WINTER NO HINDRANCE TO AVID GOLFERS

Mary Jane Sauer, Bent Creek Golf Club pro shop manager, sells a box of golf balls to Gene Crippen of Jonesboro, Ill. Sauer says many Illinois residents play golf at the club.

Michael Robbins of Jackson puts for a birdie at the golf course, while Jim Daybe of Cape Girardeau holds the pin. Also pictured is Trae Thrower of Cape Girardeau. Barring snow and soggy conditions, the course is open seven days a week year-round.

There are only two things that keep Bent Creek Golf Club in Jackson from opening on a winter's day -- too much water condensation on the greens and enough snow that golfers can't find their dimpled white golf balls. It's not a matter of a lack of golfers willing to brave the elements.

"Between Christmas and New Year's the wind chill was below zero and we had people here golfing," said Mary Jane Sauer, who manages the pro shop at the golf club. "They wore little gloves with heaters in them and they had wind covers on the golf carts. We get a lot of avid golfers!"

It was during that period that St. Louis was blanketed with about 10 inches of snow but none fell around here. Golfers from St. Louis, said Sauer, came to Bent Creek to play.

"And last Friday (Jan. 12) I bet I took at least 3,000 calls from people wanting to know if they could get on. That's no exagerration. But we couldn't open that Saturday because we finally got some snow."

Sauer says people often call from Illinois to find out if the golf course is open. One call came from Bloomington, near central Illinois.

"He asked how far it was to here and I said it was about 150 miles from Bloomington to St. Louis and another 95 to here. He and some friends showed up here on a Sunday."

Construction of the 72-par, semi-private golf club began in 1989 and it opened in September 1990, just in time for the chills of fall and the whipping winds of winter.

"Weather permitting, we keep it open seven days a week, year-round," said Sauer, who has worked at the club two years. "We stay pretty busy. This past weekend we had 185 golfers and about 75 percent of them were from St. Louis."

The 6,548-yard golf course is open from 7 a.m. to dark during the summer and from 8 to about 4 p.m. in the winter. On an average day during the "peak season" -- April, May and June -- about 100 people tee off, chip and putt. Last Tuesday, with high temperatures in the 40s, about 60 golfers took to the fairways, where the thin-bladed, hybrid burmuda grass called midiron had long since turned brown in dormancy.

The golf club is owned by Jack Litzelfelner and several years ago Golf Digest magazine ranked the public course number one in the state. This year Bent Creek Golf Club is ranked number five; the courses with higher rankings are brand new, said Sauer.

The course cost about $100,000 a hole to construct. There are 54 sand bunkers and plenty of water hazards. The holes were designed around Goose Creek, not Bent Creek as the name suggests.

There are four par 3s, 10 par 4s and four par 2s. The shortest hole is the 163-yard, par 3 number six; the longest hole is the 495-yard, par 5 number 11. Preston Baker is the club pro.

The club employs more people in the summer than the winter, but winter employees stay busy. In the winter, Sauer also runs the snack bar and sometimes the cart check.

"There are certain people who golf here in the winter that don't golf here in the summer," Sauer said. "There's a bunch of guys that come from Cairo only in the winter.

"I think it depends on the kinds of businesses they're in. They might be real busy in the summer and business might slow during the winter."

Winter golfers know how to stay warm. Besides wearing layers of clothing, knit caps and heated gloves, they drink lots of coffee and hot chocolate. And more golfers walk the course during the winter.

Sauer says walking can help a golfer stay warm; however, many golfers walk during the winter because water condensation makes the ground soggy and the carts have to stay on the cart paths.

Even if the ground is frozen, golfers can be found at Bent Creek. Sam Blackwell of Cape Girardeau says hitting a ball on the frozen fairway with an iron can be rather painful.

"You can get a pretty good sting in the arms," he said, smiling. Blackwell played the course Wednesday with Jeff Breer. Breer said it's cheaper to play in the winter. Sauer concurred: it costs about $8 less on weekdays and $11 less on weekends to play a round of golf in the winter than in the summer.