Guy Cipriano (3)
Playing a fabulous golf course on delightful land once is a joy. Experiencing that course 5½ times on the same day provides numerous teaching moments.
For the sixth straight year, Elyria Country Club hosted an atypical Monday outing benefiting the Orange Effect Foundation. The charitable cause is straightforward and noble: OEF raises money for children with speech disorders. This year’s event raised more than $54,000.
The outing isn’t like many Monday shotguns. Participants play 100 holes. So much for a calm “Maintenance Monday” for longtime Elyria Country Club superintendent Patrick Rodgers and his crew.
The outing starts at 7 a.m., with workers trying to mow, blow, spray, roll, rake, train and learn around frantic play. The event arrives at a tough spot on the northeast Ohio golf maintenance calendar. Mid-May coincides with the arrival of seasonal workers who must be swiftly trained as playing surfaces swiftly grow. The 2025 outing coincided with a damp stretch that made getting a mower on any surface in the days leading up to the outing challenging.
The longer somebody works in the golf industry, the more they realize outings almost never occur at the ideal time. Exceptional superintendents realize this early in their careers and deftly roll with the calendar. Adaptation wins more professional supporters than resistance.
Rodgers has adapted plenty over an impactful career at Elyria Country Club, a splendid 100-year-old William Flynn design in a soothing — and cursed — spot. Assistant editor Kelsie Horner described in an August 2024 profile that Elyria Country Club is one of three northeast Ohio courses in close proximity along the picturesque and puzzling Black River.
Coping with floods and protecting soggy turf is a work reality at Elyria Country Club, where four back-nine holes rest in low-lying locations near the river. Serenity comes with a cost. Rodgers has spent thousands of hours during more than three decades at Elyria Country Club guiding teams and turf through oversaturation.
Despite heavy rain during the week before the 100-hole outing, carts roamed roughs and fairways on par 4s and par 5s. Completing 100 holes on a course dotted by 30 golfers before dusk becomes impractical if carts must remain on paths.
Participating in a 100-hole outing mentally feels like a sprint, marathon and ultramarathon mixed into one day — although road and trail races tax the body far more than any golf-related activity. Trust your aging writer on this. Moving after a marathon conquered via foot yields pain. Any fit and limber human should be able to work out the morning following 100 holes.
The sprint portion of a 100-hole outing results from the goal of the event: to complete every hole. The morning, afternoon and evening represent a continuous hustle to reach the next shot. Prolonged ball searches and grinding over putts disrupts the mission. At times the event resembles a longer race. Thirty-six holes down before noon! Sweet! Just 64 more to go.
The mind, swing and putting stroke wavers — and subsequently recovers — numerous times. Sustenance becomes a means to finishing the mission. Food is consumed on the move; drinks must be chugged rather than savored.
Relishing the awesomeness of a course like Elyria Country Club proves tricky during a golf whirlwind. But observing the crew in motion between shots demonstrates the coordination required to ensure that golfers supporting an effort contributing to the greater good and professionals executing tasks to meet member expectations can coexist.
Challenges were overcome to provide a pleasant palette for an event with a purpose. More challenges will emerge as the golf season progresses.
Spending more than 13 hours on the same course reveals lessons about teamwork, coexistence, Golden Age architecture, maintenance, club management, and the human body and spirit.
Adaptation is best studied in real time.
Guy Cipriano is Golf Course Industry’s publisher + editor-in-chief.
