‘HAPPY GIVEMORE’ IS ALL ABOUT GENEROUS COURSE MANAGEMENT
Every golfer can relate to the frustration involved with playing a hole on their course they simply can’t seem to tame.
However, no one can identify with how a member at Innisfail Golf Club chose to address his frustration with the tight, water-lined 352-yard sixth hole on Hazelwood Nine.
“Funny story, but that hole has always been a bad hole for me and I always complained about it to my friends,” said the retired central Alberta resident who has been a member at the 93-yearold course since the early ’80 s.
“Somebody said to me one day, ‘Well, why don’t you do something about it?’ ” So he did. No, he didn’t source out longtime head pro Jim Boomer for lessons.
He instead went to club superintendent Dwayne Simpson with an offer to spend $500,000 improving the hole.
“I just got thinking that after building our new clubhouse (for $1.9 million in 2016) it would be quite a few years before anything was going to be done, so I thought I’d help the club out while also helping myself out,” chuckled the donor, who will heretofore be referred to as Happy Givemore as he wants to remain anonymous.
You can imagine management’s reaction.
“Everybody I’ve told says ‘wow,’ they’ve never heard of that before, something unique,” said Simpson, who immediately dug up the hand-drawn renderings he and course architect Bill Robinson had as part of their master plan for potential upgrades to every hole a decade earlier.
“Hazelwood 6 used to be our signature hole when it was an 18-hole golf course (starting in 1986) but the big problem was drainage,” said Simpson, who replaced aging railway ties around the green with beautiful rocks.
“It just got old and needed a facelift.”
The picturesque hole starts from an elevated tee box that required a 200-yard tee shot to a tight fairway below, plagued with drainage issues.
The hole winds around a pond on the left bordered by cattails and framed on the right by a wall of trees that line every test at the brilliant, 27-hole facility just an hour north of Calgary.
Simpson and his crew widened the fairway on the right by 30 to 40 feet, the pond’s cattails were removed and replaced by stunning rock all the way up to the green and along a defined creek in front of the rolling, island green, which was enlarged.
It’s still a tricky approach to a tough green surrounded by water and two bunkers, albeit a tad more forgiving.
“We modernized it and it’s a lot more picturesque now,” said Simpson of a hole named a few years back as one of SCOREGolf Magazine’s top 50 holes to play in Alberta.
“We kept the integrity of the original design. I don’t think it got any easier, although it’s more receptive. In my opinion, it’s a major upgrade.”
Resodded from tee to green, the hole was closed from late September until Saturday, when its highly-anticipated unveiling was marked by a ceremony naming the bridge to the green after Givemore, who also took the opening shot.
It didn’t go as well as the renovations did.
“I hit it in the water,” chuckled Givemore, who had almost twodozen family members and club officials on hand. “Too many spectators.” So, might he be suggesting even more changes now?
“No way, the hole turned out better than I ever envisioned it would,” said Givemore, whose final bill came in just under $400,000.
“People have been very appreciative. There isn’t a member who hasn’t said something to me, my daughter or my wife about it.
“The staff has been really excited about it, too.” That’s an understatement. “It’s a dream come true, for sure,” said club manager Darren Black of Givemore’s generous offer.
“Words can’t express how thankful we are as a club, as a staff and from management and the board. Since we announced when we were opening the hole we’ve had members call nonstop, asking to be put on that rotation.”
Chances are most have fared better on the hole than Givemore so far.
Maybe lessons would have been cheaper.
“I didn’t end up keeping score,” he said of his lone spin on the hole.
He’s certainly earned that right.