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Pace of play takes unhealthy turn in York County

By Mike Dudurich for The 4 min read
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Regular readers of my column know I’m a big proponent of playing golf fast. Not running between shots fast, but keeping the game moving, keeping a nice pace that makes being out there an enjoyable experience.

An incident this past week, however, took my insistence that we play faster to another, unhealthy level.

On a Saturday morning at Grandview Country Club in Dover Township in York County, what was initially deemed to be a slow play issue turned into something far more serious.

A group of five women (fivesomes are permitted at Grandview) were approached on the second tee by a former county commissioner and now a co-owner of the course. He told the women they were not keeping up with the pace expected and asked them to leave the course and twice threatened to revoke their memberships.

The women, who have named their group the Sisters of the Fairways, continued and said they were in contact with the group ahead the rest of the way. Both groups stopped at the turn and when the group ahead of the women headed to the 10th tee, they prepared to do so as well.

Unfortunately, this is where the day took a turn for the worse. Once again, the ex-commissioner, with his son, intercepted the women and told they had spent too much time between nines and asked them to leave the course.

Have you ever heard of stuff like this? Approaching a group on the second tee about slow play and saying the group took too long of a break between nines?

And while this is being painted as a racial issue (all five middle-aged women were black), to me this is more a knucklehead issue by the owners. They are new owners at Grand View and maybe they’re not well-versed in how to handle things like this in a professional manner.

My gut feeling is the attitude they’re born with fouled this up more than anything. The YouTube video that has gone viral casts the father and son ownership duo in a very bad light and will cost them dearly in business down the road. That has already started with a couple area businesses announcing they weren’t interested in continuing a business relationship with the club.

But those things are only the beginning of the issues they’ll be facing. The fact that these clowns decided to single out a group of black women on a course that was hosting group after group with none of them being drastically out of position probably couldn’t have been a worse decision.

Two of the women, Sandra Thompson and Myneca Ojo, hold positions of importance in the eastern part of the state and, while nothing has been announced, you can take it to the bank legal action will be forthcoming.

Thompson is a lawyer and the president of the York chapter of the NAACP and Ojo is a director of diversity and inclusion at a state agency.

The owners even called the police who arrived, talked to the principles and left without arresting anyone.

It’s going to be tough going for the folks there for some time, especially after the YouTube video surfaced.

Unfortunately, Grand View Golf Course in North Braddock took the brunt of the outrage from angry folks who called to complain about the club’s behavior. Same name, entirely different place, but that didn’t stop them from getting over 1,000 emails and several hundred calls.

There are lessons to be learned every day and hopefully those club officials learned something about how to handle customers and build relationships.

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Do you have an interesting story about your club or course or an individual who has done something special, let me know? Send your story ideas to mike.dudurich@gmail.com.

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Mike Dudurich is a freelance golf writer and hosts The Golf Show on 93.7 The Fan, Saturday mornings from 7-8 during golf season. Follow Mike on Twitter at @MikeDudurich.

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