EACC NEWS East Aurora Country Club Member Newsletter October, 2017 Board of Directors Message from the President: October, 2017 Rudy Ruschmann President Human Resources Doug Marky Vice President House Chairman Human Resource Chair Vince Rowland Treasurer Grounds Chairman Finance Co-Chair Dick Hillegas Secretary Grounds Co-Chair Membership John Holder The season of Autumn began on September 22, and we finished a great month of golf with record breaking heat. The month of October will still bring with it many more enjoyable days of golf, so make sure that you take advantage of it. As previously announced, on Saturday, September 2 the Club had a ribbon cutting ceremony on the new forward tee on hole #1, opening the 5 new forward tees. I would like to thank representatives from the IJM Committee, the Ladies Associates Board, Joe Perillo, Joe Freeman, Drew Thompson, Dave Jones and all the EACC members that attended for participating in this special event. Further in this newsletter, please find a couple of photos from this celebration. Throughout this year we have had many members donate their time and talents to projects that have been completed this year. Our Club does not lack for members who are always willing to help when asked. I would like to thank Bob Tait and Dick Westermeier who lent their wood working talents to build a new frame for the Past President s pictures that appear at the top of the staircase in the Clubhouse. We are now set for another 24 years. Throughout their distinguished history at EACC the Mulligans have always identified projects at EACC that needed to be built, repaired or painted. In the September heat, Bob Tait, Dick Westermeier and Jim Aston repaired and painted the water stations on the course. Thank you gentlemen for your efforts. Continued on page 2 Membership Chairman John McKenna Golf Chairman Finance Jay Hoagland Golf Co-Chair Dave Finn Finance Frank Trzepkowski House Co-Chair Upcoming Events (Reservations Required) October 11th Wine Down Wednesdays Begin October 14th Golf Mixer Clam Bake October 21st New Member Cocktail Reception November 4th President s Ball December 2nd Breakfast With Santa Club Hours Monday CLOSED Tuesday 11-6pm (Bar 7pm) Wednesday 11-8pm Thursday 11-8pm Friday 11-8pm Saturday 11-8pm Sunday 11-6pm (Bar 7pm) Days where we have inclement weather, or days when these hours are not practical because of insufficient traffic, an earlier Sunday or Tuesday closing time will be communicated via a Clubster announcment 300 Girdle Road, East Aurora, NY 14052 716-652-6800 www.eastauroracc.com 1
Message from the President Continued from Page 1 The Club s search for a new House Manager continues. Doug Marky and Frank Trzepkowski and their Hiring Committee have reviewed the resumes that have been submitted and have identified the candidates to be interviewed. Interviews were conducted in September and they are now in the final stages of prioritizing their top candidate. We hope that they are successful in their approach. The Board would like to once again say thank you to the membership for their understanding and patience during this critical period. Current membership is 232 compared to 221 through September 2016. While we are fortunate that membership continues to grow, we all know that adding new members allows for our Club to reinvest and improve on our major assets. Dave Jones is always available to meet or contact potential individuals interested in joining EACC, and inform them of our Membership Incentives. Please continue to spread the word on everything that EACC has to offer. Enjoy Fall Golf! It is the prettiest time of the year. Rudy Ruschmann, President September 2 Ribbon Cutting 5 new forward tees 2
News from the Golf Shop: September brought us the best summer weather of the year. At the time of writing this article, it is 91 degrees outside and there is not a breath of wind. We could not have asked for a better month of weather and with it came a lot of golf. Our final major of the year, the Harvest Tournament, took place during the second weekend of the month and Day 1 was one of the few days where we did not have nice weather and had to shorten the event to 18 holes. However, it did not stop everyone from having a fantastic time during the event. That can even be said for myself after having to wash Drew s truck after losing last year s team portion. Our winning team was John Kozma & David Jablonski who fired a 63, great playing gentleman. Furthermore, like last year, grounds beat golf so that means I ll be scrubbing Drew s truck again next year! Saturday, September 16 th was our annual Pro Day event. The turnout was incredible once again as we had a full field for the event. I can t thank you all enough for your support. We hosted the Ladies Senior Invitational on Monday the 18 th that brought ladies from a number of different clubs to our facility. We are proud to say that our very own Sherrill Kujawski won Overall Low Gross with a score of 91 and Anne Szymanski took home Overall Low Net with a score of 70. Charmaine Kaes grabbed the low gross in the C Flight with a score of 100. What a great showing from our gals. Our Cross Country event took advantage of our unseasonably warm weather with 48 players coming out and playing our fantastic course in a slightly different manner than normal. For once, the goal WAS to hit it into other fairways! Our winning team navigated the modified holes the best with a score of 33. Nice playing Jack Livingston, Matt Jeffe, Mitch Jeffe & Charlie Fischer! Our Ladies 18 & 9 Hole groups wrapped up their seasons during the last week of September and on behalf of the entire staff, it has been a pleasure working with you all. We can now start to see the leaves changing color and a little chill in the air as we look forward to a wonderful fall season. Dave 2017 Harvest Tournament Winners Team Dave washing Team Drew s Vehicle 3 John Kozma & Dave Jablonski
