Salute to Veterans Nov. 1oth

Prime Rib

Celebration

Nov. 16th!

November 2017

President 2017-2018

First, I want to thank Zac and his guys for having our course in great playing condition during this great fall weather. Our outside guests have all commented on the condition of the course and how happy they were to give us a try.

Also, I would like to thank all who have devoted time and money to support all the improvements around the clubhouse. A special thanks to Alan Cornwell, Rick Folio and Roger Bloor for their extra efforts with painting our new covered patio and deck area. Between the LGA, MGA and individual donations, we have been able to complete this work without using club funds. It appears our Rocky Bayou Country Club members from the north have spread the word about our great course conditions. As a re-sult, we have a full schedule of snowbirds coming back this winter. It will be great to have our friends back as well as new, first time RBCC members. Please mark your calendar for RBCC’s semi-annual meeting Novem-ber 14, 2017 at 6:00 p.m. in the RBCC dining area. Our board will update members with our club operations and plans as we move forward. As always, thanks to each of you for your continued support for our club. Enjoy our great Rocky weather! Take Care!

It has certainly been a busy few months at Rocky! The MGA Men’s Member-Guest kicked things off in September and was a big success! In addition to the Ladies Interclub Tournament and the 2017 Club Championship, we have hosted several charity tour-

naments through September and October that have brought in some welcomed addi-tional revenue and showcased our course in prime condition. The guest feedback that we have received over the last several months has been beyond positive.

We had great weather for the Club Championship. It was a challenging setup that yielded the following winners: Open- Bob Mathers, Men’s 1st Flight– Ted Kopec, Senior- Dan Breckenridge, Super Senior– Mike Reavey, and Ladies– Sandy Sundeen. Congratulations to all!

Please be sure to notify the Pro Shop if you make a hole-in-one so that your name plaque gets added in the clubhouse. Also, keep an eye out for new merchandise ar-riving in the Pro Shop over the next few weeks!

Rick Deckert

Head Golf Professional

Summer has come to an end, and with that in mind, so has the growing season. The turf is beginning to go through the dor-mancy process. Cart traffic is the main concern during this time. Please keep to the cart path around tees and greens and scatter your traffic everywhere else. These very manageable

practices will keep the course in good conditions through the winter. We are starting to ramp up our tree trimming and removal of damaged trees. This our main priority this winter. The results will definitely be noticeable. Shade and roots are the number one killer of turf. The only trees cut down will be the al-ready dead ones and any that may hinder the greens. Thank you Zac Salyers Golf Course Superintendent

Zac Salyers, Course Superintendent

Andy Potter, Club Manager, Club Professional

Since our last newsletter, quite a bit has been happening within the LGA. We started our 2017-18 Season on September 5 with our opening breakfast and Par 3 Tournament. I am happy to report that we now have 48 golfing members and 5 social members. And it’s not too late to join us - we always enjoy having new ladies join our group!

Our Match Play Tournament hosted by Wanda Liphard and Elaine Betsch in October was a huge success with 32 players. Overall winner was Bonney Adkins, with Beth Clark as runner-up. Congratulations to all flight winners and a genuine thank you to all who played and especially to our hosts, Wanda & Elaine. We started a new social event this season. Each quarter we will celebrate birthdays with a lunch-eon. Judy Haugen & Penny Kirby are hosting these events. Our first luncheon was on October 11 at Tisano’s Garlic Grill. The 25 ladies in attendance celebrated 11 members’ birthdays. The food and fellowship were both wonderful. Thank you, Judy & Penny. Our next luncheon will be at Tradewinds in January where we will honor all our December, January & February birthday ladies. Watch for details, you don’t want to miss it - all LGA ladies, golfing and social members are invited. Rocky Ladies really love to celebrate Halloween! On October 25 we held our annual Witches & B*tches event. You may have noticed about 36 witches on the course and in the clubhouse that day. A spooktacular time was had by all! Special thank you to Rick for playing along as our wizard and to Zac for setting up our floating witch on #9 – Thanks a bunch Guys! Staying with the Halloween theme, our Ladies’ Day game on October 31 was, “Throw Out Your Scariest 3 Holes!” We were able to convert our 3 worst holes to par. Flight winners were: Red Tees – 1st Flight, Marianne Wendel; 2nd Flight, Sally Aberth; 3rd Flight, Beth Clark; 4th Flight Sue Tarkin; 5th Flight, Orean McCord; Teal Tees – 1st Flight, Lilli Keller; 2nd Flight, Sandy Miller. The 2017-18 Season of our Interclub play has started off very well for Team Rocky. With 3 matches completed, we lead the league by 5 points! On October 30, Rocky hosted the 11 teams of the Emerald Coast Ladies Interclub League. The 84 players were very impressed with our course and our luncheon. Special thanks to Rick for his expertise, the men who served as our cart/bag helpers, the Rocky clubhouse & kitchen staff, Zac & his crew for our beautiful course, the ladies who helped behind the scenes and especially to Beth Manning our Interclub Coordina-tor. Great job done by all! Our next big event will be our Member/Member Tournament on December 5 & 12 hosted by Brenda Meeboer & Gloria Hall. The format will be “Eclectic” (a 2-day ringers format), with a blind draw for your partner. Our Christmas Luncheon will follow play on December 12 and all social members are invited to join us. We will also have a short business meeting at the lunch-eon. Watch your email for details soon. That’s all for now – Hope you have time to get out and enjoy our beautiful fall weather! Vicki Wilson

