I have played a number of America’s great golf courses, as well as world-ranked tracks in Ireland and Northern Ireland, and I am always thankful when I return home that I have a fine golf course, Springbrook Golf Club, within a few miles.

It was, therefore, startling, if not flabbergasting, to see that the Lewiston Sun Journal ran a story (Aug. 5) basically panning Springbrook as a “pasture course.”

Springbrook Golf Club hosted the Maine Open championship two or three times a dozen years ago, and the Maine State Golf Association does not bestow “pasture courses” with such an honor.

Since then, Springbrook management has instituted a number of changes on the course, adding numerous new tees for middle- and high-handicappers; cleaning up some areas of rough while allowing the native grasses to dominate in other spots; contouring fairways to define direction of play; and improving cart paths.

I have played Top 100 courses from Black Diamond and the Ocean Course at Kiawah on the Atlantic, to Medinah No. 3 in Chicago, to Pebble Beach and Riviera Country Club on the Pacific. Yet, without equivocation, I can say Springbrook’s conditioning is exceptional and its layout excellent.

So, from this well-traveled golfer, I say that we in the Lewiston-Auburn area should be thankful we have Springbrook Golf Club in our midst. Please leave the barbs, if you must unleash them at all, for clubs that deserve them.

Mark Leslie, Monmouth

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