb Ashbee (55) 3rd Net – Pat Stack, Mary Law Powell (57) 4th Net – Pat Joseph, Jan Federice (60)

Men’s Member/Member: Championship Flight: 1st Larry D’Alberto, David Fizer, B Flight: 1st  Gross:  Bob Palumbo, Bill Glyndmyer 1st Net: Tom Hudy, Chris Brady C Flight 1st Gross: Jack Cottrell, Don Gallagher, 1st Net: Pete Kanches, Hal Van Earden

This is the first installment of what we have for a Club History, as originally published in 2008 in the Fox
 

BSCC Scorecard on our 50th Anniversary 1975
 

Note that the 1st hole was a par 5 for the men, the 8th was a par 4. For the Ladies: the front nine hasn’t changed, but on the back, the 14th was a par 4 as was the 15th. Also, the holes were handicapped strictly by difficulty rather than the method used today with all the even handicap holes on one nine, odd on the other nine.  
The backside of the card mentions that the left sides of the 1st and 4th holes were out of bounds. At one point, a local rule stated that any ball in the wrong fairway was OB as well. 

In the Beginning Part 1