Key Takeaways:
- Holiday Park Golf Course celebrated its 60th birthday on Monday morning. Mayor Charlie Clark participated in the festivities and made a few swings.
On Monday morning, Holiday Park Golf Course celebrated its 60th birthday. Mayor Charlie Clark attended the celebration and teed off with a few strokes, much like Mayor Sid Buckwold did when it originally opened.
Clark chuckled, “I made a lot better contact on my first one, even if it was a devastating slice.
“The second one, I just topped it, so I wasn’t very proud of that, but that’s why people play golf,” the golfer said. “You want to go back and try and get it straight up the fairway.”
According to Andrew Roberts, director of the recreation and community development for the City of Saskatoon, Holiday Park was the busiest course in the nation in the early 1980s, with close to 90,000 rounds played annually, and it frequently saw people lining up at all hours of the night to reserve a spot.
“I recall people lining up at around four in the morning to get a tee time,” Roberts recalled.
With the help of other nearby courses, he claims that the course will now only see roughly 60,000 rounds annually.
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He stated, “Many golf courses would be jealous of those statistics.”
Longtime participant Dianne Bethune has participated in at least 120 of those rounds.
She explained, “My husband introduced me to the game, and this is the course he played as a kid because he grew up here.
“I came out and joined him as well as started playing golf myself, and I’ve enjoyed it ever since. He loves his course so much.”
Bethune claims to have eight hole-in-ones on the course and a four handicap.
She cited two on the second, one on the fifth, two on the thirteenth, and one on the sixteenth.
Just the facts, please.
She frequently returns to Holiday Park for various reasons, including her appearance.
She remarked, “I believe it to be one of the nicest courses in the area.
“It’s just like a great spot to spend your time and have fun with your buddies,” one person said.
Greenkeeper Marc Robert is one of those responsible for maintaining the course looking new after 60 years.
At 5:30 a.m., he begins his day.
“Many people would assume we have a large crew, but in fact, we just have 10, 11 personnel,” he remarked.
We simply go out every day and cut the rough greens, tees, and fairways before moving on to the little details.
According to Roberts, the city’s investments are the main factor in the course’s sustained appeal.
We completed a significant makeover of roughly $2 million in 2016, so we’ve dedicated ourselves to constantly enhancing the facility to make it better, more contemporary, and more fun for our customers while keeping it as reasonably priced as we can in the market.
Source: CTV News
