What is in a name?

So, you want to build a golf course: good luck to you. I hope you have a nice piece of property in a well-populated area and you have a boatload of money.

After permits and engineering cost, let’s hope you construct a beautiful, affordable layout that will attract golfers of all abilities and allow you to pay the bills.

Before you open the gates, you have to decide what you are going to call your golf course. Many established clubs have been named after the towns they are located in, very original, boring , but original. (For example: Brookline, Stockbridge, Longmeadow and Hampden.)

Some courses are named after cities they are not located in. For example, North Adams Country Club is not in North Adams, it is in Clarksburg, and Springfield Country Club is in West Springfield.

You have to be careful not to take a name that has already been taken. There is an Oak Ridge Golf Club in Feeding Hills and also a course by the same name located in Gill, Mass. Be careful if you are in a tournament at one of those and your map quest gets confused.

Other club monikers will tell you something about the makeup or features of the courses. An example is Berkshire Hills. The name tells us it is in The Berkshires and you probably want to take a cart if you play there.

Pontoosuc Lake Country Club must be near Pontoosuc Lake; Beaver Brook must have a brook running through the layout in Haydenville; Pine Grove in Northampton must feature pine trees; and Hickory Ridge in Amherst… you get the drill.

It seems some clubs are given titles to sell merchandise and actually have nothing to do with the features of the course. Possum Trot in Myrtle Beach is one of these. If you play there you will remember the name.

They have a hole called the Big Possum, where, if you make par, you will receive a complementary beverage upon turning in your scorecard. They feature a famous logo that makes vacationing linksters gobble up shirts, jackets or at least a hat before they depart. Everywhere you look on the grounds you will see the possum.

Logos are important. When Bill Sandri purchased Crumpin Fox Club in Bernardston, he hired PGA Professional Ron Beck to run the show. While the second nine-hole construction was going on, Beck, along with Vermont artist Ron Karpius, developed a logo that has become so famous nationwide they don’t even have to put the name of the courses on the merchandise.

Just the sinister-looking fox in his golfing outfit juggling a golf ball identifies Fox Hollow in Florida, Fox Hopyard in Connecticut and “The Crump” in Massachusetts. That creature has won the national PGA logo of the year, and I wish I had royalties on the number of times that vermin is featured on towels, hats, shirts, playing cards, candles, sweaters, golf balls, money clips, puzzles, calendars, etc.

Myrtle Beach features over 100 courses within a 30-mile radius, and it can be hard to differentiate and remember if you have played a particular course over the years. That’s not the case with The Witch; if you play a course with a name like that you will not forget it. They later built a sister club called The Wizard, so it may get confusing.

If I owned a golf course I would get creative with the name; it would have to be an attention-grabber that would cause someone to say, “Where is that one located?”

The best names in western Massachusetts are “Donnybrook” in Lanesboro, “The Ranch” in Southwick and “Dunroamin CC” in Gilbertville. Not only are there golfers throughout the area who have not played Dunroamin, but also have no idea where Gilbertville is.

For years, my favorite name for a golf course was located in Fort Myers, Fla., called Fiddlesticks. Without even seeing the place, I wanted a hat.

How could you forget a name like that? Fiddlesticks is now second on my list.

In Estero, Fla., just outside of Naples, is a gated community which features a course named Old Corkscrew Golf Club, which goes directly to the top of my list. I wonder if there will be a New Corkscrew Golf Club someday and if the hats ever go on sale.

Remembering Bill Sandri

When the Crumpin-Fox Golf Club in Bernardston was a nine-hole layout, Bill Sandri lived in a nice house on Purple Meadow Road just off the seventh fairway. One day, he decided he wanted to purchase his very large backyard.

I remember Bill telling the story at a banquet about the day he approached then-owner Andy St. Hillaire: “Are you going to do it, am I going to do it or are we going to do it?”

By “it,” he meant completing the project and building the second nine holes and making “The Fox” one of the top golf courses in New England. Mr. Sandri closed the deal and the rest is history.

PGA Professional John Demko, who worked at “The Fox” for over 20 years, told The Beacon, “Crumpin-Fox never would have become the shrine that it is today if it wasn’t for the passion and enthusiasm and desire for golf that Bill had.”

On Dec. 12, Bill Sandri passed away in the company of his family at age 67.

I’ve known Bill for over 30 years and played a lot of golf with him when I was a member at his club for 15 years. He was a very successful businessman and very involved with numerous charities, including the Big Brothers-Big Sisters program.

He enhanced and improved a lot of lives including that of a stray dog named Zeke. Zeke went from being a dumpster-diving mutt to his own pad on the 16th fairway, his shotgun seat in the Porsche and privileges at two other golf courses owned by his master.

We used to say the Zeke hit the “dog lottery” and ended up with more frequent flyer miles per year than Hillary Clinton. The 19th hole at The Fox was renamed “Zeke’s Grill.”

Sandri was the owner of the club, but to the membership, he was also a friend. I spent many hours in his company, and I am appreciative of the fact that I had that opportunity.

Thanks Bill, and by the way, that is a helluva backyard you got there.

Posted by Dick Syriac on January 3, 2013. Filed under Berkshire Sports Guy,Columns,Opinion,Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry