Allison - Flight Zone Toptracer Driving Range

Back in the Saddle

I have taken about a month of a hiatus in writing blog posts. It definitely didn’t have anything to do with lack of activity around the golf course. Probably because there has been too much activity. Here I am, though, back in the saddle and ready to bring you lots of information about all of the happenings that have been taking place in our little area of the world. First up, let’s recount our Season Pass Holder Giveaway Banquet that we hold every year. This event started about nine years ago. We had about fifteen people in attendance and we thought we were pretty fancy. We had never cooked for fifteen people before and we had so much fun. Over the years it has grown to where we now have over seventy season pass members in attendance. It’s so rewarding to have fun with these people, many of whom I have known my whole life. The evening began with lots of hors d’oeuvres. We had no idea that our season pass holders would love shrimp so much! They devoured it! Each guest arrived and found their name with their table assignment. After they found their table service, they got to pick out one of the ornaments that Theresa had made for them. Since a majority of our season pass holders are men, we found it amusing that they allowed their wives to pick out the ornament! We spent the entire day getting ready for the event. Theresa and I kept trying to listen to Christmas music while we set the room, but somehow my brother, Jason, won and made us listen to talk radio. There’s nothing quite like Rush to get you in the holiday spirit! Since these are people who have been in our lives for a long time, we like to treat them well to show our appreciation. We had over $500 in prizes that we gave away! Those items included things like a golf bag, set of kid clubs, golf balls, hats and tickets to the Drake basketball games. Since this was our 40th year in business, we thought it’d be fun to honor those golfers who have been with us since the very beginning by giving each person a $50 gift card to the golf course. We had made up four gift cards in advance thinking we couldn’t possibly have more than that. We had them all stand and counted seven golfers who have been with us for 40 years. Wow! What an honor! We also give away four $250 gift certificates that can go toward the purchase of a 2014 season pass. We have done something different every year to give these four coveted prizes away every year. Our family always has fun dreaming up a new way to give them away. This year, we created a Golf Bingo game that everyone played. We called out golf words and they marked off the words on their bingo card. Our first winner was Roger. Ironically, the other three winners were the wives of our golfers! We love meeting the wives of our golfers. They always thank us for keeping their husbands entertained and busy throughout the week! This golfer, Mark, loved his wife for winning him $250! It was a really fun event. We are so thankful to our loyal golfers and patrons of our business.

Twelve Days of Christmas Giveaway

Golf Course

Last year, I thought it’d be fun to play with the numbers of 12/12/12, so we gave away a bunch of fun prizes. As it turns out, it was so much fun that we decided to return this year with more fun! This post will be updated for the next twelve days with each day’s prize giveaway. All you have to do to enter is answer the question in the comments at the bottom of the page. We’ll be picking the winners at random and then they will be notified through email as well as an update to the post. Here’s what we’re currently giving away! DAY TWELVE On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true Toad gave to me TWELVE ROUNDS of GOLF! DAY ELEVEN On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true Toad gave to me ELEVEN BUCKETS of RANGE BALLS! DAY TEN On the tenth day of Christmas, my true Toad gave to me a miniature golf party for ten people DAY NINE On the ninth day of Christmas, my true Toad gave to me NINE LUNCHES AT THE TURN! DAY EIGHT On the eighth day of Christmas, my true Toad gave to me EIGHT SLEEVES of TITLEIST GOLF BALLS! DAY SEVEN On the seventh day of Christmas, my true Toad gave to me seven rounds of miniature golf. DAY SIX On the sixth day of Christmas, my true Toad gave to me six Duck Dynasty golf balls DAY FIVE On the fifth day of Christmas, my true Toad gave to me five dozen cookies! DAY FOUR On the fourth day of Christmas, my true Toad gave to me FOUR ROUNDS of GOLF with CART! DAY THREE On the third day of Christmas, my true Toad gave to me THREE PRIVATE LESSONS! DAY TWO On the second day of Christmas, my true Toad gave to me TWO ENTRIES to our RUNNING SCARED ZOMBIE 5K. DAY ONE On the FIRST day of Christmas, my true Toad gave to me ONE LOADED FOURSOME! That’s right. Golf, cart, range and lunch for your whole foursome. Simply follow those links to enter for a chance to win! Winners will be announced on Friday, December 27.

