The Pines Finds Silver Lining in Aftermath of Record Ice Storm
By Greg Johnson –
The Pines Golf Course at Michaywe’ is ramping up for another busy season of offering affordable championship golf to all ages and skill levels in the heart of the Gaylord Golf Mecca. Beautiful green fairways beckon as they have for over 50 years in this stunning part of Northern Michigan.
“We are open, getting busy and excited about what is ahead,” Judy Mason, the head golf professional at The Pines for the last 22 years, said.
The popular destination golf course has found the silver lining in what was a devastating ice storm in early April that made national headlines by bringing down power lines, the towering trees of Northern Michigan and tree limbs by the millions.
“We feel like we were ground zero for the storm,” Mason said. “Our limb and tree damage was so extensive that we had to hire a crew of over 20 arborists and specialists, who brought in six lifts, industrial sized wood-chippers, dump trucks and chain saws bigger than me. They worked 12 days, 10-to-12 hours a day with their state-of-the-art equipment. We had incredible amounts of debris.”
“When I first saw it, I was in total disbelief,” Mason continued. “The amount was unfathomable. No picture or video can do justice to the amounts of limbs that came down. Trees were dropping limbs constantly. We lost well over 1,000 complete trees, millions of limbs. It was devastation. The course was simply unpassable. We had to start at the clubhouse and go.”
Here is where the silver lining part starts:
“But here comes spring. Leaves are coming out, the grass is perking up and with all the trees and limbs we had down, it amazingly did not do damage to the turf on the fairways and greens. Our course looks green and great, better than ever.”
Mason said the cleanup has been costly, but the silver lining there is that it is an investment for the future of the course. Pruning trees and removing overgrowth are normal parts of annual maintenance so there is adequate sunlight available to the grass surfaces as well as air movement.
“The sunlight, the air movement, the course is actually better than ever for the spring right now,” she said. “Sure, we have some rough areas where we removed stumps and that. Those are seeded and responding. We are giving them some extra TLC. You can see where some things happened, and there are new views on the course. We lost a couple of beautiful trees on No. 4 and a few holes will look different from the tee. But we still have thousands of beautiful trees all around us in Northern Michigan and we feel like The Pines is in a great position moving forward.”
Mason is thankful for her staff, the Michaywe’ community and the professionals they hired.
“Without everybody’s help, we would not have been open for the foreseeable future,” she said. “We’ve had storms before, straight-line winds, downed trees, all that in the past, but not like this. This was a once-in-100 years storm. We’re so thankful to have come through it and be open for golf, doing what we do.”
The Pines at Michaywe’ is one of the original members of the Gaylord Golf Mecca, and currently one of 17 courses at nine properties that practice cooperative marketing of America’s favorite summer golf destination.
Learn more about the course, the Mecca and build a golf package that includes The Pines at gaylordgolfmecca.com.
