Dear Spring Run Member, The golf course looks great this year, and Gregg’s staff has done a tremendous job keeping it in terrific shape despite the heavy play. But we also need to remember this has been an unusually warm winter, and the grass recovers much faster with the heat. I am sure most of you can remember how the course looks in February when the weather has been colder. We have a difficult grass to manage and hats off to our Maintenance staff for providing a better playing surface than many other courses in the area!

I preface this article with these comments because I often hear that the course is in such great shape, why are we doing anything to it in 2014? While there are numerous reasons to renovate as part of an ongoing maintenance program, we are also dealing with some much needed irrigation upgrades, and those bunkers and cart paths are showing their age. We could make the course play a little faster. And certainly, the foreign grasses that have crept into the fairways, roughs, and tees may look good now, but will brown out and stop growing in a colder season.

But right now, many questions continue to focus on where this project is and if it is fully funded. First, let me say that we will have funded about $2,350,000 of the project by the summer of 2014. That includes replacing all the turf, re-contouring the course, moving some tees, replacing irrigation lines and controllers, asphalting cart paths, and redoing bunkers. This price also includes the architect fees. There is a dollar figure that we asked to be approved for funding last year of $440,000 that included some options for major enhancements, such as timber and stone walls, a water feature, and landscaping. This amount was not added in to the reserve funding for this year, but could be included for next year, giving us two more years to collect the necessary funds.

With all that said, we are now working with a new scenario that looks at a bigger picture of the course. This is called the Master Plan, and it is being developed by JRL and Sanford Golf Design. JRL is providing the Club with the Plan and a graphic presentation so that each member can see what each hole could or will look like. This Master Plan is currently in being put together, and we anticipate it to be available for the membership sometime early this summer. We will post the plan for review, and invite comments. We may put together a survey and indicate what the changes for each hole would cost. In a project of this scope, there will be a fixed cost of the basic mobilization, labor, and materials, and there will likely be variable costs that we can identify so you can see the impact on your assessment. I wish I could provide more information at this time, but until the plan is back and some pricing is available, we will have to wait.

The important piece to keep in mind is that you will have more say as to what we include as extras. As management, we are cognizant of what the course needs in order to give you the best playing conditions year after year, and those changes are strong recommendations to the Board. But this is your golf course, and we know that an enhanced, prettier, quicker playing, “more challenging to some players and less challenging to others” course is important to you, and we will work diligently to keep you in the loop and acting on your feedback.

Please feel free to comment or ask questions. Thank you.

Mike