Fore! Damn that wind...

There's an Arctic blast in the wind today, but the sun's shining and the hackers are hacking! Conditions have steadily improved over the last week, with lots of growing-in left to happen. Twelve of our greens are still partial-play, so I guess "patience" is the order of the day. And everyone has been patient and understanding... we appreciate it.

The picture was taken this morning, showing a few of our hearty members braving the cold wind on the 10th tee.

David Hearn shot a 74 on the final day at the Nationwide's South Georgia Classic, which gave him a 4th place finish. He was leading into the 3rd round, but still a very respectable showing. Other Canadians that finished in the field were Barrett Jarosch, Ted Brown, and Jon Mills.

Good on'ya, David

It's great to see Canadian golfer David Hearn playing so well lately. He's been a regular on the pro tours for quite a few years now, along with the likes of my cousin Bryan and Ian Leggatt. David's currently leading the South Georgia Classic by 2, the same tournament Bryan DeCorso won a few years back.

Which leads me to a quick story... 2 years ago we wanted to get a good used golf bag for our youngest son. We answered a classified ad and went to a beautiful old house off York Rd. in Guelph to purchase the bag. The young woman told us she was selling it on behalf of her parents, who had "a garage full of them, from my brother's tournaments." Who's your brother, I asked. "David Hearn." True story. A scorecard was still in the pouch from one of David's rounds - I can't remember from which course, and I hope we still have it!

Welcome Aboard, Gordon

We have a new Teaching Pro here at Victoria Park East this season - and he comes with quite a resume! The Mercury published a good article yesterday about Gordon Crossman:
http://news.guelphmercury.com/Sports/article/622199

We're happy to have him with us, and encourage golfers to drop in for a chat and check out his many and varied lesson plans. I know I'll sure be trying to cure my slice...

Provincial Champions!

A few posts back, I gloated a little about my daughter's hockey team, the Guelph Thunder Bantam BB. Well, what a finish! They won the Provincial title with a 2-1 win over regional rivals the Waterloo Ravens. It took 6 periods (yes, 6 12-minute stop-time periods) to claim the victory... what a game! So, here they are, and that's it for hockey until September. Cheers to all the players and coaches, they deserved the victory! Me? I ate pizza and enjoyed the game!

Greening Up

It's been over a week since my last post - lots happening. My daughter's hockey team won the Brampton tournament last weekend, and this weekend they're in the Provincials! Very exciting hockey.

Anyways, back to life here at Victoria Park East. As you can see from the pic, the turf is greening up nicely. The weather has been decent, lots of rain last week, and lots of sun in the forecast. As you can also see, we have tarp covering some of our greens - actually, 11 of our greens are curently "partial play", and 2 of them are still temporary. Our mid-winter peak at the golf course was obviously too optimistic. In a nutshell, a nasty layer of ice on the greens caused a severy amount of winterkill. David and his crew have been working diligently on various procedures to help speed-along the recovery process, and so far he's cautiously optimistic that the putting surface on those affected areas will heal in a timely way. Most golf courses in the area have suffered the same fate.

So, for the meantime, we live with extended "winter conditions".