Buhl Park was constructed by a rich industrialist who wished everybody to play free of charge.
Josh Sens
The perfect issues in life are free, aside from golf.
Golf prices cash.
Except you end up inside simple placing distance of Sharon, Penn., within the rolling, western reaches of the state the place Tom Roskos and Adam Scott (no, not that Adam Scott) have been raised.
Born seven years aside, Roskos, 47, and Scott, 40, weren’t pals as children, however they’d a lot in frequent. Each got here from modest houses. Each excelled at sports activities. And each have been launched to golf at Buhl Park Golf Course, a leafy 9-hole structure that wasn’t bargain-priced. It was higher than that.
For anybody, at anytime, the worth of a spherical was nada. Zilch. That is still the case at this time.
“If you’re a child, you don’t know any higher, so that you don’t understand how fortunate you might be to have a free course in your yard,” Roskos says. “However now, wanting again, we recognize how lucky we have been, and we acknowledge the significance of retaining a spot like this alive.”
How a course that costs nothing (certainly one of a tiny handful of its variety within the nation) got here to be is a narrative of nice wealth and generosity. It revolves across the turn-of-the-Twentieth-century industrialist Frank H. Buhl, who was born in Detroit, however constructed his life and fortune in Sharon (70 miles north of Pittsburgh), the place, within the late 1800s, he based a metal firm that bore his identify.
Although Buhl and his spouse, Julia, resided in a Romanesque citadel, they weren’t oblivious one-percenters, out of contact with native issues. They gave lavishly to the group, funding the development of the realm’s first hospital, in addition to a cemetery, a library, and an Episcopal church. Among the many Buhls’ different items to the general public was a 300-acre parcel, which they bought and remodeled right into a park, replete with mountain climbing trails, an 11-acre lake, and a 9-hole course which opened in 1914.
Over time, locals took to calling it the “Dum Dum” course, although this wasn’t considered a denigrating identify. Extra possible, it was a time period of endearment for a monitor that was welcoming to all talents. Elite ability was not required. Cash wasn’t, both. That half had been dealt with by the Buhls, who endowed the park in perpetuity with the intention of retaining its facilities free.
Particulars of that sort, which have been misplaced on Roskos and Scott once they have been rising up, are high of thoughts for them as of late.
In maturity, as in childhood, they’ve a lot in frequent. From their early days on the Dum Dum course, each went on to careers as licensed PGA professionals. In these roles, their paths intersected on a number of events. Lately, they’ve grown extra entwined than ever. Scott’s now the director of golf at Buhl Park, and Roskos is the chief director, which, technically, makes him Scott’s boss. However by no means thoughts the titles. The larger level is that this: Collectively, they’re stewards of the free 9-hole course that served as their springboard into the sport.
Josh Sens
Roskos has been in his job longer, having signed on in 2015, by which level, the course had seen higher days. For all of the Buhls’ largesse, there have been limits to the funding they left behind. Their endowment earmarked $650,000 a 12 months for all the park and all of its amenities, not simply the course. That was sufficient cash to maintain the greens charges at zero, however not sufficient for correct maintenance of the grounds.
As circumstances declined, the course slipped towards the sort of loss of life spiral that dooms so many cash-strapped operations. The board of trustees overseeing the endowment got here inside one vote of shutting Dum Dum down.
Recognizing the necessity for income, Roskos spearheaded a collection of fundraisers, scraping collectively the cash to reopen a driving vary that had been added to Buhl Park within the Nineteen Nineties, solely to shutter in 2010. That was one thing. Buckets of balls introduced in some dough. But it surely hardly amounted to a long-term answer. The price range remained threadbare. There was no clubhouse and no professional store, only a sign-in sheet on the vary. Course upkeep was minimal. Fairways and greens acquired mown simply as soon as per week.
The Dum Dum course was nonetheless limping alongside in 2020, when Roskos and Scott had an opportunity encounter in an unlikely setting. Scott, who was between jobs in golf, was promoting vehicles at a neighborhood dealership, and Roskos was in search of a car. As they chatted within the lot, the 2 acquired to speaking about Buhl Park.
“We each agreed that, simply because a course is free, doesn’t imply it needs to be crappy,” Scott says. “But when it was going to be sustainable, extra elements of it must be run like a enterprise.”
In June of that 12 months, Scott got here aboard to assist with that. The timing was propitious, with golf being on the cusp of a pandemic growth. Seizing on that momentum, Roskos and Scott beat the bushes for monetary help, rustling up cash from non-public donations and grants, which they put towards constructing a small professional store with two pay-to-play simulator bays.
Extra income trickled in, as did donations, giving technique to a extra bold mission: a clubhouse, with three simulators and a free-to-use indoor placing inexperienced, geared up with high-tech coaching instruments.
Each bit counts. A big bucket of vary balls at Buhl Park prices $10. The simulators hire out for $20 to $40 an hour, relying on the day and time of 12 months. Snacks and drinks could be bought within the professional store, however a spherical nonetheless fetches the identical as ever: nothing. And a course that when ran at a $250,000 annual loss is now near breaking even. By including clinics and different choices, Roskos and Scott envision a day when it’d flip a revenue, all of which might be poured again into the course.
Josh Sens
Within the meantime, they’ve beefed up staffing and ramped up upkeep. The fairways are well-groomed. Greens now get lower 5 occasions per week. On a current autumn afternoon at Buhl Park, with foliage popping on the tree-lined structure, the impression of those efforts have been plain to see. The vary was packed. Two of the simulators have been occupied. And the Dum Dum course was seeing numerous motion.
