WEST ENFIELD – In years past, late-summer visitors to Green Valley Golf Course could step up to the tee, let rip, and end up amazed by the results.

“The August roll,” says Kim McLaughlin, who owns the course with her husband, Andy.

Andy McLaughlin chuckles and says the distance balls traveled on the sun-baked fairways was impressive.

“You got a little wind behind you and hit it up in the air on No. 1, the 500-yard hole, you’d have 150 yards left [to the green].

“You felt like Tiger Woods,” he says. “Until your next shot.”

Not any more.

Thanks to a new irrigation system that the McLaughlins installed last fall (with a lot of help from a group of dedicated volunteers), Green Valley is ready for whatever Mother Nature can dish out.

“It will soften the course up and make it play a bit longer, but we’ll also have healthier grass and we’ll be able to treat more effectively for weeds and stuff,” Andy McLaughlin says.

Green Valley, a nine-hole layout, is 2,824 yards for the men, 2,424 for the women. The holes are largely forgiving, with players able to recover from errant shots (whether from the neighboring fairway or one of several well-mowed ditches).

And it succeeds in serving a niche Andy McLaughlin describes as “a place where the average golfer can come out and have fun.”

Part of the reason for that success is the people who’ll greet them at the course, as well as those who may end up playing beside them.

Want a testimonial on the caliber of Green Valley’s membership? Kim McLaughlin’s glad to provide one.

After the irrigation project was wrapped up for the winter, Andy left the trenches open so he could re-check the pipes come spring.

After that took place, early season golfers got involved by tossing an extra “club” in the bag for what lay ahead.

“People would just show up with rakes, and as they were playing, they’d rake [soil back into the trenches] a little bit,” Kim McLaughlin says. “They were our members, and they just treated us really nice.”

Green Valley opened in 1965 and the McLaughlins bought it in 1995. Andy McLaughlin, who also holds a full-time job as an electrician at Lincoln’s Eastern Paper mill, grew up playing at Green Valley, as did Kim’s father.

But after gaining the right of first refusal on the course, Andy McLaughlin got an odd phone call from another interested bidder.

The man, whom he’d never met, said he’d gladly come up with the down payment if the McLaughlins were interested in a partner.

They decided they were, and Gerry Clifford was on board.

Still, the McLaughlins say they didn’t realize exactly what they were getting.

Clifford, who now lives in Brewer, is a Wytopitlock native who coached high school golf in Vermont for years before returning home.

He’s a certified instructor with the U.S. Golf Teachers Federation, and gives lessons at the course. And that’s not all.

“He just turned out to be the greatest guy in the world,” Andy McLaughlin said. “And everybody who knows him thinks that, too.”

Andy McLaughlin says the secret to playing Green Valley well may lie in the short game.

“I would say you don’t need to drive the ball long, or necessarily straight, but if you can chip and putt, you’re gonna score well here,” he said.

Andy McLaughlin’s favorite hole is the 367-yard sixth, a hilly par 4 that runs parallel to Route 2.

“You have to hit a fairly precise tee shot to see the green, and then you’re left with a little bit of a downhill lie so you can have a challenging second shot to a green that you can’t see because you’ve got a knoll coming up to it,” he said.

Kim’s favorite: No. 4, a short par 4 which can be reachable for both the men and the women. It’s another where the average golfer can feel just like Tiger Woods.

For her, it’s just 197 yards. For the men, it’s 242.

“I love it because it’s a par 4 and I can almost drive the hole and it makes me happy [when I do],” she said.

For now, that is.

The McLaughlins have constructed a new green that adds a dogleg and lengthens the hole by 70 yards, and will open it soon.

The reason: Play bogs down on the fourth because golfers have to wait for the group ahead to putt on the reachable green.

“If you can get a good drive out there, you’ll have a wedge or 9-iron into a green that slopes back to front, guarded with bunkers on two sides and in the back,” Andy McLaughlin says.

Perhaps you won’t feel like Tiger any more.

But Andy McLaughlin says it’ll still be worthwhile.

“It will be fun,” he says.

Vital Statistics

GREEN VALLEY GOLF COURSE

Holes: Nine

Yards: 2,824 (men), 2,424 (women)

Par: 35

Slope: 112; rating: 65.8

Greens fees: 9 holes, $8; all day, $12

Cart fees: 9 holes, $8; 18 holes, $16

Memberships: $250 singles; $365 family; $135 junior

Tee times: not necessary

Directions: Take I-95 to Exit 54, turn right off the ramp onto Route 6/155; proceed to the T and turn right, go straight across bridge to blinking light, turn left onto Route 2. Green Valley Golf Course is 4.3 miles out Route 2 in West Enfield.

Footwear: Soft spikes suggested

Phone: 732-3006

John Holyoke can be e-mailed at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or reached by phone at 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.