Photo Courtesy of Member Andrew Riegler

Hello everyone,

I am excited for the fall golf season. Not because we are that much closer to the end of the season, but rather the cool crisp weather that typically comes with the "ber" months. There is endless color changes from grass to trees and flowers which magnify the sunrise and sunsets orange-yellow-red glow. The cloudless nights with invigorating air bringing forth a frosty ground that crunches when stepped upon that rejuvenates the energy and mental stimulation. I find that the tiredness that comes with the hot days of summer tend to chip off the shoulder and the body comes back to life.  

A downside to the fall, we have gotten to the point in the season where only core staff is around. Please be patient with us as we continue to operate with less staff. Sue is by herself on weekdays, JP and I are covering not only Golf Shop but Outside Services at least 4 days a week and Howard is down to a small handful of guys (most part-time). As we move into Fall, we will continue to offer superior customer service, just know that with less staff, it will not be the same. It might take a few minutes longer than normal to get your food, a key to your cart or help over the phone. Please know we are doing our best. Do not go behind the counter and help yourself.

Not only has our college staff gone back to school, our mechanic, Doug Spofford, has taken on a new role outside the golf business. Doug will still be around on weekends to help out and maintain equipment until the end of the season; however he is beginning a new chapter in his life. Many of you do not know Doug as he is the quiet one who lays down on the ground under the equipment fixing this and that, or can be found in the early morning hours mowing the practice facility, mowing greens on the course, smoothing out the cart paths or some other tasks that requires little interaction with others. Doug has been with Kwiniaska 25 years! While he is still around on the weekends, we wish him all the best at his new full-time job and are forever grateful for all of his time, blood, sweat, knowledge and energy that has gone into the old and new Kwiniaska. He will be missed greatly!

Starting Tuesday, September 6th, tee times will begin at 7:30am, seven days a week. We will also begin blocking tee times in the evenings. Our last tee time of the day will be about 2 hours before sunset. Come September 6th, sunrise is at 6:22am while it goes to bed at 7:22pm. September is also the month that we usually start to see frost delays so while that may seem impossible at this time, it creeps up quickly.

Many of you have been asking about 2023 Membership pricing. Please see below for the information.  

LEFT:

Chris Walker

Member-Guest

RIGHT:

Amy Eroh and Jazz Bruce

Marcia G. Nappi Ladies Open

Congratulations to the following:

Amy Eroh and Jazz Bruce - 1st Place Marcia G. Nappi Ladies Open

Chris Walker and Ritchie Snow - 1st Place Member - Guest

Cooper Guerriere - Qualified for the regionals at TPC Boston for Drive, Chip and Putt

Thank you for your continued business, we appreciate you. If you need any help or have any questions, please reach out.



Be well and happy,

Charli Kail

Club Manager

2023 MEMBERSHIP

Mr. and Mrs. Nappi's direction for this golf club has been clear since day one: Focus on the membership and bring the golf course up a couple notches to offer golfers a better experience than your average public course, ultimately resulting in superior customer service where all feel welcome. For those of you who have been members this year, we hope you have seen that we brought everything up another level from last year and we hope you have enjoyed it. One of our goals is continuous improvement in all we do.

Pricing structure is based off the cost to operate with roughly a 70% membership and 30% public base. Unless living off the land in the backwoods under a rock, we all know the economic status of the country and costs continues to increase from product, labor, insurance, permits and everything in between.

As with previous years, current members can lock in their spot with a $250 deposit for individuals and $500 for families. Starting September 26th, we will open up remaining spots to the public.  

You can pay with cash, check or credit card. If paying with a credit card, we will charge the 6% sales tax on top of the amount. If you pay with cash or a check, it will be included.  

Final payments are due by April 28th, 2023.

Pub Food Operation Hours:

MONDAY

Closed All Day

TUESDAY - FRIDAY

10am - 5pm

SATURDAY - SUNDAY

9am - 4pm

Drinks and snacks are always available through the Golf Shop.

DID YOU KNOW

As the Dog Days of Summer start to fade away and a hint of fall is in the air, I thought it might be fun to list a few interesting, fun and historical facts about the great game of golf. They are in no particular order just facts that you may find enjoyable to know.

·     The origins of golf are unclear and much debated. It is accepted that modern golf developed in Scotland from the Middle Ages onward.

·     King James II banned the sport in 1457 for many in the military were forgoing their military training to play golf.

·     The first ever 18-hole course was constructed at St. Andrews in 1764. St. Andrews was established as the world’s premiere Golf Club.

·     The first balls used in playing golf were made from a leather skin and stuffed with boiled bird feathers. The next generation of balls was known as the Gutta-Percha made from harden juice from trees located in South America and the Pacific Islands. Balls were also hand carved out of beech wood as well. The modern golf ball is made from urethane and has 300 to 500 dimples for aerodynamic flight.

·     There were no golf tees until the end of the 19^th century. A small mound of sand or soil was used to tee your ball up.

