Despite the bottom half of the course not quite playable as of yet, the York Lake Golf and Country Club has a few things to look forward to this summer.
One of them is the good weather that came around Yorkton and area for most of Friday. YLGCC general manager Logan Britton told the paper that day there were about out on the golf course.
The other good part is the arrival of Sherwin Sarancho as the club's new chef.
The menu at York Lake went from a few items on a Pepsi menu, which are all still available, says Britton, to a two-page list of everything they've been able to add since Sarancho arrived on the scene, the club's new menu looks more like something out of a 5-star restaurant in downtown New York City.
Sarancho is originally from the Philippines and has only been in Yorkton for a short time.
"I found him through an ad in the paper," says Britton, while glancing over everything on the new York Lake menu; items ranging from simple salad to Philly Cheese Steak sandwiches and some fancy burgers.
Sarancho brings with him to York Lake some previous work experience which has taken him to kitchens all over the place, including Miami and Connecticut, as well as in his homeland of the Philippines.
"I love it now," he told YTW last week. He's only been at York Lake since the start of the season. He said it's been tough so far considering the weather up until last Friday makes it "boring" at times, but added "next month, it will get busier".
The course hasn't set any dates for tournaments as of yet. Britton said he is working on that, waiting for the results of heavy rains through May to evaporate. When it settles, both Britton and Sarancho agreed things should pick up quite a bit.
"The rest of the summer should get exciting," offers Sarancho.
Part of the job these days has been serving small groups with tee times booked.
That included Ladies Night last week when the order of the day was BBQ chicken wraps served with a side choice of caesar salad or fries.
The slight increase in business comes a month or so after bad rains left part of the golf course under water.
Britton said earlier in the spring that the groundskeeping crew at York Lake pumped out nearly six million gallons of H2O, adding that it was too hard to say exactly how much water fell on the course in the first place.
He said they used a pump with an engine horsepower of 90 and groundskeepers worked on it about 16 hours per day, says Britton.
"The weather was deterring people," he added.
The menu was brought in by Sarancho and is more of a "sit-down menu," suggests Britton, adding that it's more restaurant style now then it was before.
"We're (going to be) adding to it all the time. There's lots of ingredients (available)."
This was basically Sherwin's doing," says Britton of the transformation in menu items.
The new menu features eight different types of salads, six different burgers, and the club serves breakfast all day.
He added that the three biggest aspects of the new items are: they're simple to make, most, if not all of the prices, are very reasonable, and the bottom line, it looks good.
Britton says the prices are kept low because his staff is smaller then most restaurants and the smaller location helps too, he added.
In terms of the remainder of the golf season, Britton replies: "We're just getting started."
The back nine is looking better too, he added.
"It's going well."
The Ladies club was happy with it too, he noted.
