By Charlie Ford
Local writer and bartender Chad Neal has stepped out of his comfort zone and started building a golf course. This isn’t your traditional golf course though, it’s a smaller fairway with bigger holes. There is only one club and the ball is a hard plastic that is about the size of a cue ball. Neal is building this 18-hole course in the meadow adjacent to the Ellicottville Distillery owned by Bryan and Renee Scharf. At their wedding Neal saw the land and proposed the park golf course to Bryan. Neal had been previously looking for land to make the course on. The agreement came along and Neal started building.
Making plans and deciding how to go about it during the winter, his work started in the spring. Using borrowed machinery and his credit cards, Neal has been bit by bit constructing a new recreational activity for the town of Ellicottville. When asked about how he came up with the idea he said, “Ken and Annette Auteri form Dom’s Butcher Block knew I always took my sons places to do fun stuff, and showed me this flyer for a place called Destroyer Park Golf. They explained it to me and a couple weeks later we found our way there and fell in love with game. It’s just like golf, but smaller. With a bigger ball and bigger hole. It’s still challenging, but not as frustrating as traditional golf. We went up to Akron, New York to play more than a handful of times and one day decided it would be a great addition to Ellicottville if we made one of our own.”
Neal told The Villager he has been “farming the field by the Distillery” with a tractor that Scharf’s father Don lends him and has borrowed other implements from friends as well to get the project going. “I have four holes made reluctantly, as I had to go back and fix them a few times to make them work. I used pallets that I fastened artificial turf to for tee boxes. I made flags from my old campaign signs that look like Bigfoot feet, which I will put sponsors logos on along with the hole number.”
When asked about the sponsors, Neal said he was sending out “proposals for a three-year sponsorship on one or more of the 18 holes I am building. The sponsorship will include logo advertising on the tee box sign along with the hole number and distance to hole, on the rigid flag and in the scorecard. The hole will be known as the sponsors hole along with the number, for example ‘Madigan’s Hole #1’. This will help me to get the course built faster and better. I am planning on a large grand opening in the spring to promote and acknowledge everyone who helped out. And the sponsors will have limited free access to the course with their families.”
Neal and his sons all say they are extremely excited to get the course open and show everyone how fun and relaxing park golf is. There will be more about their endeavor and this project in the future. For more information you can email Neal at chadski27@gmail.com or text him at 716-541-4059.
The Ellicottville Distillery is located at 5462 Robbins Rd, Ellicottville, NY 14731, next to Holiday Valley Tubing Park. They can be reached at (716) 597-6121 or www.ellicottvilledistillery.com.