·     The United States Golf Association (USGA) was established in 1894. By 1900 more than a thousand Golf Clubs had been formed. The USA quickly established itself as the center of the Professional game.

·     The oldest continuously running Golf Club in the United States is the Dorset Field Club. Yes, right here in the state of Vermont. It was founded in 1886.

·      Hole-in-One, there’s a 12,500 to 1 chance of making an ace. So, keep playing.

·     On February 2, 2017 Brett Stanford sank the longest putt recorded. The ball traveled 395 feet from the fairway.

·     Before 1939 you could carry as many clubs as you wanted. Most people carried 30. After the advent of steel shafts is when the rules of golf changed and 14 clubs became the rule.

·     Almost 80% of golfers will never have a handicap under 18.

·     Golf was the only sport played on the moon.

·     Tiger Woods has won 82 PGA Tournaments.

·     In 2020 there were 24.8 million golfers in the United States.

No wonder the game is so great. There is still a lot of great golf to be played during the fall months in fact one of my favorite times to play. Hope to see you on the course. 

Sincerely,

John Paul, PGA  

This month we have the following events scheduled:

Monday, September 12th, the course will open at 12pm. The late start Mondays allows Grounds Crew more time on the course to accomplish items such as verticutting, topdressing, cart paths and spraying.

Wednesday, September 14th we host a High School Boy's Match starting at 3pm. 

Member - Member in September takes place on Saturday the 17th with a shot-gun start.  

Events Upcoming in October:

AERIFICATION OF GREENS

Monday, October 3rd  - Tuesday, October 4th

(weather dependent)

GOOFY GOLF

Sunday, October 16th

For more information on any of these events, check out our website https://kwiniaska.com/events/

Your member account will be charged for the registration fee at the time of registration unless you use another form of payment.

AND THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING

When I was growing up, the radio was a huge part of my childhood. I was 11 years old and had just gotten my paper route, 65 customers to deliver to 6 days a week. Insurance companies, banks, doctors’ offices, businesses and homes. Before long, I was making fairly decent money for an 11-year-old. Never missed a day for 3 years, even in feet of snow. “You’re gonna be president some day!” a doctor remarked. I had a bank account, was buying my own clothes (canvas Nikes and Levi’s back then) because really, who wants their mom buying their clothes? I had color TV and cable in my room when no one else in my house did. Life was good.

Now as an adult, “And the Hits Just Keep on Coming,” take on a slightly darker tone. I think as we all get older, there needs no explanation. Life gets harder. It seems there’s always something coming around the corner, especially the last few years. “They come in threes!” is the other common one you’ll hear. Although I did recently learn of a friend’s passing at age 50, a tragedy following his youngest’s HS graduation, it’s more the day to day to which I refer. The little things. Pouring a bowl of cereal only to find you’re out of milk, being out of toilet paper. You know, real knee crumbling, soul crushing events piled one on top of the other. All it takes is one little event to bring it all down.

I’ve been in this business for 34 years, building courses for most of the last 25. I’ve seen weeks of building phenomenal golf holes disappear in a 20-minute downpour. I gave up my delusions of perfection and the illusion of control long ago. Having said that, it is still difficult to shed the daily dings of life sometimes, no matter how substantial the armor.

Climbing the Charts

The last few years have obviously shattered any sense of what now constitutes normal and has redefined society and I’m afraid it’s never going back. which may or may not be a good thing. For me the status quo, since I was very young, (a mind poisoned by rock n roll and Fruity Pebbles no doubt), has always represented something that is stale, shortsighted, outdated and totally devoid of the possibility of evolution. It constitutes standing still, never wanting to change and often is used as a force to combat change. The status quo is the past, and something for me that should be dead and buried, so it is interesting to me to watch the human reaction to this forced change that cannot be resisted and is now here for good. It will be fascinating theater watching how it will affect the game of golf as it affects the world.

First and foremost, along with everything else in the world, the cost of the game is going to rise considerably. This should be concerning for anyone recently buoyed by the resurgence in interest and the number of rounds played. Strangely, it is another form of interest that is the biggest threat, in the form of rates. It is not so much of a concern for the 1% privates, they’ve been doing just fine profiteering during the pandemic, but is very much so for the rest of us who are struggling with the price of daily life.

#1 With a Bullet

Obviously, labor is a topic we harp on and it is not something we want to talk about, it’s just the reality of the world. How fitting that this past weekend, immediately after the departure of our summer staff, that a storm should once again illustrate the challenges we have going forward. This on the heels of the departure of our Equipment Manager, a 25-year fixture of Kwiniaska. “This offering from a little-known band from Shelburne, VT is definitely moving up the charts this week.” It’s possible to operate, for a time, without an assistant, however equipment managers are the transmission to the superintendent’s engine. Top 10 staying power.