Vicki Wilson—LGA President

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Greeting from the Clubhouse Committee!

Since I last wrote to you, the Clubhouse committee has been quite busy to say the least. I want to offer a

big THANK YOU to all members who supported the August 31st Staff Appreciation Dinner. Food was

overflowing and we collected enough money to offer each employee a $50 bonus. The staff really had a

great time and we could not have done it without your support.

Fall is a busy time of year here at Rocky with lots of tournaments, weddings and gatherings on our new

covered deck. I hope each of you have had the opportunity to enjoy some of the more recent cooler

weather out on the deck. Many thanks to the MGA for organizing and funding this venture.

I am also pleased to announce the Clubhouse has expanded the hours for serving hot food. The new

weekday hours are 10:30am-4pm and Friday until 7pm for Early Dining. Weekend hours for hot food are

9:30am-4pm. This will give members and guests who finish golf a bit later a chance to come in for a late

lunch. We are still offering daily Happy Hour from 4pm-6pm and until 7:30pm on Friday.

On September 28th, the Rocky Bayou Country Club Scholarship Committee awarded the Niceville High

School Boys and Girls Golf teams $500 scholarships each. A check presentation was held award-

ing Coach Gerard Barry, NHS Boys Golf Team Coach and Mitch Inness, NHS Girls Golf Team Coach.

Clubhouse Committee Chairman Joni Snyder

Other recent activities have included our bi-monthly Texas Hold ‘Em Poker night. I overheard Laura Mann

say, “Oh WOW, I can’t believe I won $150!” Only limited poker knowledge is needed (One Pair, Two Pair,

Three of a Kind etc). The buy-in is only $25 with $5 going to the RBCC Scholarship fund and it is all in good

fun! The next Poker night will be Friday November 10th 6pm following the Salute to Vets – signup sheet in the

Crooked Tree Grille. All members and guests are welcome.

We hosted a groovy 60’s themed Murder Mystery Dinner October 14th. Lots of 60’s themed music was play-

ing during the cocktail hour, which brought back many memories. I want to thank my Clubhouse team for

providing appetizers for this event – yum! The Crooked Tree Grilled served a three course Italian dinner and

many people dressed up in the best hippy and beatnik threads. I heard Beth Clark was the brains behind the

winning team – Way to go Beth!

As the holidays approach, we planning our final event for 2017 – the annual Rocky Bayou Christmas Dinner

Dance party. We have hired the same fabulous musical entertainment as last year – Retroactive. They will be

playing all of your favorite Christmas music as well lots of dance music after dinner. There are two menu op-

tions: Beef Medallions or Bourbon Salmon. The price for this event is $40 per person, which includes tax, gra-

tuity and entertainment. The complete invitation will be send out shortly. To make a reservation please speak

to one of the staff at the Crooked Tree Grille. Reservations are limited so please sign up early.

The clubhouse committee is open to any suggestions for future events; feel free to email me at

JoniAtRBCC@gmail.com and we are look forward to seeing you at the Clubhouse!

