Fairway Hills

FIRST TEE of Howard County, the program started last summer to make golf more accessible to kids, continues to grow at Columbia's Fairway Hills Golf Course, to the point where an executive director has been named to oversee the work. The man chosen is no stranger to working with kids or to anyone familiar with Howard County sports. He's Don Van Deusen, a Columbia resident who for 32 years has taught physical education and coached in county schools. His "day job" these days is being athletic director at River Hill High School.

This golf course review is by a longtime Columbia resident and frequent golfer who has played virtually every course in Central Maryland. He also is an assistant business editor at The Sun. If you want to work on accuracy in your game, Fairway Hills Golf Club is the place to go. Environmental areas, wetlands, woods and two streams define much of this 6,158-yard, par-70 course, which cuts through several residential areas in the heart of Columbia....

CLARIFICATION An article in last Sunday's editions of The Sun about the growth of golf courses in Howard County should have included a mention of two now-defunct courses that once operated in the county, Font Hill and Allview. Howard County is full of folks who fit the typical golfer's profile to a tee: a baby boomer with an annual income of more than $70,000. All those likely players live in one of the nation's most golf-deprived regions, with fewer holes per person than 91 percent of American metro areas.

First Tee Program inspires young golfers Thanks for the recent article on the First Tee Program ("Kids golf effort hits hole in one," Oct. 7). This summer I had the joy of watching First Tee, a program dedicated to educating youth from 8-18 about the sport of golf, unfold at the Columbia Association's Fairway Hills Golf Club. I also had the opportunity to talk with the young players. They were all ages, races, levels of abilities, and there were equal numbers of males and females. Part of First Tee's discipline is to require written quizzes to monitor the students' accomplishments.

A program intended to introduce more children to the game of golf will have a home in Columbia for the next 10 years. Under an agreement reached this week, the Columbia Association will allow, at no charge, First Tee of Howard County to teach golf at Fairway Hills Golf Course for the next decade. The agreement includes renewal options for two additional five-year periods. First Tee of Howard County is part of a national program, backed by the Professional Golfers Association, that is intended to attract more players to the game, particularly minority and low-income children.

When Steve Van Till decided to move from Montgomery County 18 months ago, he knew exactly where in Howard County he wanted to move - the Village of Dorsey's Search in Columbia. Van Till had lived in other parts of Columbia and in nearby Ellicott City, but he knew Dorsey's Search offered what he was looking for. "I pretty much set my sights on Dorsey's Search," he said. "The trees are just beautiful." Built in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Dorsey's Search is the second-newest of Columbia's villages and also the second-smallest with 7,300 residents.

IT DIDN'T take long for Joan Lovelace to know the new program at her golf course was right. She knew soon after Hugo Sanchez walked through the door. He was early, first to arrive. Wide-eyed Hugo, all of 8 or 9 years old, asked if his name was on the list, said Lovelace, head pro at Columbia's Fairway Hills Golf Course. "My school signed me up," said the boy, his mother and another family member in tow from the nearby Hannibal Grove apartments, which border a couple of Fairway Hills' holes.

The Columbia Association's showcase golf course, Hobbit's Glen, has such serious problems that officials have postponed an annual tournament, asked a turf expert to make an "emergency" visit and suggested in letters of apology sent to members that the course might need to be rebuilt. Six of the 18 greens are marred by patches of bare dirt, defects that association officials attribute to heavy rain and extreme heat early last month. After repeated reseedings and coddling with fertilizers and electric fans in the past two weeks, the greens are sprouting back to life, said Robert D. Bellamy, operations director for the association's sport and fitness division.

Fairway Hills Golf Course in Columbia is poised to become the Maryland centerpiece for an innovative, national instructional program that aims to teach golf to children 8 to 18 who lack financial or other access to courses. By the end of the year, backers plan to have a new addition to the clubhouse at the Columbia Association-owned course as a base for the instruction. Also, they expect to have raised $200,000 in privately generated money - including heavy subsidies from the golf industry - to help underwrite the effort.

Name: Joan Lovelace Job description: Head LPGA pro at the Columbia Association-owned Fairway Hills Golf Club since it opened six years ago. One of two female head pros in Maryland (the other is in Montgomery Village, Gaithersburg) and one of about a dozen female pros in the state. Administers 18-hole course on which some 44,000 rounds are played each year. "I do a lot of teaching - individual, group and course management." Supervises an assistant pro and about 30 seasonal employees. Established Green League for beginning golfers a year ago, which since this April has had about 80 players.