Wallace arranges for Pals to manage Island Green

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Clayton Wallace of Ellsworth likes to keep busy, but owning a golf course has turned out to be too much even for him.

“I’m a workaholic,” said Wallace, but averaging more than 100 hours a week at Island Green Golf Center in Holden was too many.

“I am just flat burnt out,” said Wallace.

Golf pro Des Pal and his wife Betsy are eager to give it a try.

Wallace has entered into an arrangement for the Pals to manage the 6-year-old golf facility, which includes a pro shop, driving range, restaurant, and miniature golf course.

“I don’t have the temperament it takes to run it,” said Wallace, who along with his wife Gail bought the property at auction last December for $950,000. “It isn’t just the golf course. There are five separate businesses, and they were in various stages of neglect.”

Wallace said he realized in June that it was going to be too much for him.

“If it’s going to be a golf course, it needed someone who knew the golf business,” he said. “There were a lot of things that people would say to me that were over my head.”

Course pro Brian Lawton talked with Wallace about a lease, but they couldn’t reach an agreement. In late summer, he received a call from his banker saying that someone – Des Pal – was interested in the course.

Wallace thinks Pal, who has been a club pro and teaching pro at a number of courses in Maine, Florida, and Puerto Rico, and his wife, who formerly owned Betsy’s Kitchen in Trenton, will be better able to manage the facility.

Des Pal will handle the golf side of the operation, Betsy Pal will handle the restaurant.

“Between the two of them, I think it will be lot better for the golfer, a lot better for everybody,” said Wallace.

“We feel like it was fate,” said Betsy Pal. “We were ready for a change and this came along.

“This meets what our special strengths are.”

Des Pal said, “We’re excited. We’ll make this work. Failure is not an option.”

Wallace is optimistic about the facility’s financial future.

“We made money this year,” said Wallace. “We would have done better if Mother Nature had cooperated more, and if the road [Route 1A] hadn’t been torn up.”

Wallace said that his original idea if the golf course didn’t work out was that he would turn it into a campground, but he decided against that.

“I was here 16 hours a day already,” said Wallace. “If I turned it into a campground, then I’d have to be here 24 hours. I didn’t like that idea either.”

Pal, who first saw the golf course a month ago, is impressed by the design of the layout. His short-term plan is to focus on course maintenance.

“If it’s a nice facility, people will keep coming back,” Pal said.

He thinks that the various aspects of the facility – which also includes a game room and arcade – plus the go-kart business next door means more for a family in which not everyone is a golfer.

“There are a lot of reasons why a family can enjoy the facility,” said Pal.

Pal is quick to emphasize the family qualities of the operation – for his own family as well.

“It’s something we can do as a family,” said Pal. “That’s what attracted us.”

Pal is ready to get started.

“We’ll get on the golf course right away in the spring, go from there, and keep smiling,” said Pal.

There will be an open house at the golf course 6-8 p.m. Thursday to meet the Pals.