It’s 5 days after the storm and today was the first day we were able to direct some labor to deal with the washed-out bunkers. These are the hits that little by little take a piece of your soul. Death by a thousand paper cuts. As we move forward through the FALL, these are the chores that find their way to the bottom of the priority list sadly.

The mandate of the Superintendent’s job is to have the golf course ready for play on a daily basis. When the boss is mowing greens, raking bunkers or fixing cart paths and it’s all we can do to keep up with the growth of the grass, it’s hard to imagine any progress forward on the things at the top of the list, let alone at the bottom. When changing cups for what I consider a bare minimum of times per week seems like an impossibility, you know you’re running against the wind.

Besides losing key people and not being able to find replacement staff, the shear cost of labor is another hit that all of us take and will continue to take. Have you been to the grocery store lately? Have you bought a pound of bacon or a half-gallon of orange juice lately? Well, you get it then. Much of that cost is labor. Over 4 million people have been quitting their jobs each month for 6 months now. Any economist who claims they know anything is full of it. No living economist has ever seen this before and most of them are just looking for a different kind of hits. Currently we are paying considerably more than we were the past few years and mostly for part time labor. This number will continue to rise along with everything else. When you see what competing industries are offering in the way of pay/benefits/schedule, what hope does a seasonal industry have in a labor market where the employees are asked to get up early, work outside and be available for weekends for a fraction of what they can make doing something else?

Another rising chart topper: What if the things you’re buying don’t even exist yet?

In today’s market, availability is everything. Most people are unaware that the average piece of turf mowing equipment costs the equivalent of a luxury vehicle with the larger pieces now exceeding $100K. When a mower that cost $70K last year now costs $95K and won’t be delivered until 2024, it begins to make you wonder about the sustainability of things. When entry level assistant superintendents are being offered what superintendents used to make just a short time ago and the best professionals are being poached by the 1% clubs, your confidence in being able to compete gets shaken. This amount of hits would be great if you were chasing Ted William’s 0.406 batting average or The Beatles list of No. 1’s, but not when you’re thinking about your business and its future.

When $100 represents two bags of groceries, it makes you wonder where and when it will end. When you’re buying hundreds of bags at a time, it can really add up. This is the case with fertilizer and chemical prices, which are up approximately 30% in a modest estimate. When you consider what the average golf course needs to provide the conditions expected by modern golfers, this can be a considerable number, measured in tens of thousands. And all of these numbers put together, as in every other industry, represents, “the cost of things.” This is what gets passed on to the consumer in what is now a take it or leave it market. This is reality. Buy or don’t. Adapt or die. Stay or go. There’s someone in line behind you. Accept it or get out of line.

Prices are going up and that includes golf. Memberships, daily rates, the cost of your golf balls and drinks after the round. Most people get it. They understand inflation and the current state of the world. Many however don’t or don’t care. They like the lies or conspiracies. They represent a small fraction of every club, who constantly chase the something for nothing delusion, discounts, prorating, and they believe that if they scream, cry and stomp they will get their way. They were the guys at my social club in Massachusetts who only showed up to a meeting if their draft was being raised from 90 cents to a dollar. They hollered and complained about their “fixed income,” and then drove away in their Caddies and Mercedes. Well, there is no sympathy or tolerance out there anymore for that and quite honestly no one’s listening to the tantrums and hasn’t been for a while. 

For the most part, all of the improvements made to Kwiniaska over the last 5 years have been largely subsidized by Mr. and Mrs. Nappi and the beneficiaries of their vision has been the membership at large. Unlike private clubs, there have been no yearly assessments, no club minimums in the pub or golf shop or ridiculous rises in overall membership rates and for the most part you can get the tee time you want. The rising costs have been largely absorbed to the best of our ability here at Kwiniaska. However, there comes a time when the bill comes due for everyone. There is no such thing as a free lunch in today’s world and any increases we have to make are to assure we keep the people we have, promote their happiness and well-being and continue on the path we’ve been traveling.

In the golf world, there’s a lot of us who are taking these hits and continue to show up despite the challenges. There is no quiet quitting or ghosting, just as there is no crying in baseball. There is however a point where people consider another cost, and that is the quality of life. This is a large part of the Great Resignation and the reason things have to change. In my humble opinion, we give too much, so any increases would fall short in my mind, but you have to start somewhere.

Against the Wind

Is this all too dark? Perhaps? I never have a plan for these during the season. The days are long enough, so sometimes the hits, or the beers, take me down a different path. Obviously, some of the hits we’re taking as a staff here at Kwini are huge, and we’re all running against the wind right now, but as we move forward, know that it’s the little ones some of us struggle with most. The unraked bunkers, crooked blocks, trees that need to be weed whacked and clippings not blown are all a thousand paper cuts to us. So have a heart, look beyond and be kind. Support our staff and what we have tried to create and realize the challenges when you pay that new membership rate. And if you feel the need to dedicate a song to the staff at Kwini, call Delilah, Casey’s dead and so is Dick Clark!

Cheers,

Howie