Golf Club Caters to Every Type of Player

According to Thom Bishop, the golf industry has changed over the years. And he would know. Bishop started working atin Oak Ridge in 1972 and still hasn’t left.

“Right now, there are too many golf courses in the region for the number of players out there,” Bishop said. “We have had to work very hard over the past several years to cater to a new type of player.”

That includes offering classes, leagues and packages to cater to all types of clientele.

Bowling Green employs a teaching pro who is on staff during the summer and fall to give lessons.

It also includes a number of different leagues, including a ladies league on Tuesdays, and another new early-week offering.

“We have a new league that we’re offering on Monday nights,” Bishop said. “It includes nine holes of golf, a cart, a lunch entrée and a drink afterwards,” he said.

Bowling Green is a semi-private club, in that it offers memberships, but is also open to the public.

“There are different levels of membership, based on how often you play,” Bishop said. “We are finding that golf is a much more family-oriented game now, and our junior memberships have grown a lot over the past few years,” he said.

The golf course is in a traditional style, as it flows with the land.

“When some of the newer courses have been built, they come in with bulldozers and plow out whatever they don’t want there anymore,” Bishop said. “Bowling Green uses the landscape as part of the course.”

This feature lends itself well to walking, he said, and Bowling Green is one of the few semi-private courses that allows walking at any time of day.

The course also lends itself well to wildlife, including deer, wild turkeys, foxes, otters, red tail hawks and bears.

“The course is monitored at all times when golfers are out,” Bishop said. “If there is a bear sighting, the monitors use an air horn to alert players and, hopefully, scare off the bear. That doesn’t always work, though, as some of the bears are used to the sound of the air horn.”

 Besides bear monitors, the course also employs licensed pros and greenskeepers that run the course.

“Our staff keeps current at all times on approved and environmentally friendly fertilizers, and we are very careful not to overapply,” Bishop said. “The wildlife love this place, and it if was overfertilized, they wouldn’t.”

Bowling Green also offers The Grill Room restaurant that overlooks the course.

“We’ve hosted many of the high school team sports banquets here,” Bishop said.

Bishop has seen many changes at Bowling Green since he came to the family-owned operation in 1972.

“I came in during high school as a cart boy,” he said. “I ran errands, and basically got things ready for the next day at the end of each day,” he recalled.

During high school, he worked in the pro shop, and spent his college summers on the ground crew.

“I’ve worked for the Riggs family for about as long as I’ve been working,” he said.