Shop Local Business

Golf Shop

Anyone a big fan of Black Friday? Our family has never been very into the rush of the big box stores. We prefer to spend the day with our family and enjoy the down time that this time of the year provides for us. The winter is often a pretty sleepy time around the golf course. Snow blankets the greens and temperatures drop down low enough that you might look tan after playing. Not from the sun, but rather a nice wind burn. Since we are family owned, we stay open as long as there is no snow on the ground. You can find us in the clubhouse on days as long as the temperature is above 40 degrees. This is especially true during the month of December because there are many golfers who’d like a gift that reminds them of the fun they can have when the warmer temperatures return. You will rarely find us at the mall or purchasing gifts from a chain store. Since we are family owned, we always try to support our fellow business owners who are struggling in this new world where we live. It’s hard to compete with a larger chain who is able to purchase product at a bulk rate because they are purchasing for multiples stores that cover an entire nation. We’re just one business. Trying to provide our patrons a good service. Most of our charm is found in our atmosphere that is created because golfers, minigolfers, and guests can talk to an owner or family member when they make a stop out to our place. That’s hard to duplicate. This year, we thought we’d have fun with that charm and offer some fun items that you can’t find at a big store. Theresa has been busy creating some fabulous stocking stuffers that you can grab when you head out to buy a gift card this holiday season. We’re a resourceful bunch. Snack bar in the summer months. Crafting center in the winter. Here are snowflakes that she made as tree ornaments. They are on display and fill our Golf Shop with a festive vibe. Just like real snowflakes, each one has its own character and unique qualities. They are completely created with golf supplies. Tees. Ball markers. Golf Shoe Spikes. She also created some fun golf ball ornaments. These ornaments are only $3.99 and, more importantly, they were made with love. During this holiday season, we are also throwing in some extras for our golfers. When you purchase a $50 gift card, we’ll throw in a $10 gift card for you. If you’re anything like me, it’s always fun to get a little gift for yourself while you’re out shopping for the kids er, spouse. As the old saying goes… One for you, two for me. If you don’t want to stop out, just give us a call and we’ll put the gift card in the mail for you! What’s on your list this year?

Winter Prep

Golf Course

As the temperatures drop, the level of activity increases around these parts. We’re getting prepared for Old Man Winter. We like to wait until we can see that we’re officially in the deep freeze. Then, it’s all hands on deck to knock out the projects. Most of it has to do with water. If it can freeze, then it’s put to bed. In the fall, we fill our ball washers with a mixture of water and antifreeze. This prevents it from freezing over night. Once winter arrives, we remove the ball washers completely. They get painted, handles get replaced, and general maintenance in the shop while they are all in one place. Oh yes. You can anticipate pictures this winter. Are you waiting on the edge of your seat? All of our flags are replace with what we affectionately call our winter flags. We can have some pretty nasty winds, so we put out flags that can be damaged. The flag sticks are also replaced. Over the winter, we paint all of our flag sticks. The winter flag sticks are shorter and flimsier. No real reason for the flimsier style. They’re just really old. We won’t care if they get broken in the bad winds. Often times, they get frozen right into the cup. The miniature golf also gets a good wash down using a power washer. The ponds are cleaned out. It’s incredible how much gunk gets collected at the bottom of the ponds throughout the summer. All of that nasty stuff is removed with a shovel and then the pumps are taken out of miniature golf and stored in a temperature controlled environment over the winter. All of the pond water is removed, then they are filled with a layer of RV antifreeze. We have three different pop machines on the golf course. All of the pop is removed from them, so it doesn’t freeze. Exploded pop cans are no fun. Don’t ask me how I know this. As I mentioned in this post, we have to blow out the irrigation system to remove all of the water. My dad, Tom, changes the cups one last time. Once the ground is frozen, it is impossible to change the cups. It took him longer than normal to change the cups on this particular day. The ground was beginning to swell because of the cold temps. When you change cups, you have to make sure that the cup is completely level or it will be scalped when we mow them for the final time this year. With the swelling ground, he had to shave off bits to make sure the cup was level. The greens get mowed a final time and then a snow mold agent is put on them to prevent snow mold over the winter months. Poor dad got a really bad cold after being in 9 degree weather for three hours. He liked it, though, because he could sing in a really deep voice. Dad also spends some time planting trees before the ground is frozen. He simply can’t help himself. I decided not to take any pictures of the final thing we must winterize. Our outside bathrooms. All of the water must be blown out of the bathrooms out on the golf course as well as the miniature golf. They are blown out, then filled with RV antifreeze to prevent any winter damage. Just picture a toilet bowl filled with a pink fluid. It’s pretty, trust me. How about you? Do you have a long list of winter preparations?

