By Greg Johnson
The Golf Association of Michigan golf course rating team likes it when couples join as volunteers to help serve the game.
“We welcome any and all golfers, and we like getting two for one in a way, not to mention they have someone to learn, travel around the state and golf with and they bring two different handicaps and perspectives,” said Mark Bultema of Grand Rapids, chairman of the course rating committee for the GAM.
“We can always use more raters, and typically the best raters are between 10 and 30 handicaps. They see all the places where they might hit golf balls. The elite player, for instance, might miss some things that he or she would usually play over or past because they hit the ball well consistently.”
Melissa Middleton of Oxford was playing in a Michigan Women’s Golf Association event and heard about course rating with the GAM from another volunteer. She recruited her husband Rob into giving it a try, too.
The two school teachers were rookies being trained when a group of 12 raters, including Bultema, did an update rating on The Loop, a celebrated course at Forest Dunes in Roscommon that plays two ways over the same 18 greens, and was designed by Michigan architect Tom Doak.
The GAM course rating team will rate or rerate up to 75 courses in a typical summer. COVID-19 precautions led to a late start in 2020, but the team finished several dozen.
Rob called the experience eye-opening.
“It’s an interesting way to learn so much more about the game and the whole handicap system in golf,” he said.
Melissa said early indications are that rating involved more than she expected, but not in a daunting way.
“I didn’t realize all the math that was involved,” she said. “I kind of assumed you just kind of figured it out for yourself. I didn’t realize how objectivity is involved. It’s really interesting and you can see how it comes together even though everybody has their own ideas of what a golf course should or shouldn’t be. You see how it becomes a rating through the math and measuring, and that it is a method and not just someone’s opinion.”
Training Melissa was Dee Piccard, the 2019 GAM Course Rater of the Year. She noted that she had been in on the original rating of The Loop a few years ago.
“It’s a unique course because it doesn’t have the traditional fairway and rough areas, but it does have a lot of things you have to consider,” she said.
The fun part is that the raters play the course, and Piccard and Bultema said that is also an essential part of the process.
“It’s key for us to get an accurate rate,” Piccard said. “When we go out to play there are things we thought we saw that really are not there. It’s really a benefit to the club for us to be able to play afterward and then make any adjustments that we feel we need to make.”
Dee said Melissa and Rob look like they will become successful raters.
“Melissa worked with me today and she was awesome,” she said. “Some people are lost the first time, but she was filling out her own sheets right away. I’m looking forward to having both of them on our team.”
Bultema, who started rating for the GAM in 1998 and has been part of an estimated 600 ratings, said the crew at The Loop was perfect.
“We had 10 experienced raters and two training,” he said. “That gives us one rater for each of the tees on a nine and time to train the new raters. This is a unique course, but everybody seemed to adjust just fine.”
