Greetings Golfers,

Last night I was looking out my office window and all was well with the world. It was a beautiful evening and Men’s League was running swimmingly.

While lost in the glow of savoring such goodness, I began to recollect on similar beautiful Men’s League evenings. Boom! I was knocked out my La-la-land with a memory from about 15-20 years ago.

The following is a true story … though we never talk about it … and no one here as ever brought it up. Here goes:

On a beautiful Thursday Men’s League night, the police called me and said that there was a sniper holed-up in a house across the street. He had fought with his wife and locked her out of the house and barricaded himself in an upstairs bedroom. He also had a rifle pointing out of his window towards Deer Run Golf Club.

So, I got in a cart and drove to #9 green (right across from the sniper house). And, trying to keep things light, told the guys to not finish putting and to slowly go to the clubhouse. Then, I drove to the guys in the middle of #9 fairway and asked if they’d seen the SWAT team across the street. Of course, they started laughing – hardy-har-har – so I laughed and then said I was serious and that they should go back to #8, and then to the clubhouse. As I got to #9 tee box, I felt fairly safe and then just worked my way through every group until I got everyone off the golf course.

It was pretty eerie watching the police helicopter circling the sniper’s house. About an hour later he gave himself up without incident.

Remember when Mall of America had a sniper and people called it Camp Sniper? That wasn’t exactly what I wanted for DRGC. Golf is hard enough without worrying about sniper fire.

So, we declined talking to the media – the local tv stations were swarming – and we just basically put a lid on the whole deal. And … it just went away. In fact, I bet that the people who were there and are now reading this might not even remember that odd evening. Odd isn’t accurate … Twilight Zone is more like it.

One last item. Afterward, when the Sherriff was in my office giving me the whole story … he left me with an interesting tidbit … the rifle was pointed at my office.

Cheers!

Tom Abts
GM/Head PGA Professional
tabts@deerrungolf.com

Deer Run Golf Club
8661 Deer Run Drive
Victoria, MN 55386
(952) 443-2351
www.deerrungolf.com
www.facebook.com/DeerRunGolf
www.twitter.com/DeerRunGolfClub