September Is Crunch Month In A Wacky 2010

We had our heels kicking here at Cottonwood in the middle of April, thinking `Here we go…finally. We’re owed one’ because it looked like we were going to have an early start, but then we got sucker-punched by the snow, rain and cold that I’ve mentioned in previous blogs.

We had our men’s member-guest on Aug. 18 and that was the warmest day we’ve had this year. I think it got to 30, a temperature we’ve only hit twice this year.

We’ve been able to salvage corporate events that we had the potential of losing by moving them to August and September, but that brings new challenges.

September is usually our best month for weather. The problem is that the hours of operation decrease so much. We’ve moved our start time to 7:30 a.m., instead of 6 a.m. and that makes a huge difference because you can’t get as many players out.

At the other side of the tee sheet, the evening hours have dwindled and it’s dark by 8:15 p.m. and there are other concerns.

We were pretty close to frost a couple of times last week, so that’s going to start playing a role because all of a sudden, the corporate events that you can usually get out at 8:30 a.m. or 9 a.m. are suddenly pushed back to 10.

When you get into September, you’re also dealing with staffing issues because the kids have gone back to school and university’s started. We’re good on weekends, but that doesn’t help during the bulk of corporate times, which is during the week.

Are we going to save it? Yes.

Are we going to have two things going on one day instead of just one? Definitely.

That’s the only way to salvage it and then, you still have to find time for your members to play.

In my mind, you go into survival mode. You work so hard all year to put your best foot forward and you’ve got to keep going and be creative. You’ve got to do two things at once.

The wild card is that you could get some bad weather and all of a sudden, the 23^rd or 24^th of this month, you’re done.

The plan here right now is to stay open until Thanksgiving. Some people have asked us if we would stay open longer, but you’ve got to put your golf course to bed too. You’ve got to make smart decisions when it comes to that, as well.

We’ve got about a five or six-week grind ahead and that’s it. Then, you sit back and try to see if you made it or not.

It’s been an interesting year and a learning year.