Clubhouse News As we head into October, our Fall Clubhouse hours will remain in effect. Should there be any changes to our schedule, we will notify members immediately. We still have events that will be here before you know it! October 11th will mark our start of Wine Down Wednesdays and on Saturday, October 14th, there will be a Golf Mixer Clam Bake. Information regarding event specifics will be following shortly. Also please keep in mind, November 4th will be the President s Ball honoring Mr. Rudy Ruschmann. The formal invitations will be in the mail shortly. As a reminder, we ask that you call ahead for reservations, especially for Friday & Saturday evening as those are our busiest nights. We want to do our best to accommodate your dining experience. We look forward to seeing you soon! Grounds With Drew What a September!! After starting off on the cool side we ve been given a summer-like heat wave that has been fantastic for golf. Hot weather and close to three weeks with no rain. How can you beat that if you wanted to get that late season round in. We still have a few areas to aerify this fall and we will get to them in the coming weeks. We will be aerifying tees and approaches beginning Tuesday October 3 rd. This process should take no longer than a day and a half, weather permitting. We will also have a contractor in to deep tine aerify greens starting Sunday October 1st, late afternoon. This process will cause minimal disruption to the putting surface. The solid tines used will go 8 deep and help shatter the soil below our normal aerification depths to aid in drainage and root depth. It has been another challenging yet productive summer at EACC and as we transition into leaf removal we are focused on keeping the course playable and enjoyable. Let s hope for a long fall! Chef Steve, Francesca, and Patrick -Your Clubhouse Team- See you on the Course Drew Thompson, CGCS We d like to take this opportunity to welcome the following new members to the EACC family. Please do all you can to make them feel the special connection to EACC that we ve come to expect! Seth Glanowski (Junior) Keith Williams (General) Jay Metzger (General) 4
18 HOLE GOLF NEWS It is hard to believe that this season has come to an end. It has been a great year and the golf course has never been in better shape. I am sure that we have many more days of golf left for this season and I hope to see you all out there. Our closing luncheon and meeting took place on September 26th. The following people received recognition for their achievements this year: PRESIDENTS PLAQUE Low Gross Sherrill Kujawski (91) Low Net Deb Ruschmann (71) FROGHOPPER TOURNAMENT Sherrill Kujawski OVER AND UNDER Under - Low Gross Sherrill Kujawski (98) Low Net Kathy Lenz (71) First Place Doris Brand (74) Second Place Congratulations to all!!! Over - Low Gross Carol Gay (100) Low Net Peggy Beers (70) First Place Charmaine Kaes (75) Second Place We also held our 18 hole member meeting during which we discussed, at length, the Member/Member tournament. I would like to thank all of you for your thoughts and suggestions as I think that the outcome was achieved by the input of all involved. It was decided with a unanimous vote that in the future the tournament should be open to all Female golfers. Therefore, beginning with the 2018 season, the pro shop will run the tournament along with the Chair of the 18 holers. In addition, there was a general consensus that the ladies would like to see the return of Thursday afternoon "Ladies of the Night" golf. Denise Tait and Gloria Kunz have volunteered to take on this project. Marilyn Marky submitted the Treasurer's report and if anyone is interested, she will provide you with a copy. In closing, I would like to send out thanks to all for your support and help this year with special mention of Debbie Ruschmann who is just always there. My successor, Rita Szczerbowski, is already hard at work planning the 2018 season. I am sure that she and her vice president, Debbie Colt, will make this a season to look forward to. Thank you for a great year! Charmaine Kaes, 18 Hole Chair 5