Classy Dumpster Diving

What's Cooking

One of our good friends told us about a commercial kitchen that was getting demoed. They were planning to just throw away lots of great kitchen equipment, so he invited us to take a peak at it in case we wanted some of it. The kitchen had not been in use for about five years, but everything was in really great shape. It just needed a little elbow grease to get it looking good. We paid a nominal fee for a full trailer load of kitchen equipment. The project manager wanted us to get the items out of his building as quickly as possible because demo was scheduled to begin. We called in the troops to help us load up two vans, a truck and trailer full of kitchen goodies. It was a true test of love for my husband to come and help. I scheduled it for a Sunday afternoon which meant he gave up his beloved Chiefs to come and help. Here he is removing the legs off of the convection oven. Doesn’t it look like he is having fun? Much better than sitting in his easy chair cheering on his favorite team. I even had my three kids in on the help crew. They hauled down mixing bowls, dish tubs, shelving racks, and more to our trucks waiting down below on the ground level. This kitchen was on the second floor of a building, so everything had to come down through the elevator. Even Rick, our family friend who told us about this equipment, showed up to help. Turns out, he’s a Chiefs fan, too. Look! He’s doing back bends he’s so happy to help! Here’s also a family friend, Miles (in the hat). You guessed it. Another Chiefs fan. I guess I picked a bad day to work. I can’t thank these guys enough for all of their help! To take away the sting. The Chiefs won their game, so it was a good day and I didn’t screw up their mojo by having all their fans move dirty kitchen stuff. Once all of the moving was done, we headed back to the golf course to start the, a-hem, dirty work. Mom and her sidekick, Julie, got to work cleaning all of these appliances and utensils. We have lot of big plans for over the winter in making room for all of this stuff! Mom could barely sleep on Sunday night because she was so excited to get to work on Monday morning to start going through all of the goodies. We got several carts. They needed a pedicure, so the legs were put in a soap mixture to break away some of their grease and grim. I was working in my office and I could hear lots of giggling from the kitchen. The cart pedicure had these two ladies in fits of laughter. Mom and Julie used lots of steel wool to shine up all the stainless steel pieces. They worked and scrubbed on every single piece that made its way into the clubhouse. It was a huge job. After about a week of long hours, the kitchen was starting to look pretty good. No more disaster zone! Since we remodeled the kitchen several years ago, Mom has been working on a six foot banquet table as her counter top space. Thanks to this kitchen find, she’s now sporting a fancy new stainless steel table! Mom is very good at making due with things we can afford. She has been able to cook for hundreds of people using some makeshift equipment. I’m so happy that we could get her fixed up, so she could be a real “professional.” I can only imagine the great things she is going to churn out of her kitchen now. Just look at all of those cookie sheets and bread rack! Who else is excited for mom to start baking cookies, almond bars and bread?

