Golfers, as you probably know, are a finicky bunch. Everybody can name a few guys who own five drivers (none of which ever seem to hit the ball quite straight). We all have pals who buy a new putter or two every season, yet still end up yipping like a dog by July.

Buy a gift for that golf nut for Christmas? No way. By May, you’ll be the sole reason they’re spraying Titleists into the pines.

Here’s a solution: Give your favorite golfer Capital City Golf Course. The 100 acres. The 18-hole layout. The 12 carts and nice collection of tractors, mowers and spreaders. Four ponds. Three brooks. All of it.

All it’ll cost you, owner Richard Violette points out, is 200 bucks, and a few well-crafted paragraphs explaining just why you’ve just gotta own an 18-hole layout in Augusta.

Give Violette the right 200 words, and the course is yours. So is Violette’s knowledge and insight: he’ll stick around to show you the ropes.

“This way here, ordinary people can take a crack at it and probably end up with a golf course at a reasonable price,” Violette says. “Two hundred bucks. That’s not a bad price at all.”

Violette planned on asking $2 million for the whole shebang. He figures if 9,000 people enter essays, that’ll be close enough. And if 20,000 enter, he’ll even give away a condo on Rangeley Lake and a couple of scholarships.

Three weeks ago (before he hired a group of PR pros to start spreading the news), Violette had received 15 essays. Now, partly spurred by a Dec. 5 deadline that has since been extended for 90 more days, the number’s at 1,100.

Essayists expecting country club snobbery at Capital City are in for a surprise.

“We’ve got this as a hobby,” Violette says. “We run this mostly as a mama and papa thing.

The papa, Violette, worked for the state for 35 years and retired back in 1987, the same year as his wife. Then he eyed the dairy farm his wife’s family had run and figured it ought to produce something.

After two years, he figured out his idea of “something” – hay – was a pain in the neck.

“That was the kicker, right there,” Violette says, shaking his head at the memory.

After that, he took a friend’s advice and started sculpting a course out of the rolling pasture land.

The result: a nine-hole executive course on the front and a regulation-length par-36 course on the back.

Violette quickly found out he wasn’t going to have to pay as much for labor as he’d thought. Two former Central Maine Power employees who’d retired came by and volunteered to help out.

“They asked one day if they could do something, you know?” Violette says. “So they started mowing. And they’ve been mowing ever since.”

Violette says only one of his six employees actually collects a paycheck from the operation. And he said the lawnmower men – along with the re-retiring owner – are planning on helping the new owner as much as needed.

“They come as a package [with the course],” Violette says.

“You can’t beat that.”

Violette’s used to the long hours. “Work never killed us,” he says.

But he says he doesn’t want to die as a golf course owner, either.

“I took my boat out of the barn the other day and the last time it was registered was 1988,” Violette says.

That’s the last time he fished, too. The boat hasn’t been in the water since. Next year, Violette hopes that will change.

“It all depends on who gets the place here,” he says, still grinning. “If he gives me a day off, maybe I’ll go.”

John Holyoke is a NEWS sportswriter. For more information on Violette’s contest, check this Web site: winamainegolfcourse.com.