June 14, 2010

BARNESVILLE, PA — The small portion of the Carl Spackler Open stormed Mountain Valley last weekend for 36 holes. The nine members from Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania arrived to the clubhouse in a motor home at 7:20AM. Greg Long and senior member Jon Marti entered the pro shop together.

"Are you Mr. Long," the late-60's female pro shop attendent with glasses pushed down on her nose named Barb asked? Long replied, "Yes. We have a tee time at 8:00AM."

Barb replied, "Welcome to Mountain Valley. Should I assume the Carl Spackler Open has arrived?" Long laughed and said, "Most of us... Yes."

"Mr. Long.... your money is no good here," said Barb. The other members are charged the $20 cart fee."

Long asked, "We are playing 36 holes. Do we owe $20 or $40 per man?" Barb replied, "$20. The cart fee for our members includes all-you-can-play."

Jon Marti prompted and graciously picked up the tab for the day of golf. "Membership has its privileges," said Greg Garrett upon hearing of the $20 cart fee.

Long proceeded into the restaurant area where he met Judy and Brian Dries, a.k.a. Pork, for a breakfast sandwich.

"Hello Mr. Dries," said Long. "I have something for you." Long handed Pork a white logo Spackler cap. "These are awesome," replied Pork. "Thank you."

Pork started to adjust his hat for his head size. "I hope you have one for Walt," said Pork referring to the PGA Professional at Mountain Valley.

Pork proceeded to enter the pro shop and return with several practice range tokens. The Spackler guys carted, hit balls on the range, putted, and proceeded to the first hole.

Mountain Valley is now a 36 hole facility.

The 'Mountain' course consists of the nine holes of the old Maple course. It also includes the 1st, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th holes of the old Oak nine. The finishing touches to the new Mountain course include four brand new holes.

The 'Valley' course consists of the Pine nine holes, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th holes of Oak plus five new brand new holes carved out of dense forest down in a valley.

"You need to be a billy goat to play the first four new holes," said senior member Mike Gibson. "They need to put a zip-line in-between the tee box and the green at the 8th hole of the Valley course. It would be really fun after hitting from the billy goat tee."

Captains Club member Greg Garrett liked the extra space. "The new holes are more wide open than the existing holes," said Garrett. "There is room to work the ball from side to side until all the trees fill in."

PGA Professional Walt Tobash met the first foursome on the first new set of holes for a personal tour. "How do you like these?" asked Tobash. Long replied, "They are pretty awesome. You used the land well and the view at the 12th hole is pretty amazing." Long is referring to the 30-mile view beyond the green, which stretches 610 yards from the tee.

The group proceeded to the Valley course where they played a ninesome. "We were playing behind the slowest threesome on earth," says senior member Glenn Hoffert. "Pork and Walt showed up to escort us through the five new holes. We decided to play a ninesome to see if the threesome would allow us to play through."

The group played 4 holes as a ninesome before Pork left to retrieve a case of beer from the clubhouse. Pork returned and was invited to participate in the Carl Spackler Open tensome.

"Pork borrowed a few clubs and parred the first hole," says Brian Long. "I was impressed. We took a group picture just off the tee box at the beautiful 8th hole on the Valley course."

The group proceeded to play through the threesome and played the final 9 holes (mostly of the old Pine course) as a ninesome including the final hole in front of 'Madness on the Mountain' deck party. "We first started to hear the band while down in the valley," said Bobby Owens, Jr. "It came as Slick's Power Box had lost its 9 hours of juice. The noise got louder as we played (the old Pine course)."  

The group arrived to the final hole where they took turns hitting into Madness on the Mountain deck party. "The weather was incredible and the deck party would be the topper to a great day," said Greg Long. "The fun factor on Friday was well beyond my expectations."

Gibson birdied the final hole in front of the large deck. The group returned their golf clubs to the motor home and then were escorted by Pork past a long line of 50 locals into the clubhouse for the deck party. "Come with me guys," said Pork. "You guys will not have to wait in line or pay the cover."

Pork escorted the guys to a table outside near the band. The group entered the clubhouse party around 6:30PM. There were about 500 people in and outside the clubhouse.

Slick proceeded to the bar on the deck where he found three sisters in their late 30's working at the bar. He proceeded to purchase two pitchers of Yeungling. Gibson was on the other side of the deck talking to two golfers that remembered the Carl Spackler Open from June 2005.

The general manager and Walt Tobash arrived to the deck party around 7:00PM with a case of beer. They swapped stories including a summer Friday at the Mountain Valley deck party when a helicopter crashed into the 17th (old Pine #8) fairway and another golfer died on the 10th (old Pine #1) green (old age and completely unrelated) within 30 minutes. "It was pretty interesting," says Kyle Marti of the interesting day at Mountain Valley. "Walt was telling us about the golfers who wanted to play through both the helicopter crash site and dead body laying on the green."

Walt said, "This guy comes up to me. He says, 'What the hell is going on today? The entire course is backed up. Can we get these people moving?'  

I tell him there is a guy who is dead on the 10th green. The golfer replies, 'Can you move him or can we play through and what the hell is going with the helicopter laying over on the 17th hole. Do you realize there are 1,000 golf balls laying all over that fairway.'"

The helicopter was in the area to drop 1,500 balls on the Mountain Valley golf course as part of a fund raiser.

To be continued...