Course pro details junior golf plans

TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Kyle Easter, the golf pro at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park, is preparing to launch an expanded junior golf program at the city-owned recreation complex this summer that will incorporate the Watson 9 youth course.

With the grass green and growing over the new Watson 9 course at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park, golf pro Kyle Easter told the Maryville City Council this week that plans are moving ahead for the introduction this summer of the Mozingo Watson 9 Academy, an expansion of the youth golf program held at the park for the last several years.

Easter said he anticipates that well over 100 youngsters will participate in the academy, which will consist of three four-week sessions beginning Wednesday, June 3.

Young golfers can take part in as many sessions as they wish at a cost of $25 each, or $75 for the complete program. This year for the first time, Easter said, scholarships will be available for participants from lower-income families.

Details for the scholarship program are still being worked out, but it is anticipated the effort will be guided by a five-member Junior Golf Foundation board to be appointed by the council.

During his presentation at City Hall, Easter outlined a series of drills youngsters will use to sharpen their course sills along with a plan for incorporating the Watson 9 course into the program.

Scheduled to open sometime this summer, Watson 9 was designed by PGA champion Tom Watson with young golfers particularly in mind. For purposes of the academy, Easter said the course will be divided into three-hole pods, each emphasizing a different aspect of play.

Gold pod golfers will work on their short game, while white and blue pod players will concentrate on mid-range shots and tee shots respectively. Pods will be identified by colored tee markers.

Academy golfers will themselves be divided into beginner and advanced categories, with each category comprising three levels.

All beginners will be introduced to the game using SNAG — Starting New At Golf — an instructional system that employs plastic clubs and Velcro balls and targets to teach fundamentals.

Easter said the SNAG equipment was obtained by Northwest Missouri State University and has been made available to school districts wishing to incorporate the system into physical education programs. About 10 area schools have signed on, he said.

In addition to golf fundamentals, Easter said the academy will incorporate traits traditionally associated with the game, such as sportsmanship, integrity and course etiquette.

“This will not only teach the game of golf,” Easter said, “but a lot of the values that go with it.”

Assistant City Manager Ryan Heiland, the city’s lead administrator for Mozingo programs and development, said he hopes the academy will eventually be able to use cabins and other resources available at the lake’s organized camping compound to host a week-long youth experience, a sort of scout camp with golf clubs.

“With Mozingo 9, we’re going to be able to take the junior academy to a whole new level,” he said.

Easter said Watson 9 will not be open in time for the start of this year’s youth golf season, but that portions of the course will be incorporated into the program as they become available for play. The timetable for opening the course, he said, depends on weather and the growth of new grass.

In the meantime the youngsters will use the 18-hole course, recently renamed Sechrest 18 in honor of course designer Donald Sechrest.

In a related report to the council, Heiland offered a preview of the new Mozingo Lake Recreation Park website, which includes increased functionality for park patrons reserving tee times, recreational vehicle sites and rental cabins.

The site is set to go live on May 5.

Heiland said the current web-based reservation system, implemented just two years ago, generates emails from patrons that each require about a half-hour of staff time to process.

The new automated system should reduce processing time to just a few minutes while offering patrons an interactive calendar that shows open dates in green and already-reserved dates in red.

In addition, Heiland said, the new site, designed by Hue Labs of Reno, Nevada, incorporates optimized search engine technology more apt to steer users of laptops, phones, tablets and other devices toward various Mozingo web pages.

Heiland said that means people doing general searches for “golf,” “fishing,” “camping,” “cabins” and so forth will more often notice Mozingo floating to the top of the results list.

He added that other site improvements include more social media connectivity to services like Google+, expanded mass email capabilities and improved analytics that will allow park staff to better gauge who is using the site for what reasons.

In other business this week, the City Council:

• Approved creating a no-parking zone on West Ninth Street between Mulberry and Walnut just east of the Northwest Missouri State University campus.

• Was advised by City Manager Greg McDanel that a Community Development Block Grant pre-application for $374,000 that would have been used to reconstruct North Main Street from 248th Street to the Highway 71 bypass was denied.

In the absence of grant funds, McDanel said the need to repair the badly dilapidated road will be “thoroughly discussed” during this summer’s budget talks.

• Was advised by McDanel that West Fourth Street between downtown and Northwest Missouri State University, the site of ongoing streetscape construction, is scheduled to reopen to traffic on Friday, and that a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the upgraded corridor is tentatively scheduled for June 4.

• Approved a 7.8 percent increase in health insurance premiums offered by United Healthcare Insurance, the city’s current provider.

In the past, coverage for municipal employees has run concurrently with the calendar year. In approving the increase, the council locked in the new rate for the city’s fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

McDanel said acceptance of the offer will simplify the budget process by taking the guesswork out of estimating a rate increase three months early.

The city reduced its health insurance costs by about 20 percent after switching providers, and this year paid premiums totaling around $800,000.