Despite Mother Nature’s efforts, golf season has arrived with courses starting to shake off the winter slumber, and Maplewood Golf Course is ready to welcome people starting Saturday.

“I am just as excited as everyone,” General Manager Alex Edney says with a big smile. “It’s about time these courses are all opening now.”

Worth the wait

While the weather has been pretty good early in the week, Edney says they waited to open for a reason. “The reason we really did wait a few days here is because we needed a few extra days for the frost coming off, but it is in awesome shape. Greenskeepers cut a couple of the greens already. They look phenomenal. The fairways look good. This golf course is ready to be played on.”

Over the winter, the GM says the course did well, which isn’t always a guarantee. “The weather can be interesting with it warming up, cooling down and stuff, but it really did well. No winter kill anywhere this year. All the main things that a greenskeeper would be worried about, everything looks in really good shape. Now we just need a little bit more sunshine and some rain, and it’ll green right up.”

Welcome back

One of Edney’s favourite parts of the new season is reconnecting with those who visit the golf course or the restaurant throughout the season. “It’s been outstanding,” he says with a grin. “We’ve already had a couple of events this spring just to get the members back out, and some of the public. We’ve had a couple of restaurant showings and things. Everybody wants to know when can I get out there? It’s got to be a pretty exciting first weekend here, but yeah, a few familiar faces that we’ve already connected with have been awesome, but looking forward to seeing the rest.”

Doing our part

In the early part of the year, Edney says golfers play a role in helping keep the course in good shape early, so it’s strong throughout the entire year. “It goes a long way each golfer doing their part. On the greens, for sure, just fixing those divots. That goes a long way. But also on the fairways, when you’re taking your swing, and you take a divot out, especially this time of year, it takes a while for that to recover. So we got a brand new set of, or brand new fleet of golf carts again this year. Each one is equipped with two sand buckets, and our greenskeeper even dyes the sand green so it doesn’t look like sand out there. But if they can put sand in those divots, that goes a long way from the sun torching that, and it takes a while to recover.”

Total experience

Maplewood is not just about golf, Edney encourages players to enjoy the restaurant, too. “It is not just about the golf, it’s the experience,” he says proudly. “People want to be here, and that includes the staff. This is the highest staff retention I’ve ever had in my 10 years here. It’s because we’ve been trying really hard to create that culture of having employees who want to be here. They want to be here because they’re golfers themselves. They want to be here because the members and the public are awesome. As soon as you walk into a place where the staff want to be here, it’s just generally making everybody feel like they’re in a good mood and they want to be here. We very much strive to do that here at Maplewood.”

A golf course for everyone

Another real point of pride for Edney and the group at Maplewood is the fact that the course is great for every skill level, from senior to experienced to rookie. “The course itself, it doesn’t play super long, but you have to use every club in the bag here,” he smirks. “Some of the greens are tricky. They’re tiered. Some of the actual hazards out there are just that, hazardous. There’s tons of water out there. There’s lots of bush. One thing we did change this year is we knocked a whole bunch of the brush down underneath. So hopefully people are going to be able to find their ball a little bit more, speed up some play and stuff. But yeah, great course for tournaments, great course for seniors, but it’s also a little tricky one if you’re a good golfer. It’s not like you’re getting a gimme par here.”

Tournaments

Maplewood has gained a reputation as a place where tournaments are more than welcome and are also handled very well, from food to golf, and Edney encourages businesses or charitable organizations to consider coming out. “We very much tried to set ourselves up to be a tournament course. The new clubhouse can hold 200 people in here. We have tons of tournaments from Winnipeg, Steinbach, the surrounding areas, and those charity ones, those are the best ones because they’re win-win, right? They’re win for the course, and we want to make as much money as we can for those charities. Again, the golf course plays well, so it’s a wonderful scramble course. It’s a lot of fun for those tournaments. Again, we have more booked than we ever have this year, and really, really looking forward to shining in the tournament business again this year.”

Grip it and rip it

Edney says it’s like Christmas Eve with opening day set for Saturday, but he’s a little jealous of those that get to tee it up. “The only reason I don’t love the first weekend is because I can’t be out there yet,” he says with a laugh. “But no, I cannot wait. It’s going to be awesome.”