Celebrating Audrey Brady

Family Matters

Today is my Grandma’s 98th Birthday. If you like to play golf, then you need to give her a hug. We wouldn’t be here without her! She was born in Des Moines in 1915. The oldest of 8 children. Only 6 of whom lived into adulthood. She always says that all of her siblings were her babies. Her mom had polio, so she was unable to walk very well and later in life ended in a wheelchair, so Audrey was her mom’s helper from day one. She grew up in Des Moines. Her dad worked for the post office. He loved his job and worked there for over 40 years. Here are her parents at the Iowa State Fair. This is where they were engaged. Her mom was only 18 when she got engaged. Grandma can make even the grumpiest of school kids enjoy school. She loved to learn and always talks about how much she loved the smell of the school building and how she loved the sound of opening a book for the first time. She went to Amos Hiatt in Des Moines. Here is a shot of all of her school friends on their way to school. They rode a wagon drawn by a horse. It’s so fun to hear her talk about her school years. She is a graduate of East High School. This last year, she attended the East High School Alumni banquet. She was the oldest classmate there. She was celebrating her 80th year class reunion! When the reunion was over, everyone came up to give her a hug. She told me, “I felt like a celebrity. You know how everyone wants to get a look at a celebrity? They were all in line to see what an old lady looks like!” Here she is with her youngest sister, Mary Alice. Mary is the only living sibling that Grandma has left. It’s broken her heart to bury all of her siblings, but they were all strong in the Lord, so she finds comfort in that. She got married to my grandpa when she turned twenty. Her parents didn’t want her to get married until she was twenty, so she got married on her 20th birthday. They loved one another deeply. He was always showering her with gifts and praise. They were the best grandparents. Dale and Audrey had three children. My uncle, Dan, my dad, Tom and my uncle, Steve. Raising three boys was no easy task. Grandpa was often gone because he owned a business called Brady Manufacturing where he created farm equipment. He traveled a lot overseas, so Grandma was left to care for the boys. Her sister, Thelma, lived in California. One time, Grandma drove out to see her with the three boys riding in the back seat of the car. She had to bring a yard stick along, so she could make sure they were behaving while she was driving. I’m sure seat belts would have come in handy when raising three boys, but they weren’t invented. She has seen so many things invented. Running water, electricity, appliances, microwaves, plastic, televisions, mobile phones, computers. The list is endless. A lifetime of memories and improvements. It’s fun to visit with her about it. She makes a history book come to life! Grandma remembers rationing sugar and gasoline in the 40’s. She can tell you where she when JFK was shot or when the Apollo landed. She can remember their first television and watching Howdy Dowdy. As a family, they often went to Minnesota or Okoboji to get away. It has been thirty years since my Grandpa passed away. He died shortly before her 68th birthday in October 1983. Although they had nine grandchildren, he never got to see any of us marry. Here’s grandma at my cousin, Kelly’s, wedding. The first grandchild to marry. When I was a small child, we always went over to Grandma’s house every Sunday after church for Sunday Dinner. Her house was always filled with relatives, friends and sometimes people she had just met. There was always plenty of food. Here I am with my cousin, Mathew, getting ready for an afternoon of play at Grandma’s house. We were always up to something. Now that I’m an adult, Grandma is still busy in her kitchen. We no longer go to her house every Sunday, but my kids have definitely spent many Sundays eating lunch around Grandma’s table. She is known for her bounty of food! Grandma is a night owl. When I was a teenager, I’d come home late a night and I could always see the lights on in my grandma’s house. I can’t even count how many quilts she has made over the years. Probably thousands. It’s what keeps her busy into the wee hours of the night. She has been my only grandparent since I was seven years old. I have always loved every minute that I spend with her. When we were in elementary, she used to pick up my cousin and me from school and we’d play golf together. Grandma would let us drive the cart and we would blast the radio. She would just laugh. As long as I have known her, she has been a baby whisperer. To this day, she can calm a crying baby. Gently singing her endless repertoire of lullabies. I know that all of my cousins have many fond stories of times they spend with Grandma. In fact, most people that I meet have fond memories of my grandma. She and Grandpa raised their three kids in Altoona. In fact, she still has the same phone number that she had when it was only 4 digits long. They simply added the 967 portion as the population increased. We went a few years ago to visit that house where she raised her boys because it was for sale and we wanted to look at it. My uncle Steve pointed out the BB gun

Cinnamon, Sugar, Cookies, Bread – Oh My!

