By Duane St. Clair

When the Memorial Tournament begins June 1, Eric and Stephanie Thompson won’t have to deal with the turmoil they did last year to get their home, which nestles up against the Muirfield Village Golf Club, “tournament ready.”

Now all they’ll need are some annual flowers to provide the color they envisioned when they installed an expansive two-level stone and paver patio in their back yard (which is just off the golf club’s 17th green with a view of the 18th fairway).

The Thompsons rent their home for Memorial Tournament week to a group of five companies that invite customers and clients to visit. Eric, an investment adviser, shares in the hospitality.

Eric explains the couple bought what was a 95 percent new home after the previous owner, a homebuilder, razed most of what existed and erected virtually another house.

The Thompsons made more changes to the property to enhance the ambiance for their first tournament in the home. They replaced an asphalt driveway with pavers to dress up the front. They also built a paver walkway for access to the rear deck, which offers a golf course view and a comfortable seating area.

But the rear yard left something to be desired. Below the deck was a stone walk, but no discernable landscaping. To one side and down a slope was a thicket of brush and scrubby trees. To gain space for tournament guests, the Thompsons had a temporary platform built to enlarge the deck.

Last year, not long before the tournament, the couple decided to turn the yard into something usable. But construction would be so close to tournament time, they had to find a landscaping company that could promise to finish by the deadline and at the right price.

Enter Patrick Lynch, designer for Peabody Landscape Group, who devised plans for a two-level patio. Lynch says by the time the plans were done and all permit approvals received, the company had two weeks to complete a project that normally would take four. However, with the cooperation of neighbors (who allowed Lynch to use their driveway as access to the Thompson backyard) and with due diligence, the project was finished before tee-off.

The upper patio sits in an area excavated just behind the deck, and the lower patio is in the thicket. The lower patio includes a metal fire pit and chairs under a canopy of trees. The result is an area that has “a woodsy, natural look (created) to enhance the view of the golf course,” Lynch says.

The patios have 24- to 30-inch-high walls with smooth tops to allow seating. Lynch and his team added boulders and decorative stone outcroppings to enhance the rustic appearance. Sandstone stairs connect the patios. The wall along the upper patio retains a planting area for annual flowers, which separates the patio from the golf course cart path. Elsewhere, perennial plants bushes (such as boxwoods, hydrangeas and chokeberries), ferns and hostas (day lilies) help decorate the area. Lynch notes the hostas are kept to a minimum and close to the home, where they’re less likely to attract deer.

Eric says because of the proximity of the course, most tournament entertaining is done in the front yard, with food and bar service located in the garage, so chatting and laughing guests don’t disturb play (he says a crowd marshal once had to ask party-goers for quiet). During play, several small tables are placed on the deck and patios, but guests must return to the front yard for refreshments.

During the six-day hospitality week, which begins with the opening of tournament practice on Monday, Eric says several hundred people will pass through the home. Visitors have included Ohio State University football and Columbus Blue Jackets players, Eric says.

While some Muirfield families rent out their homes during Memorial week and stay elsewhere, the Thompsons stay in their home; bedrooms in part of the house remain “off limits” to guests. With the arrangement, “There’s not much relaxing,” Eric says. Stephanie, who is a second-grade teacher in Hilliard, may stay elsewhere during this year’s tournament, Eric says, because the couple’s first child is due in August.

When it’s not tournament time, Eric says he uses the golf course setting for both business and personal entertaining, usually for small groups.

“We have barbeques out there,” he says. The Thompsons have roasted marshmallows over the fire pit, and as a joke during an OSU football party, they’ve “burned a stuffed (Wisconsin) badger” over it, too.

Before the makeover, the yard was unusable. “There was no lawn, just some boulders,”
Eric says. “(Now) it’s nice to have the area.”

Duane St. Clair is a contributing editor for Dublin Life.