BELGRADE, Maine — There's nothing better than spending a nice, summer day outside -- and hitting the links is one great way to do that. This week on the Outside Edge starts from the very beginning by taking lessons, to later exploring the state's gorgeous golf courses.
NEWS CENTER Maine's Meteorologist Mallory Brooke began taking golf lessons at Norway Country Club with assistance from a gold pro earlier this summer. PGA Professional Rick Altham says smaller courses are a great asset to new golfers.
“If there’s a local PGA professional there to help you with your golf game, that’s great," Altham explained. "Also, like Norway has a driving range and a full-service golf course … It’s a comfortable place to learn the game that’s close to your house, and it’s really a benefit to the golf course and the community."
Starting with the basics, the lessons worked up from short shots to the nuances of the game. Altham says it's key to build confidence early and start with the short game.
“We learned the grip in one of our first lessons," Altham said. "We started with the pitching wedge, which is the shortest club with a lot of loft, and we started with actual chips which are very short shots. And then we built our way up each lesson and each week from chip shots, to mid iron shots, to finally wood shots.”
Many months of lessons culminated with a visit to one of Maine’s most unique public golf courses: Belgrade Lakes Golf Club. President and Managing Partner Kyle Evans, who has been at Belgrade since its infancy, says the aura of Belgrade comes from its landscape.
“It’s the piece of property it sits on," Evans said. "There’s a lot of great golf courses around, but very few sit on a spot like this. In most places, you'd have several houses up on this vantage point ... But we decided to save this space and view for golf.”
Evans says their initial vision was to bring golf back to Belgrade and create a fun course. The accolades and prestige that have emerged at Belgrade Lake Golf Club are beyond his wildest dreams.
"This is just a dream job for me," Evans said, as he smiled and looked over to the lakes. “The more we cut, the different layers we began to see, and the architect was just very flexible and usually they work off a top map, but he worked off the real thing, and it really turned into something special.”
Navigating through the first few holes, it was hard not to stop for a moment to appreciate the grounds -- the landscaping is meticulously maintained. The use of the natural landscape and elevation was incorporated into the architecture of each hole.
It was certainly a challenging course to take on as a beginner, but it's all about the fun of the game.
“One of my favorite things is instructing and just watching the improvement -- like [Mallory's] improvement, junior golfers' improvement, regular golfers' improvements, and then actually loving the game," Altham said. "And the smiles you get when you make a good swing or get [your] first par, that’s what it’s all about. And then enjoying these golf courses and being able to play for the rest -- you know, it’s a game of a lifetime, so you get to play for the rest of your life.”