What's Cooking

Last year, my mom decided she wanted to have a Bake Sale. She enjoys spending time in her kitchen and golfers, wedding guests, and family enjoy eating what she makes. She’s been making homemade cinnamon rolls for years. When I saw a small girl, she used to make four dozen every morning to sell at the golf course. The golfers really enjoyed her sale last year, so she declared she was going to do it again. Man. Did she ever! Here she is making a family favorite! Peanut Butter Balls. Any recipe that begins with melted butter is going to turn out well. Today, Friday, November 15 and Tomorrow, November 16th, we’re having a Bake Sale from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mom has made so many different types of deliciousness that even her apron would probably taste good! Here’s a coupon to sweeten the deal! Our family loves peanut butter blossoms with the star chocolate on top. Yep! Those are at the sale! If you use that coupon, you can even get six of those for free! If you eat them in the car before you get home, no one will ever know! Mom also has a way with almonds. I don’t even like almonds and I enjoy the stuff she bakes! This Scandinavian Almond Cake is heavenly. My office is upstairs directly above the kitchen. For the most part, I enjoy its location. I can hear laughter daily coming from the kitchen and clubhouse. There is a beautiful view overlooking the golf course. It’s a nice place to work. This last week, the smells have been amazing. It’s a miracle I’ve gotten any work done at all. I just keep thinking about cinnamon and sugar. It took me twice as long to do payroll because I kept trying to eat the paper on my desk. Here are some delicious cake balls. Did someone say breakfast? She even made Chex Mix. Garlic cooking in the oven. Yes, please. I just quickly walked around her kitchen and took pictures of all the goodies she was currently work on like peanut clusters. and peanut butter balls. I didn’t get a shot of her cherry mash, but they’re there. Yeah. I think for my last supper, I’d request guacamole and cherry mash. If that’s weird, then I’m cool with that. Weird is good.Have I mentioned how much I love my mom’s cooking? No? Ok. Here’s more proof. Cinnamon and sugar roasted pecans. There are no words. I know you’re a fan of her brownies. Seriously. You need to stop out and enjoy some of these fabulous baked goods. It’ll earn you extra points for your family. Unless you eat all of it while you’re in the car. Not that I’ve ever done that. Nope. Never ate all of mom’s brownies before picking up my kids from school. What kind of mom would do that? Everything is reasonably priced. Stop out and enjoy some of mom’s cooking. You won’t regret it!

