By Jim Newell

Review Editor

Concrete fairways, elevator tee boxes, rough, un-manicured putting greens, frozen golfers: not a typical day on golf course. The water hazards were typical, though.

Golfers who could not wait for Spring hit the links of Lake Orion on Saturday for the Lake Orion Sunrise Rotary Club’s 6th Annual Ice Cup Golf Challenge.

The event is a 9-hole team scramble beginning at Green’s Park and meandering through the village streets.

Many of the holes for the Ice Cup Challenge are traditionally on Lake Orion, but with the warmer weather preventing golfers from going on the ice, the Rotary Club adapted the course to wind through the downtown – including into local businesses.

“We raised almost $25,000 this year and had over 70 participants, which was a new record,” said club President Barkley Pierce.

The funds will support the Lake Orion Rotary Club’s service projects, which include Beds for Kids, aiding Lake Orion schools, the FISH Pantry and a hospital project in Cartagena, Colombia.

Pierce kicked off the event activities by camping out in a ShelterBox tent along M-24 on Friday night, raising nearly $1,800 for Rotary’s service projects.

Lake Orion students raised more than $7,790 for ShelterBox, an international disaster relief charity that provides emergency shelter and other aid items to families around the world who have lost their homes to disaster or conflict.

Lake Orion Sunrise Rotary pledged to match those funds.

For more on the Lake Orion Sunrise Rotary Club, including donating or membership information, visit facebook.com/LakeOrionRotary, or email lakeorionrotary@gmail.com.

The club meets at 7:30 a.m. Thursdays at CJ’s Lakeside Grille in downtown Lake Orion.