Jerry Lingen
I’m back. The last time I wrote this column, I had said it was going to be the last time. At that time, I was filling in between managers. Now I am back because Mike Butler decided to leave us for personal reasons. I have agreed to take the position again and will be working with the Board of Directors to build a team that will run the club. We have a good start to that team. The team includes Pam Vanlaningham and Donna Kleinow, and I have added Jane McCann to the staff. Jane is a resident of SunBird and has experience in the golf business. She and her husband owned Mulligan’s Golf Store which was located over by the Fry’s grocery store, and they were there for a number of years. Some of you will remember the store. All of you know Pam who has been working with us for a number of years, almost as long as I have. Donna has been with us for the past two years. In addition, we have two people working with us for outside services; they are Don Kleinow and Larry Freund. To me, the most positive things about this staff are that they are all customer oriented and they all live in SunBird.
How are we doing during this summer schedule and the extremely hot days? Well, we have been closing at 1:00 p.m. each day. It seems that, by that time, we have exhausted all prospects for golfers. For the month of July, we are continuing our trend of increasing revenues for green fees over budget and increasing revenues over a year ago, 2016.
We will continue our schedule for the pro shop of opening at 6:00 a.m. and closing at 1:00 p.m. through September 23.
Overseeding: We will be closed for overseeding the golf course from September 24 through October 13. We will reopen the course on October 14, and we do expect to have cart path only for all for two weeks. When we reopen in October, we will begin our 8:00 a.m. start for shotguns and tee times.
Credits Procedure: The following is a change in the procedure for using credits (chits). Credits may now be used for the following items: 1) merchandise in the Pro Shop, 2) range balls, 3) activity fee (the $), 4) green fees and 5) special orders of pro shop merchandise. This will give you, the golfer, more opportunities to use your credits.
The Labor Day tournament will be held Monday, September 4. Details are available in the Pro Shop. The pre overseed tournament, hosted by our greenskeeper, will be held on Saturday, September 23. Details are available at the Pro Shop.