Irrigation Equation

Golf Course

Ahhh. Water. It’s earth’s most abundant compound. It can be easily found naturally in all three of its states. It’s weird and defies logic. It’s the universal solvent. It expands when it freezes. When you really think about water, it’s pretty amazing. We have experienced mass amounts of water. We have experienced lack of water. Now, I’ll tell you all about what we do to NOT experience the problems with water when it freezes. Basically, if I’m having trouble sleeping at night. It probably has to do with water. We either have too much, too little, or I drank too much of it. Either way, it all equates to less sleep. As I have mentioned before, I’m the eighth generation in my family to live within a five mile radius of the golf course. In other words, I’m not moving. I like my family, but most importantly, it’s kind of hard to move a golf course. It’s a good thing that my family is so charming because I can’t say that I’m a big fan of the cold. I’m so glad that I have children because they make me enjoy snow. It’s coming, though. Iowa’s winter. We must prepare. With our forecast, the golf course has been buzzing with all of the preparations that go into preparing for our freezing weather. On Monday, we spent the morning blowing out our irrigation system. It’s always a fun process to get to witness. The last few weeks, we have been busy taking our ponds down as low as they could go to make sure we went into spring with some good foundation and moisture. We do our best to wait until the very last minute before we stop watering the golf course. After seeing the forecast with temperatures dipping into the teens, we realized that it was time to button up the irrigation for another year. First up, we had Contractor’s Rental deliver us a massive air compressor. They are one of the few places that have an air compressor that is big enough to blow out the irrigation system. The air must circulate through miles of pipe, so it has to be powerful to make its way around the golf course. The compressor has many crazy dials on it that make it seems very George Jetson-ish. The intake valves are removed from the pump house. These are the huge pipes that carry water from our ponds to the pump station. Here it is removed. For reference, here is a picture from earlier this year (taken from the opposite angle) which shows both pipes going into the pump station. These are very long pipes that suck the water out of the pond and push it into the pump station, so water can be distributed onto the golf course. The pipes are removed. Then the real work begins. To prevent damage to the irrigation system caused by freezing, all of the water must be drained from the pipes. First, we drain the system naturally using gravity. All of the water that has been primed in the system is let back into the ponds. When that is done, then the air compressor is connected to the pump station. The guys start at the high point on the course and begin opening valves to let the air out of the system. As they open up the valves, excess the water from the system escapes. The water blows out of the sprinkler heads. As the water leaves the system, less and less water blows out of the sprinkler heads. Eventually, only air is blowing out. Once only air is blowing out of the system, they move down lower in elevation on the golf course and release a new set of valves. The last and lowest areas on the golf course are the practice green, new ceremony site, number ten tee box and the driving range. There is a very loud hissing noise that can be heard which is the sound of the air pushing through the system.A large air compressor is required to complete this job because there are literally miles of piping that run underneath the surface of the golf course connecting the entire irrigation system. In a sense, the irrigation system is the lifeline of the golf course. Our pump station is kind of like the heart and all of the pipes are veins and arteries that carry the sustenance needed to grow grass. Water. It is critical that all of the water gets blown out of the system because the freezing nature of water would cause those pipes to break and we’d have a major disaster on our hands in the spring. The whole process took about six hours to complete. Just as we were finishing up, the snow began to fly. Nothing like cutting it close, huh? How about you? Do you have an irrigation system at your house? Maybe a camper? There are many steps that come into play as we prepare for winter.

