POLAND – Golf, many times, is a game of chance. Taking a risk sometimes results in a reward, other times it results in a penalty stroke (or four).

Standing on the ninth tee at Fairlawn Golf and Country Club, long hitters can peer over a grove of pine trees between the tee and the green, and visualize their balls sailing over the tops of those trees and landing safely.

Most golfers, however, choose to play the ball to the right of the trees, down the fairway as the hole was originally laid out and avoid the chance that one of the pines will reach up and snare the ball out of midair.

“Twenty years ago, no one would think twice about trying to hit the ball over or through those trees,” course professional Dave Bartacious said. “Now it makes you think. As hitters have evolved and as the equipment has, too, we’re lucky those trees are there. the hole would be much too easy otherwise.”

Of course, going over or through the trees is still an option, but one that becomes more of a risk with less chance of reward as the years pass and as the trees creep closer to the sky.

“There was a time you could stand at the clubhouse and see all the way down to the other side of the course,” course owner Frank Bartacious said. Frank is Dave’s father and has owned the course since groundbreaking in 1963. “The only holes we shoveled out of the woods were four, five and six on the front, and 12 and 13 on the back. It was all laid out to fit the ground that was there.”

Now, many members at Fairlawn call the fourth, fifth and sixth holes “coffin corner,” a name to fit the difficulty of those holes.

“You can go in there one or two over and come out seven or eight over and wonder how you did,” Dave Bartacious said. “Those can make or break your round.”

The fourth hole give off an appearance of a double dogleg, but in reality it is a long, straight par-4. Groves of natural forest jutting out into the rough at different intervals down the left and right sides give it a slalom-like feel, and the first grove, about 150 yards out on the left, will hurt players that like to fade the ball. Average players will have a middle to long iron into the green, and putting is tough with several undulations.

The fifth hole is short, just 364 yards from the white tees, but is hazardous because you can’t see the green from the tee. The fairway bends 90-degrees to the right at the 150-yard mark, making a precise tee shot a must. Long hitters are penalized by woods, and those trying to hit a cut around the corner deal with limbs hanging out over the rough. The green is small and hard to hold on the fly, and the area surrounding the green is unforgiving.

The sixth hole is similar in that it, too, takes a sharp right turn. The difference there is the gully just in front of the green and the bunkers on either side, again making an approach precarious at best.

Slice of history

Perched in the dance hall on the second floor of the clubhouse is a sign reading “Fairlawn Farm 1878,” indicative of the farm that stood where the course is today. The sign is the original, just like Frank Bartacious is the original owner of the golf club.

“At the time, other than Poland Spring, we were the only 18-hole course in the area,” Frank Bartacious said. “At that time, we constructed the greens like almost every other place did, to play a pitch-and-roll style of game.”

Another classic feature at Fairlawn is the lawn itself. Grass was imported to the greens instead of grown on site, largely because of the short growing season in Maine.

“We had to import it,” Frank Bartacious said. “The growing season here is only three months or so, so we imported the grass and didn’t seed them.”

Over the years, a local brand of pau anna grass has crept into the greens, but for the most part they roll true to the original greens.

“You can see the grass,” Frank Bartacious said. “If you look closely, the blades are different sizes, but we are doing a good job controlling it and I think the greens putt very well right now.”

The idea to build a course was certainly a risk for the Bartacious family, but the rewards have been well worth it.