What was I thinking?  I had been wrestling with the Whispering Woods Golf Club issue for about two years now.  The wrangling actually started about 5 or 6 years ago when the preliminary plans surfaced and the buzz started about a golf course being built in Millcreek, on Grubb Road a short two miles from my home.

Whispering Woods started as a subdivision and houses began popping up like daisies.  I would periodically drive into the subdivision, but, I did not notice the golf course until about three years ago.  At first, it was a few noticeable avenues of soil cut out of the thick tree cove.  Then these dirt trails turned into fields of green.  Then greens and bunkers started to appear.  By the fall of 2005 an actual golf course was evident.

It was at this time that I was scheduled to be laid off from my job and not wanting to stretch my finances too thin, I elected to resign from Lakeview Country Club after 23 enjoyable golf seasons.  

It was then that a perfect storm of events occurred that put me into a position to play golf at Whispering Woods.  For starters, my job stretched out until June 30th, 2006.  This put me behind the curve for the start of my golf season due to the busy office I was attempting to manage.  Second, needing a place to play golf, I decided to join Erie Golf Club, primarily due to the redesigned facility but secondarily, due to the close proximity to my home.  In addition, I was planning to play in the EDGA Senior Tournament which was being held at Kahkwa and I wanted to have a membership for that reason.

So on July 1st, 2007, I started a relaxed summer that allowed me to play golf on Thursdays at Erie in the legendary skins game and then play on the weekends with a wide variety of players.  I also played in some tournaments and played at Lakeview on several occasions.

I actually was starting to like the Erie Golf Club scene and I was looking forward to another season there.  Unfortunately, that perfect storm I mentioned earlier arrived in the form of the following:

A spineless City Government that is so out of control that they would consider actually closing down the Erie Golf Club to rectify the budget woes they find themselves in.

Events started to swirl around February 1st, 2007 when various members of the Erie Golf Community weighed in with their inaccurate determinations about the situation.

Many people thought that Millcreek would save the day and run the nine hole course near the airport and the 18 hole course on Zuck Rd.  Other individuals thought that Erie Golf Club would be easily sold to some "developer" that could turn the emerald fairways into yet another yawning subdivision with 3,000 square foot palaces.  Still others thought that the City would just padlock the golf course and let the turf rot away.

In addition, the nine hole course at the Airport was scheduled to undergo a facelift in order to make way for an extension to the runway.  

The Thursday Night Skin Game gang was faced with a location dilemma and had settled on playing their game at either Elk Valley or Culbertson Hills. Both of these golf courses have little motivation for the Raptor

Many of the individuals who have played alongside me now started to consider the move to Whispering Woods as well.  The reasoning centers around cost, proximity, challenging nature of the course and the capability of practice.

With so many factors in play, I elected to alleviate my concerns and put up the $1,800.00 required to be a member of Whispering Woods.

It's bound to be a nervous time since the couse will not be open until June 1st.  This brings me to the next talking point number two.

I firmly believe that the local golf community would like to see Whispering Woods fail.  To that extent I would like to begin this thread by directing you to the link I have created that deals with the situation - as it existed in 1999.  I eventually wrote a "position paper" which I wrote in 2001 and have attached here - I call the paper "End Game"