Francis A. Gross returns this year as the namesake of our golf course. But it turns out that he never really left us after all. When asked about the upcoming changes, course manager Dave Bratland wrote back, “ The golf course never officially became ‘Gross National’. Some employees years ago, began answering the phones ‘Gross National’ wanting it to sound similar to ‘Augusta National’ and over time it just kind of stuck. We are going back to referring it to the actual name of the golf course. It was named ‘Francis A. Gross’ in 1947. To be honest, it’s a more appealing name when having to answer the phones knowing that we’re using the word/name ‘Gross’ as a person’s name instead of a term. We are making some changes with tee signs, markers, combo tees and it seems to be the right time to go back to it. Hoping to re-brand the course after a really poor year of number of rounds and turf conditions.”
As Dave mentioned, the tee marker colors are changing this year as well. Blue now = BLACK, White now = BLUE, and Red AND Gold now = WHITE. So there will now only be three sets of tees instead of four. There will be no more red or gold tees — and yes, our Red/White/ Blue event will now need to have a new name.
The powers-that-be have also come up with a Blue/White “Combo Course” as an option for those of us who are noticing that playing all the middle tees is getting more difficult than we’d like it to be. This course will include 10 “short” tees and 8 “middle” tees for a total yardage of 5,550. To the right is a mock-up of the new scorecard, including the combo course.
Finally, here’s the new logo for the born-again Francis A. Gross Golf Course. And here’s to good weather and good turf in 2020!
