“Sewer district opens negotiations to buy Holmes Harbor Golf Course” plus 3 more |
- Sewer district opens negotiations to buy Holmes Harbor Golf Course
- FINISH LINE: Rice embarrassed again playing golf
- Latest Golf News
- Sergio García has felt heartbreak on and off the course that has altered his outlook on golf
| Sewer district opens negotiations to buy Holmes Harbor Golf Course Posted: 16 May 2010 10:17 AM PDT The Holmes Harbor Sewer District has submitted an offer to purchase Holmes Harbor Golf Course in Freeland, which closed two months ago for financial reasons. The district's action, which came sooner then expected, will contribute to the delay of a planned reopening next week of the 18-hole, par-64 executive course. Supporters still hope to reopen the course after Memorial Day, if not sooner. "I'm very confident the golf course will reopen," Stan Walker, president of the sewer district board of commissioners, said Thursday. Sewer district commissioners already had ordered an updated appraisal of the property, and at their meeting Wednesday approved a letter of intent to purchase the course, Walker said. "The offer is en route," Walker said. He declined to reveal details, saying only that while the owner has been supportive, negotiations are expected and the final price "is up to the market." Walker said the course would be purchased with district reserves, and would have no effect on sewer rates. Meanwhile, Freeland Realtor Todd Bitts, interim chairman of the newly formed Holmes Harbor Recreation Association, said there may be a two-week delay in reopening the course until the sewer district's letter of intent is accepted. Obtaining an operation agreement with the owner is also taking longer than expected, Bitts said. "Everything's in place and we're getting ready to go, but we can't go anywhere until an agreement is in place," Bitts said Thursday. The group had hoped to reopen the course on Monday. "This was our ultimate goal," Bitts said of the sewer district's effort to buy the golf course. "We decided to move a little quicker." The 54-acre, par-64 course, owned by Holmes Harbor Community Partners, an independent component of the Schuster Group development company, has been for sale for more than a year. According to the Island County Assessor's Office, the course and nearby parcels have an assessed value of more than $2.6 million. The sewer district intends to buy only the parcels that make up the golf course, which are vital to the distribution of water from its nearby treatment plant along Honeymoon Bay Road. It won't purchase the clubhouse nor any of the adjacent parcels, Walker said. The public golf course closed March 14. The sewer district assumed the estimated $8,000-per-month cost to maintain the greens and fairways for 60 days so that treated water could continue to be disbursed efficiently through the course's 400 sprinklers. The sewer district holds an easement on the golf course proper. Proponents of the plan to reopen it hope to reduce playing rates to increase public use of the facility and create enough revenue to cover maintenance and operation. The recreation association was hastily formed this past month to reopen and manage the course under an agreement with the owners, pending a sale. The agreement would permit continued use of the pro-shop portion of the clubhouse, the restrooms and essential operating and maintenance equipment. The goal is a situation similar to Greenbank Farm, which is owned by the Port of Coupeville and run by a nonprofit, independent management group. The sewer district would own the golf course; the recreation association would run it. Bitts said the association has applied to become a nonprofit organization, which would make community contributions tax-deductible. The association is managed by a five-member board. Nearly 200 people attended a community meeting in late April to hear about the plan to reopen the course. Bitts said reaction was positive, and that contributions continue to flow in. "There was a tremendous response," he said. "I think we'll be fine." The golf course was designed by Sikma Enterprises, Inc. in 1994. Developer Mark Schuster bought the course from former Seattle Supersonics basketball star Jack Sikma in 2003. Owners blamed last month's closure on the poor economy, a soft market for recreation services generally and the inability of the company to restructure its debt. "We're all poised," Bitts said of the effort to reopen the golf course. "Everybody's in place." This article was originally published in the South Whidbey Record on May 15, 2010. Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| FINISH LINE: Rice embarrassed again playing golf Posted: 16 May 2010 12:38 PM PDT Insult to injury As if shooting a horrendous 92 in his golf round on Thursday wasn't bad enough for Jerry Rice. The NFL Hall of Famer was disqualified from the BMW Charity Pro-Am, a Nationwide Tour event, on Friday because his caddie used a scope to check yardages. Rice called the error a rookie mistake and apologized to tournament officials. That means Rice won't take part in today's third round, the last one before the field is cut for Sunday's finale. Rice had shot a 92 on Thursday,playing the first nine holes in 13 over shooting a 10 on the par-4 second hole. The 92 is the highest score since the tournament began in the Carolinas in 1992. He had rebounded a bit Friday with an 82 at Bright's Creek Golf Club before he was told of his mistake. Rice made his pro golf debut at the Fresh Express Classic last month, but missed the cut. He had hoped to make major strides at the BMW, but now thinks his golf future is purely recreational. "There are some good golfers that really need to get on this course," Rice said. And he's not one of them. PARTING SHOT "But he wants to get a second opinion from a good paleontologist." — Janice Hough Of LeftCoastSportsBabe.com on quarterback Brett Favre saying he would need ankle surgery before he can play in 2010. Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Posted: 16 May 2010 11:19 AM PDT Off to Wilmington, N.C., early tomorrow morning for the NCAA Women's Championship. I'll file a preview and offer my picks once I get there. That said, here are some number to chew before we get things started for real on Tuesday.
Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Sergio García has felt heartbreak on and off the course that has altered his outlook on golf Posted: 16 May 2010 10:32 AM PDT It's dusk on the Monday before the Players Championship, and Sergio García is running full speed on a soccer pitch. The lights have come on at Davis Park in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., and García is in command, shouting to his manager in Spanish and at Ricky Barnes in English, weaving among sunburned caddies and weathered barkeeps, the ball an extension of his bright red cleats. When his team is awarded a free kick, García is the one to take it. He is 20 yards from the goal, but the shot might as well be a tap-in putt. He races toward the ball, bends it leftfooted and watches it crash into the net. Golfers-caddies 1, Lynch's Irish Pub 0. "Surprisingly skillful for a professional golfer," says Keith Doherty, originally from Belfast, the manager of Lynch's and a referee for the match. "I was like, Man, this guy can ball." In the two years since García won the Players—his last PGA Tour victory—soccer has been one of the few things he can count on, more forgiving than golf, steadier than any romance. It's the game he and his father and coach, Victor, discuss over long-distance calls. The game García hugs tightly whether he is winning golf tournaments or suffering through dry spells. El Niño is 30 now, eons removed from the teenager who hit off tree roots at Medinah. He has lost majors, lovers and, on the golf course of late, his way. "We're the young guys with gray hair," Adam Scott, 29, says of himself and García, friends and former Players winners with similar career arcs. "We've been pretty lucky, but we've also gone through the low times. I played with him on Saturday at Augusta, and he obviously was struggling: That was clear. He didn't enjoy himself on the course. I can relate." Like Scott, García finds himself on the fringes of the game's elite, caught between the insurmountable peak of Tiger versus Phil and the oncoming tidal wave of Rory and Ryo. Sergio has been at this for so long—to and fro across the Atlantic, dancing at the Ryder Cup, getting stomped at the Ryder Cup, a foil to Tiger—that he can't help but reflect on the happiness and heartache of his golfing life. He can go from sounding like a sage one minute to a homesick kid at sleepaway camp the next. It's in his makeup, the emotion, in good times and bad. "It's always hard to be far from home, but this is the life I chose, and I don't regret it," García says. "But I do love going back home and playing soccer and playing tennis and simply hanging out with my family and friends. I enjoy time off the golf course. It's the life I chose, and I have to do my best to enjoy it as much as possible." Alvaro Quiros, also from Spain, has seen García up close and from a distance and watched the ebbs and flows of his countryman's career. "He used to be second in the world, and everyone wanted to see him as the opposite of Tiger, but it's not that easy," Quiros says. "Nike, Tiger. Adidas, Taylor Made, Sergio. Opposite. We are speaking about the greatest player of the world in history, Tiger. This is a very, very heavy stone." Who could have predicted a decline for García after winning the Players in a playoff over Paul Goydos, a victory marked by exquisite ball striking and stretches of sublime putting? In the gloaming that year García climbed the stairs of the giant TPC Sawgrass clubhouse, thanked Tiger for skipping the tournament, accepted the trophy from Phil and kissed it like a newborn. A couple of hours later he was at Lynch's Irish Pub, with its dollar bills on the ceiling, live music in the corner and soccer players behind the bar. García signed autographs and partied into the night. His great play continued through the summer, but it took him only so far. That August, in the final round of the PGA Championship, García dumped an approach shot into the water on Oakland Hills' 16th and watched Padraig Harrington take a major from him for the second straight year. In García's next start, at the Barclays, Vijay Singh rolled in a bomb and beat him in a playoff. That September at the Tour Championship, García lost yet another playoff, this one to Camilo Villegas. He had to settle for a great year, not the career-defining one that was only a few strokes away. Then came García's heartbreak off the course, the end of his three-year relationship with Greg Norman's daughter, Morgan-Leigh, in March 2009. "Probably the first time I have been really in love," he said at the time. García, the best long-straight driver since Morgan-Leigh's dad, admitted that his head wasn't into golf and soon was scattering tee shots. His scores rose, and his confidence dipped. A month after the breakup he shot 75–74 on the weekend at the Masters—the tournament that has defined Spain's golfing heroes, Seve Ballesteros and Jose María Olázábal, more than any other. Despondent, García said of Augusta National, "I don't like it, to tell you the truth. I don't think it's fair. It's too much of a guessing game. I don't care; they can do what they want. I simply come here and play and then go home." He was a man with a dark cloud over his head. At Lynch's, García's soccer pals had their own diagnosis: "The putter's killing him." For García, the fog still hasn't completely lifted, despite a fourth-place finish at the Accenture Match Play Championship in February. In recent weeks he has been experimenting with an interlocking grip—no small adjustment even for a professional. "It feels as if "the interlocking grip" keeps my hands a little more together," García says. "Unfortunately, because I've played my whole life with either a 10-finger or an overlap [grip], I don't have enough strength in the three fingers that you use when you interlock it, and it feels quite weak. I think if I manage to work it and it gets to the point where it works really good and I play a couple of tournament rounds and it feels good out there, I might change it because I like the way it feels when I practice with it." At the Players, though, it was the overlap grip, and García made the cut comfortably with rounds of 69 and 70. Though he finished 47th, he played with a smile, a marked difference from the slumped shoulders of the last year. "I'm not going to lie to you," García said after a third-round 71. "I'm not having the best time golfwise. You're never bulletproof. When things are going right on and off the course, everything seems to be fine, but if things aren't, it can play with your head and things get tougher." Is he close to his 2008 Players form? "I'm close," Garcia says, "but I'm not close close." Lee Westwood, who has returned from his own precipitous fall, predicts that García will be back. "He's simply a bit short of confidence at the moment." And then there are the lads at Lynch's, who played García and his soccer team to a 3–3 draw, though Doherty says there was a scoring dispute. Not to worry. The two sides have agreed to a rematch before the 2011 Players. All things considered, Sergio would be happy to lose the football match if he could return to Lynch's on Sunday night to celebrate a different victory. Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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