Ralph Scafuri
Adopt-A-Hole volunteers—who are they and what do they do? As an extension of the Quail Creek Green Committee (through the Course Sub-committee), Adopt-a-Hole volunteers serve the community by providing additional care and upkeep of our golf course. Each of our 27 holes is adopted by a captain and several volunteers who help keep that hole in the best shape possible. The heavy lifting for hole maintenance is supplied by our Course Superintendent J.R. Kies and his crew. They do the mowing, the raking, the fertilizing, the setup, the trimming and on and on. But playing the game of golf creates flaws on the course—divots in the fairways and on the tee boxes, ball marks on the greens and occasional scattered debris. It’s the responsibility of each golfer to repair his/her inflicted damage, but sometimes golfers are not as diligent as they should be.
Thus the first order of business for our Adopt-a-Hole volunteers is repairing golfer damage to the course that was somehow overlooked by the golfer. That is, our volunteers repair divots, fix ball marks and collect debris on the course. All of the Adopt-a-Hole captains and their teams tend to their hole on a regular basis, before or after the golf course is open for play. The team can be anywhere from one to a dozen people as the need dictates; for example, par 5s normally require more volunteers than par 3s. In addition to the repair work, our volunteers also alert the Course Sub-committee (which includes J.R. Kies) of downed trees in need of removal, broken sprinkler heads or course damage caused by animals. They are in the trenches of our golf course and provide valuable input to our course superintendent and the Green Committee.
The Adopt-A-Hole committee captains and their teams have done a particularly outstanding job this year of assisting in the maintenance of the golf course. In addition to their usual duties, they have pulled weeds, swept off cart paths, cleaned the grass overgrowth around sprinkler heads and helped to remove crab grass from the greens and aprons.
So if you notice the Adopt-a-Hole volunteers performing their duties, please acknowledge them for the work they are doing and the time and effort they put into improving our golf course appearance. They take their roles seriously and are dedicated to maintain and improve the course. If you are interested in joining us, there is always room for additional Adopt-A-Hole volunteers! To do so, contact Adopt-a-Hole lead captain and organizer, Dave Schutt, at [email protected].