By Dave Allen
(Photos courtesy of Perspectrum Studios)
In 2020, a new era was ushered in at Nemacolin resort with the transformation of its logo and mascot from Fat Bird to Pearl. The slimmed-down bird in high heels was named in honor of the resort’s CEO and owner, Maggie Hardy, who was nicknamed Pearl as a child. So synonymous is Pearl with the 2,200-acre luxury resort in southwestern Pennsylvania that you’ll find the fun-loving bird on just about everything Nemacolin, from golf balls and umbrellas to doormats, stationary, pens, and employee vehicles and nametags.
Now, the year-round destination for summer and winter adventurers has its own floating golf green with Pearl prominently displayed on the surface. Visible from one of the resort’s unique event venues, Mulligans, and several holes on its Mystic Rock Golf Course, the 28-foot circular green is an additional golf amenity for those attending dinners, wedding receptions, and other events at Mulligans.
“Pearl was a definite must,” says Aaron Garsombke, general manager of The Peak at Nemacolin, the resort’s entertainment hub. “Nemacolin is about uniqueness and really displaying our brand promise of creating Real Life Magic. Everything and anything we can put a logo on, we do, and this was par for the course.”
But it wasn’t Nemacolin’s idea to brand its new floating island green. It was the green’s manufacturer and owner, Matt Gault of Aqua Greens, who literally drew up the concept. Gault was contacted by Nemacolin back in February about replacing its existing green, which was due for an upgrade and only five feet in diameter. “It was really, really small,” says Garsombke, “and we were always getting complaints about how hard it was to hit the green.”
The idea was to have a much bigger green in place by 2025, with no logo, but knowing how important the brand was to Nemacolin, Gault put a few renderings together with Pearl and the year the resort was founded, 1987, in bold green numbers.
“They didn’t know the brand was an option,” Gault says. “So as we were putting an estimate together we cold-called them saying, ‘What do you think of a branded item?’ ”
Hardy’s son, PJ Magerko Liquorice, who also happens to be the VP of Brand Strategy for Nemacolin, saw the renderings and green-lighted the project, but with a catch—it had to be built and installed before the Engage!24 Summit in early June. Nemacolin was hosting the large conference of wedding industry professionals for the first time, and wanted an additional branded amenity that would catch the attention of the 350 speakers and guests in attendance.
One of the most popular wedding-event spaces at Nemacolin is Mulligans, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, wraparound deck and breathtaking views of Mystic Rock, one of two 18-hole courses designed by renowned architect Pete Dye. For a $450 fee, wedding-goers and additional event organizers and their attendees can hit balls to the floating island green, which sits approximately 90 yards from the pond deck. There’s also a putting green on the deck and a scorecard, so people can track how many times they hit the ball on the green.
“The idea is to get everyone to hit to the floating green, regardless if they’re a good golfer or not,” Garsombke says. “They feel a sense of accomplishment when they hit it.”
When all the numbers were cleared and the contract was signed, Gault and his team had only five weeks to build and install the green in time for Engage!24 Nemacolin. A normal green of this size takes Gault’s team approximately two months to build, let alone one with a custom stencil carpet design. Gault estimates his team spent five days on the turf and logo alone, with all of the pieces being shaped, cut and then packed up into a kit at its manufacturing facility in New Hampshire.
“It was as time consuming to set up the carpet as it was to unload, bolt together and prep the green itself,” says Gault, who had the green in the water two days prior to the start of the wedding conference. “It was very complicated and it was a real aggressive push to get it done on time.”
To brand the turf with Pearl, Gault’s team had to project individual pieces of the logo onto some plastic sheets, trace them, flip them over onto the back of each sheet of carpet, and then cut through the plastic and the turf. Each piece was then individually glued and fastened—with screws—to the top surface of the green. Fortunately for Gault, he had all the different-colored turf he needed to create Pearl in his New Hampshire shop. Light green turf was used for Pearl’s chest and one eye, dark green carpet for the numbering, her beak and the rest of her body, and white turf for the perimeter of the green.
“The first and only time we ever saw it put together was the day we installed it,” Gault says.
It’s safe to say the puzzle came together nicely.
“It was definitely a challenge because of the different-colored fabrics and making it all mesh together,” says Garsombke, “but the end result was absolutely awesome.”
(To add Nemacolin’s floating island green to your group’s itinerary at the resort, contact group.sales@nemacolin.com for more information.)
