<\/p>\n
Seth Taylor Chris Leibee sets up another ball while warming up for a round of golf on Sunday at the Buffalo Golf Club. Leibee, who said he plays pretty seriously, used a device to measure the speed of his swing.<\/p>\n
The Buffalo Golf Club will welcome a new season and a new staff at its annual Par 3 Tournament this weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since January, a new golf pro, a new superintendent and a new concessionaire have joined the club after the departure of longtime staff members.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After 26 years as the Buffalo Golf Club\u2019s superintendent, Bert Mackie retired last year, and in January, Ben Crosswait joined the club as the new superintendent. Crosswait had previously been the superintendent at The Links of North Dakota, a golf course near Ray, North Dakota.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re very lucky that we found him,\u201d said Adam Michelena, golf club board president.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mackie has still been helping during the transition, Michelena said, and like him, Crosswait is capable of maintaining the facilities across the golf course, not just the green, which was a priority for the club.<\/p>\n
New golf pro Dan Ashley began work this week ahead of the tournament, which kicks off the season with a fundraiser for the golf course. Ashley made his way to Buffalo from New Jersey, Michelena said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Michelena said he was excited to see what another fresh pair of eyes could add to the programming at the club and that things like ladies nights or golf clinics could be in the golf course\u2019s future.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re excited to pick his brain and see what he is going to bring to the table, and he\u2019s got a lot of great ideas that are just awesome,\u201d Michelena said.<\/p>\n
Mary Tripp also joined the golf club as concessionaire and will operate the Par and Grill this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With new staff comes new ideas, and at the top of Crosswait\u2019s needs assessment \u2014 which he compiled when he arrived \u2014 was an updated sprinkler system, Michelena said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The sprinkler update would cost $100,000, but Michelena said it has a high upside: The new system could cut water usage by as much as 50%. That\u2019s because the new system would be able to water specific spots that need extra attention, rather than having to turn on the entire system just to water a scrap of brown on the far side of the green.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Michelena said the golf club is prepared to contribute a minimum of $20,000 to the $100,000 project and is seeking 1% funds and grants to make up the difference.<\/p>\n
The golf club doesn\u2019t pay for the water, Michelena said, so he views the new system as a benefit to the community as a whole.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still on the golf club\u2019s projects list is the construction of a new clubhouse. The proposed clubhouse was part of the $36 million in community infrastructure projects that would have been funded by a one-penny tax put on the ballot in August, but voters overwhelmingly rejected the proposal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The century-old clubhouse needs top-to-bottom repairs, and drainage issues around the foundation have plagued the building, according to Michelena, leading to what he describes as the golf club\u2019s basement pool.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Michelena said that he was disappointed the ballot issue didn\u2019t succeed but that the golf club was forging ahead in search of other sources of funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So far, the club has raised almost $300,000 during a yearslong effort to raise funds for the new clubhouse. The fundraiser began just before the COVID-19 pandemic, which derailed some of the club\u2019s efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Michelena said the club doesn\u2019t have a specific fundraising goal and that they will base the design of the clubhouse on how much the community donates.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we raise a million, it\u2019s going to be a million-dollar clubhouse. If we raise two, it\u2019s going to be a little bit nicer,\u201d Michelena said.<\/p>\n
He estimated that it would take $1.5 to $2.5 million to get the job done, though he noted it was difficult to estimate with confidence in the current construction environment. The club is exploring state money earmarked for recreation and tourism as a way to fund the project, and conservatively, Michelena said, the club would like to break ground on the new clubhouse within the next five years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Once the clubhouse is built, the board hopes it will be a resource for the entire community, Michelena said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have such an amazing course, we need a facility to match that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The golf club may take a step closer to a new clubhouse at the Par 3 Tournament on Saturday. The tournament, a fundraiser for the golf club, officially kicks off the season, though the warm weather has meant that the golf course opened early.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the tournament, the club will conclude its fundraising raffle, begun before the pandemic. The club had initially hoped to sell 1,000 tickets for $1,000 each. The grand prize winner will receive 25% of the total sold amount, and other winners will receive tiered amounts as well.<\/p>\n
The Par 3 Tournament starts at 1 p.m. on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seth Taylor Chris Leibee sets up another ball while warming up for a round of golf on Sunday…","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_display_header_overlay":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_volume":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[959,310],"class_list":["post-19672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-golf","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@fogolf\/117501878847508312","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}