Concrete Stories

Project List

It isn’t any secret that our parking lot needs some attention. Unfortunately, it’s always one of those things that gets pushed to the back burner because it takes such a big bite out of the ole’ budget. Three years ago, we had a big patch fixed on the lot. The damage occurred when a natural water spring formed under the parking lot. After a particularly horrible winter, the lot wasn’t completely dried out when a garbage truck turned around on it causing lots of damage. We decided that we’d tackle the parking lot in small bite sizes (read chunks of change). Two years ago, we had a company come out and they bore pipes underneath the lot to help with the water that had previously been flowing on top of the parking lot. The drainage now gathers all of the water at the miniature golf and from the hill side and sends it in pipes that run underneath the parking lot out to the pond. That helped so much with the constant flow of water, but the water had caused a lot of damage. Water made the Grand Canyon, so it was no surprise that it caused some problems with our parking lot. Now that the drainage is working well, we can refocus on putting down some new concrete. It’d be a pretty hefty project to do all at once. We don’t want to take out a loan for a parking lot, so taking small bites helps the pocketbook and keeps it something that we can afford. The goal is to have a completely new parking lot in the next five years if we keep taking bites out of the damaged areas one area at a time. This year, we decided to focus on the first aisle. This aisle had a stream of water running down it for years. Over time, that water caused severe damage that needed repair. It was highly scientific when we figured how much concrete we were going to put down. I told my carpenter, Mike, that I could spend a certain amount of money. Then, he measured out exactly how far that money would get me and painted the area with an orange line. The first order of business was to make a nice clean cut in the asphalt. We went to our friends over at Star Equipment and rented a saw to cut this line. We have a quickie saw, but this walk behind made this job so much easier. Mike had no sooner gotten it unloaded from his truck and it was time to return it. Yep. Much easier on the back than a hand saw! Once that was done, we waited a few days because rain was in the forecast. After the rain was done, we got to work digging out the damaged areas that we were planning to repair. They dug out the areas. Then loaded up all of the big chunks into a dump box that we had rented from Star. In case you can’t tell, Star Equipment is very handy when doing a project like this. They have lots of great equipment that anyone can rent to help with a project. If you have the sudden urge to lay concrete in your driveway after reading this, give them a call. Although this area hasn’t been wet in several years, we wanted to put in drain tile to be on the safe side, so we also rented a small excavator to dig a ditch, so we could put in drain tile. This machine also helped to break up the asphalt. Once the whole area was prepped, they put in re-bar to make sure it would hold up to heavy traffic in case we had another garbage truck incident. When you’re spending thousands of dollars, it’s nice to have a little insurance protection. If you’re a young boy under the age of about nine, the re-bar also makes a good sword, too. Bonus! The weather was going to get cold on us, so we have been working against the clock to get done. I don’t know why, but I always think it’s cool when I see multiple cement trucks lined up. It just screams, “Something BIG is going on here!” The cement truck driver hopped out of the car and began getting positioned and ready to unload his truck. He was only carrying about six yards of concrete. It was getting late in the day and the guys didn’t think they’d be able to have time to smooth out any more before the sun set. I always like how helpful everyone is with one another. Here’s Ben in the red. He’s been working for us this fall. The cement driver grabbed his hose to clean off Ben’s shovel. The guys were yelling out a bunch of code words that I couldn’t understand. Pouring concrete has its own language, I guess. That’s probably why I wasn’t in charge of this project. I’d be yelling out, “Can you make it go down your shoot?” I never heard those words, but the guy knew just what to do. The parking lot gold traveled down the shoot to fill in another section. Because we are so excited to have a nice big patch of parking lot fixed, we decided we’re hire Santa to come help us. Concrete is like a big Christmas gift to us and our patrons. Thank you Santa! They continued to smooth it out until is was just right. I didn’t have my camera at the time, but just as they finished, one of our golfers walked out the door and right through it. Insert blond joke here. Once all of it was in place, they put relief cuts in it. Here it is in all its glory! We blocked it all off with golf carts because we are clever like that. I’m thinking Club Car could use that in their advertising. Not only do they serve well as golf carts, but

Dynasty, Ducks, D-apparel

Golf Shop

As I mentioned here, Theresa met up with a few of her sales people earlier last week. Although fun, they don’t allow her to sample any foods. Luckily, Pat, who is our salesman is quite charming which makes up for the lack of food. He even literally gave me the shirt off his back one year when I was dressing as a crazy golfer for our homecoming parade. Here I am a few years ago wearing Pat’s cardigan. My kids and I were classy golfers who excitedly handed out candy. I was short on a costume and Pat loaned it to me. Score! Now that’s service! He arrived to the golf course sporting his rack of this coming year’s fashion samples in golf. Theresa grabbed her pen to mark down items that she liked out of the magazine. We like purchasing from Antigua. Number one reason is that we like Pat. Secondly, they are a nice quality shirt that is in a price point that is affordable for our golfers. One disadvantage of being a family owned and operated business is that we aren’t offered the steep discounts that a big corporation or multi-course operator is offered. We are just one company that orders (relatively speaking) very few shirts and products. It keeps us on the lookout because we want to stay competitive with larger corporations that are offered bigger bulk discounts. Pat was helpful and showed Theresa many new styles for the coming season. She likes to feel the fabric. Luckily for our golfers, she is married to a man who is picky about how fabrics feel against his skin. When picking out product, she pays attention to the design and the type of fabric. At the end of the day, she will pick out about four designs from their hundreds of options. These shirts all get the Toad Valley logo. With a name like Toad Valley, they are a popular item for people to purchase. After all, we’re the only Toad Valley in the United States. Get your Toad stuff here! Then, we found out why Pat is on the top of our like list. He pulled out the pièce de résistance. These fabulous golf balls will not be available until December. Trust me. We are counting down the days until they arrive in our Golf Shop! Bam! Duck Dynasty golf balls. Who’s ready to use these to improve their game? Forget about the shirt. Am I right or am I right?

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