THE MAD POST

Submitted by Gary Ward, General Manager & C.O.O.

It’s certainly been a long challenging winter, and the spring weather can’t arrive soon enough. It’s been a busy off season with the hiring of numerous new Mad River team members, final preparations for the upcoming projects, our usual winter business and of course the recent ice storm.

Most importantly, I’m pleased to report the course wintered beautifully, so the spring golf course conditions look to be excellent!

Ice Storm
The ice storm clean-up has been underway for a week now, but with so much damage there’s still plenty to do and the winter conditions haven’t helped. We’ve already lost two workdays since the storm. Thank you to our Mad team members from golf operations and food and beverage for chipping in to help and thanks to all the members that have volunteered their time to lend a hand later in the week.

In addition to the tree damage, we were without power for eight days in the clubhouse and nine days at our ground’s maintenance building. All the power and water were finally restored on Tuesday April 8^th.

It’s our plan to have most of the in-play areas cleaned-up by the time the course opens. We are still determining the best course of action on how to deal with the hanging trees and branches, that are in some cases 30-50 feet up in the tree canopy or within the forest lines. These areas are just so difficult to access, we’ll share more detail in due course.

By this time each spring, Chad usually has some grounds equipment on course beginning his spring clean and course opening plans. The lingering snow, wet conditions and ice storm clean-up have delayed this work, which may translate to a later than planned opening day, we’ll know more in the next 10 days.

 
Submitted by Chad Vibert, Golf Course Superintendent

We are very pleased that the golf course came through the winter very strong, with no damage from ice and/or cold temperatures.  We had some minor damage from a turf disease called snow mould, this was to be expected, we had perfect conditions for this to develop given we had an ample amount of snow on top on unfrozen ground.  From a turf perspective we are looking forward to a terrific season.

The winter season provided us a great opportunity to excavate the pond on number 12 ahead of the construction in this area set to begin this July.  This pond has been dredged to its original size and depth.  Interestingly, this pond was a water source for the town of Stayner to fill reservoirs to fight fires in the early 1900’s.  We were able to use the fill from the excavation to build a berm on the south side of the pond, this will be seeded to fescue in the spring and should provide a nice background once the seed comes in.  This is a terrific improvement and looks even better than we had anticipated.

We were also able to replace all of the boards on our cart bridges last fall/winter season.  We wanted to make sure this was complete for the most part, ahead of the irrigation project later this year.  The irrigation pipe will be fastened to these bridges, new boards will help keep these pipes secure for years to come.

The Ice Storm last week was not so kind to us, we’re not really sure how many trees that we lost, but it was more the sheer volume of trees/branches that were on the ground that needed to be cut and chipped that, was quite overwhelming.  Our power line to the property was also severed, we just regained power to the maintenance facility Monday afternoon, in all we were out for 10 days.   

Hello friends,

Like many of you, I'm eagerly awaiting the course opening – The Masters certainly has us in the golfing spirit!

You should have received the first of my preseason updates yesterday. My next will detail more of our events and changes for the year.
For now, the key is to register for events! Head to the Golf Genius Directory in the menu above to see the full 2025 calendar for the Men’s Section. While signing up for our Men’s Opening on May 3rd, please also secure your spots in other events.

Get ready for an elevated one-day Mad & Noisy experience, a revamped Ryder Cup second day format with enhanced team prizing to foster more team camaraderie, and a fresh new league structure.

Remember, participation in all events earns you Creemore Cup points, improving your chances to qualify for the final.
Looking forward to seeing you on the course soon!

Cheers,

CT
 

Submitted by Michelle Larcher, Food & Beverage Manager

THE TEAM, WINE, FOOD & MORE….LOTS HAPPENING IN FOOD & BEVERAGE
Welcome back to The Club! We are busy preparing the clubhouse, creating new menus and training the team to bring another season of friendly and exceptional service to you, the members and your guests. I am excited to welcome our new Chef, Stephen Sagar, three new servers and the return of many of last year’s team members.

Over the years that I have been at Mad, I have learned a lot about the members and their love of wine. Especially Californian wine.  As we know, the LCBO has pulled all American wines and with our menu being 39% from the United States, our menu will look a lot different this season. We are currently tasting a variety of wines from some of the finest wine-producing regions in the world and hope to curate a list that you will enjoy.  We are exploring the addition of Canadian wines however, we are limited to what the LCBO has to offer. We can buy direct from Ontario vinters but we cannot buy form BC directly as  Ontario has restrictions on importing alcohol from other provinces. Details on the wines we choose will be in the upcoming issues of the Mad Post in a section called “Between the Vines”

For those of you who would like to have a Californian wine, we do have some available from last year’s inventory for you to enjoy if you should desire. Alternatively, if you wish to bring wine to enjoy with our new dinner menu, you can do so for a corkage fee of $20.