The history of the Adopt-A-Hole Program under PCM9GA

Bob Caldwell

Under the Presidency of John Ward in 2008, along with several other clubs who all adopted a couple of holes, the PCM9GA officially adopted holes 1 and 7 on the Lakes Course. We did this as a result of a decision made by our Board of Officers. We got together a small group of a half dozen members/volunteers and once a month, on a Monday, we went out prior to the Lakes morning tee time and filled fairway and tee station divots, as well as fixing the ball marks on each of those two fairways and greens. Our vice president during 2008, Nick Werner, and our vice president during 2009, Bob Cowan, were in charge of handling this program.

The best recollection is that about 2010 Bob Caldwell had two large wooden signs made up for each of the Lakes holes, 1 and 7. Those signs are still in place currently, June 2016. Under President Stan Fuller, it was decided that we would extend out work to all nine holes of the Lakes Course. We continued to do this work on a once a month basis, depending on which week we played the Lakes Course.

Each month our Secretary Bob Caldwell worked with the Tuscany Falls Maintenance people to obtain their assistance to taking out buckets of sand, along with two large scoops, which we had purchased, in each bucket to all nine greens.

We asked our players for that week to go out 15 minutes early and fix ball marks on the greens and then pick up the sand bucket and drive back to the tee station, filling divots in the fairway and then the tee stations as they went. They would then tee off and play their round as normal.

When Ray Clements became president in 2014, he asked us to extend the program to each course we played, not just the Lakes Course. Bob Caldwell then began selecting which week we would do our work. This would be on weeks that we were not holding a tournament. Bob would also arrange with the appropriate maintenance people to put out the sand buckets and scoops on the course we were playing that particular week.

At Ray’s suggestion during 2016, after discussion with the Maintenance people, we decided to try to do all 18 holes of the two courses we were playing, not just nine holes, during the selected week during the winter months when we were playing two courses each week. This was finally accomplished during the week of April 21, 2016. The current plan is to continue this next fall, when we again return to playing two courses because of the increased number of players when our snowbirds return.