Women s 9-Hole League: October, 2017 September was a surprise with wonderful weather. We hope you all enjoyed the beautiful days of golf! Our season ended on September 28 th with a delicious closing luncheon. Congratulations to our most improved members for the season: Cathy Melas and Donna McKenna tied for most improved overall with Cathy as most improved on the front 9 and Donna on the back 9. We also sincerely thank Donna McKenna and Carol Smith for their years of service as our dedicated cochairs. The league has grown and improved with their leadership. Next year, our co-chairs will be Caryn Bartnik and Lisa Bonaventura. We invite the 9 Hole league members to continue to golf with us on Thursday mornings at 9 am as long as the good weather holds. Thank you to all for a great season of golf at EACC! *Caryn Bartnik, Co-Chair 2017 MULLIGANS Dick Westermeier, Bob Tait and Jim Aston Hard at work painting the water huts. 6
Associate Board News I hope everyone is enjoying this extended summer weather! Mother Nature is just letting us know that it s too early to put our sticks away. I don t know how other Ladies are feeling about the forward tees, but I have been out there a few times and they definitely give the game a whole new perspective. So far, I m getting use to hole number one and love the new forward tee on three. Ladies, get out and try the forward tees it s a whole new ball game out there! The Ladies of EACC and their guests enjoyed a nice Chip N Sip event. It was a great turn out and I appreciate everyone who came out for the Chipping lesson and then followed to our sipping event. Of course, there was no need to have a lesson on sipping. We were so pleased to see some ladies who we haven t seen out and about in a while. The event even attracted a new member. We love seeing new members and we even tried recruiting her to one of the many leagues we have. Overall, fun was had by everyone. Remember a couple of upcoming events we have going on at the club: Hope to see everyone out on the course! The Presidents Ball November 4 th Breakfast with Santa December 2 nd Jennifer Dean Associate Board President 7
EACC Members in Ireland On September 5, a group of members from EACC headed to Ireland for a golf adventure. This trip was a year in the making. Many thanks to Paul O Brien for his tireless work in planning the trip. The group was comprised of Jim Johnson, Jeff Kamien, Mike Kohlhas, Gene Lavis, John McKenna, Paul O Brien, Bryan Smith, Sean Sullivan, Jon Zach and Frank Ziolkowski. Also along for the trip were perennial EACC Invitational guests Dan McDonnell and Paul Buckley. The trip got off to a rough start as half of the group had their flight cancelled (thank you American Airlines!) When we all finally met up at Old Head Golf Links in Kinsale, the festivities began in earnest. We played two rounds at Old Head before establishing a base in Killarney. From Killarney we played Dooks (twice), Killarney Golf Club and Waterville. Perhaps more significantly we discovered the Celtic Whisky Bar and Larder in the heart of Killarney, home to 850 different bottles of Irish Whisky along with an impressive collection of Scotch, Bourbon and Japanese whisky as well. There was an initial attempt to drink a whisky for every golf ball lost to the Dunes of Ireland but that had to be abandoned as the rate of golf ball disappearance made that venture an impossible one especially for Jeff and Jon. After leaving Killarney we made our way up to Ballybunion. The general consensus was this was the finest course we played. The course was in wonderful condition and the layout was links golf at its finest. We understand why Tom Coyne made this his final stop in his trip around Ireland, chronicled in his book A Course Called Ireland. After leaving Ballybunion we headed to our final stop three days at Trump International Golf Links at Doonbeg. The facilities there were exceptional we even had a putting green winding around our villas! Our last two rounds were at Lahinch and Doonbeg and neither disappointed. Lahinch is a wonderful golf course set right in town and Doonbeg is a resort course with many seaside holes to enjoy. It should be noted that the weather was a challenge virtually every day. Temperatures were generally in the high 50 s and while it didn t rain too much, the wind was formidable. A calm day was 20 mph sustained with 30 mph gusts. The worst day was at Killarney with 40 mph sustained and 50-65 mph gusts. Thankfully that day was inland as we heard the seaside courses like Waterville and Ballybunion were even worse! It seemed like most holes either played into the wind or with a crosswind. It is quite a challenge when you see a tee shot get blown 50 yards to the left or right depending on wind. 120 yard 5 irons into the wind and 190 yard 8 irons with the wind were also commonplace. All in all we had 12 golfers who played a total of 89 rounds of golf. Guessing that represents approximately 300 lost golf balls all of our bags were lighter coming 8 back.
The Emerald Isle (including Northern Ireland) is home to 7 of the Top 100 golf courses in the world according to Golf Magazine. Those who went with OB three years ago have now played five of them Royal County Down (4), Ballybunion (17), Lahinch (35), Portmarnock (49) and Waterville (82). Additionally, the course at Old Head offers some of the most impressive vistas you will see on a golf course. See below for some photos of the trip. We are already looking forward to our next Irish golf adventure! Jeff Kamien Support the Club and the Newsletter by submitting articles and pictures to: Judy Smith at: dajusmith@roadrunner.com 9