Nick Mott needed new tee markers for the 18 holes at Piper Glen Golf Club in Springfield. “We’re extremely happy with the tee markers and they’ve gotten a great response from golfers, who usually don’t comment about tee markers,” said Mott, who is in his fourth year as Piper Glen’s course superintendent. “Our old tee markers were outdated and the last connection on the course to the previous course ownership,” Mott said. “The new tee markers have a modern look and they’re unique to Piper Glen. ”
The new tee markers contain the letters “PG” for Piper Glen’s name. Blue tee markers are for the championship tees, white for amateur men, green for senior men and red for women. Piper Glen provided the materials for the new tee markers and Pekin students in business, woodshop and metal shop classes did the work over a couple-week period just before schools across the state were shut down in mid-March because of the pandemic. Mott said the $500 spent by Piper Glen for the new tee markers was well worth it.
“It would have cost about $300 to $400 to simply refinish the old tee markers or at least $8 apiece if we had paid a company to replace them,” Mott said. “I mentioned needing new tee markers to Brett when we were talking last winter, and he took it from there.” Pekin woodshop teacher Matt Proehl said Piper Glen’s new tee markers were cut from exterior grade MDF sheets. About a dozen of Proehl’s students used a CNC machine, hand-held routers and router tables and did hand sanding with sandpaper to create the new tee markers.
