RAVENNA – Tom Uplinger doesn’t play much golf. He hadn’t played in at least a year when a couple of weeks earlier he’d headed to Moss Ridge Golf Club for a leisurely Sunday round in a quartet.
The 24-year-old resident of Newaygo left the $ 2,500 course richer and with good memories.
Over it. On August 9, Uplinger became the second Moss Ridge winner of the Swing King Hole-in-One Contest, pulling out his first-ever ace at number 4 with a 7-iron from the 132-yard white tees. He joins 67-year-old Robert Ballou of Naples, Florida in achieving the feat. Ballou recorded his hole-in-one on issue 4 on July 24th.
“I hit him and shit and we saw the ball disappear,” recalled Uplinger, who is employed by DeWitt Communications, installing cables for Comcast and Charter. “I thought he rolled behind (the green) and what not, and then we went down to (the hole) and definitely (heck), he was sitting in the hole.”
The Swing King Hole-in-One Contest began in Moss Ridge in early April and will run until the end of the golf season when the course is closed for the winter. Participants are automatically registered for the hole-in-one challenge when they pay their fees on the green, as $ 1 of each 9- or 18-hole round enters the pool for the cash prize.
The designated hole at Moss Ridge is number 4, which measures 124 yards from the women’s red tees, 132 from the whites, 171 from the blues and 190 from the championship tees. The par-3 features a pond along the right side of the fairway and a sand trap guarding the left side of the green.
A golfer can even win the race on his own, as a total of five or six zoom-capable cameras are aimed at the tee boxes, fairway and green. Contest winners will receive the $ 2,500 prize and a video of their hole in one.
“Actually, I didn’t know it or anything. One of the guys we went with, he plays there a little bit and stuff and he was all ecstatic and happy or whatever. At first I was happy it was a hole in one, you know, then he said that (about $ 2,500) and I couldn’t believe it, “said Uplinger, who played that day with Ron Uplinger, Duane Bazzett and George Jennings.
“(The contest is) really great. It’s a really cool deal. I can’t believe they can do that – it’s pretty cool. “
David Ingles is in his second year as general manager at the Moss Ridge Golf Club and Banquet Center in Ravenna, Michigan. He is pictured at the camp on Saturday 22nd August 2020. (Scott DeCamp | MLive.com)
Moss Ridge General Manager David Ingles said the Swing King Hole-in-One contest was pretty quiet until Callou had his ace last month. After Uplinger registered his hole in one, Ingles noticed that the game was picking up even more on the course positioned along the M-46 between Muskegon and Grand Rapids.
Moss Ridge, which opened in 2000, is owned by Richard Kent & Associates and designed by renowned architect Bruce Matthews III in the former Thomas Moss Apple Orchard Farm. The property, located at 13545 Apple Ave., doubles as a banquet center.
Ingles said several improvements have been made and more are in the works, including three simulators arriving in October for indoor golf.
“We are in the middle of our bunker project. We’ve finished half of the bunkers. I think so far we’ve brought, I mean, 13 tons of sand, “said Ingles, who is also a men’s basketball coach at Kent City High School.” The course is in great shape. We have brand new carts with GPS – they’re great. – so I think it helped. We’ve been very busy all season, so it’s going really well.
“You will see many new trees on the path we will put there. Sure, we’ll fix the bunkers. We will work on the cart paths. It has improved this year and will only improve after (years) “.
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