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Our committee has been quite busy lately, lots of golf activities going on! We do not have a finalized calendar for the second half of the year

but it will be coming soon. As I write this article I want to mention one tournament change we have made since posting our calendar. The One Person Scramble planned for Novem-ber 19th has been moved to December 10th. On the 19th there was another golf function going on that would involve many of our members. We want this tournament to be suc-cessful due to the fact we had to cancel last year for lack of participation. The committee agreed early in the year we would have to have a minimum of 25 players to make a tourna-ment a go. We will host this tournament much like a mixer hosted by Golf Committee. You won’t need a partner to sign up as is it is an individual type of round. More infor-mation, cost, rules coming soon. Make sure you make the schedule change and mark your calendar now for December 10th.

Speaking of mixers, we hold a monthly mixer the second Sunday of each month, shotgun-ning at 12:30. We do many types of formats and games followed by a meal. We enjoy play-ing with other couples and visiting afterwards. Would like to see more people join us. There is always someone looking for a partner, male and or female.

Have you had a hole in one lately??? Some of our members forget to let us be aware of your accomplishment. There are two things you need to do when making a hole in one. The first is to let the pro shop know so they can record it and the second is to make certain Bob Weideman is aware as he keeps our hole in one board in the lounge up to date.

We are re-establishing a handicap committee through the golf committee. If you have an interest in working with this committee please let myself, Doug Hall or Rick know this. We encourage your help and participation.

One of my new jobs as golf committee chair is to assist in getting merchandise in the pro shop along with Rick. Finding ladies apparel is a bit difficult and I want to purchase items I think the ladies would enjoy and want to buy. Men’s clothing seems to be quite easy to find and at good prices!!!! Merchandise in that department on its way!! Ladies if you have a brand you would like to see us look into please let me know. I will be looking for clothing, gloves, head-wear, golf balls and anything you might want to see us carry. Help us re-stock the pro shop and get it going again.

Great weather to be out golfing and especially on our beautiful course.

Wanda Liphard

Golf Committee Chairman

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November!!! Really??? Where did the year go? The best news is that the tempera-

tures are supposed to be in the low 80s then high 70s for the next week. As a friend of mine said ”if we had these temps all year, we couldn’t afford to live here!” So let’s enjoy it while we have it.

Our Membership Committee has been Brainstorming (hard to believe for some of us on the committee…I know)

on how to get our community involved in The Club. We have some great ideas for the upcoming ‘Spring and Be-

yond Push’ to get folks out to see us. We see opportunities to increase membership, but like all businesses it’s one

step at a time! Here’s just a few examples what we are planning:

Neighborhood competition(s): “get your 4-some” from your named neighborhood/street for a “Best of the

Bayou” 18 hole scramble.

“Pre-foot hits leather” college football: This will be a “bring your team to represent your college” scramble the

weekend before the NCAA football starts.

Family days: we need to penetrate the local market again. Let’s have

some music down by our natural amphitheater (you know, that area

between 10 tee box and 18 green).

Come on…if we increase membership, we can decrease our dues! Out-

side play is helping us along, but we want members! Our friendship

and tee times are our inventory, the more members we garner the

better The Club can be…we can be GREAT!

These events will require “buy-in” from our members! We can’t grow

RBCC unless people know about our “gem.” Notice I didn’t say “hidden

gem”...we need to get “OUR” course back into “OUR” community!

Let’s wrap this up by saying “Welcome back to our friends from up north!”

It’s that time of year again, we are going to start seeing our annual friends

retreating from the cold. If you see folks around the club that you don’t

immediately recognize, walk up and introduce yourself…you may be slight-

ly embarrassed because most of our northern friends are returning :) We have over 40 returning seasonal mem-

bers! They chose us…so let’s not forget, they are our members and decided not to go into Destin.

We have 17 executive members! These are the future of “OUR” Club! What a great way to get locals interested in

“OUR” Club. Cliff Frazier (military member) moved away 2 years ago and just returned…other than looking for

a place to live, his 1st stop was RBCC to rejoin!

Welcome to Our Newest Members:

Members as of 1 Nov

Proprietary 93

Proprietary Young Adult 4

Cornerstone 10

Regular 1

Single 12

Limited 9

Young Adult 2

Military 3

GS/DoD 7

Contractor 5

Junior 2

Social 66

Emeritus 14

Executive 17

Totals 245

Jay Fisher

Membership Committee Chairman

New Members since August Indio Balderrama Regular to Proprietary

Nicholas Reynolds Executive

Shane Vanstavern Executive

David Erickson Executive

Jason Rosenbleeth Executive

Rafael Cratch Executive

Clift Frazier Executive

Tommy Fisher Social

Craig McCartney Single

Dave Concepcion Executive

Johnnie Prichard Proprietary