The Clubhouse at Whispering Pines
The Clubhouse at Whispering Pines is for members and their guests, and your family name is on a locker inside the club. Joining is complimentary.
Come in, come in. I have been expecting your family. Hang your name on a locker, and when your golfer is ready I shall read them a story. There is nothing to pay here. Members are simply known at the door.
Dame Felicity Greenshire, Club Ambassador
- Five golf balls in the bag on the day you join
- The Listen-Along Storybook, with five complimentary listens
- The Swing Away instrumental, yours to keep
- Your own private Locker Room, and a walled garden for your golfer
- Membership is complimentary, and your locker is yours for life
What it means to be a member +
The Clubhouse is a golf club. Not a mailing list. Not a rewards scheme. You walk in, you hang your name, and you open a locker that is yours.
A walled garden for the children
- A room of their own, with no prices in it.
- Nothing to buy. Nothing to type.
- Their drawings hang on their own wall.
- Their stickers collect there.
- Nobody else can get in.
- The grown-up holds the membership.
A locker room of your own
- Everything your family collects, in one place.
- It stays there for as long as you want it.
- No password to remember.
- Just a link that knows you.
A bag that fills up
- Golf balls for collecting the stories.
- Golf balls for showing up.
- The most of all for bringing another family in.
- They go in your bag, and they never expire.
News from the clubhouse
- What is coming, and what is new.
- Who joined this month.
- What the club decided.
- Members hear it first, because they are members.
Meet the Club Staff +
Write to the desk you need, or write to the Front Desk and Mrs. Dimples will point you the right way.
9Dame Felicity GreenshireClub Ambassador›
She has no desk, because she roams all nine holes, so her line follows her round the course. She greets members, hosts what the club puts on, and is the voice that reads to the children in the audiobook, the Listen-Along and story time.
18Mrs. Dottie DimplesFront Desk and General Inquiries›
The first hello, the switchboard, the suggestion box, and anything that does not know where it belongs.
72Mrs. Prue PersimmonPro Shop Manager›
Books, audiobooks, the sing-along and read-along, Swing Away downloads, sheet music and gift cards. Anything a member can bring home.
3Coach Birdie BrooksHead Pro, The Lesson Tee›
Golf instruction and coaching. She runs the game itself, not the store, and she is usually out on the par three, so her line goes with her.
36Mrs. Pipa PuttersworthDirector of Membership›
Members and only members. Your golf balls, your rung, your locker, and anything at all about belonging here.
14Captain CleatCaddie Master, The Caddie Shack›
The bag room and the caddies. If it belongs in a bag or carries one, it is his.
4Mr. Scoop SandtrapPress Box Editor›
Reporters, podcasters, school newspapers, interview requests and media kits.
59Mrs. Cookie CrumblestoneHead Historian, The Legends Library›
Keeper of the club's history and legends. She books every reading, school visit and story time, and she curates the Art Gallery.
19Pops PuttersonDen Master, The Fairway Gang Hideout›
The back room where the Fairway Friends relax, and Pops keeps them in line. Junior programmes and fan mail come through here.
The Front Nine +
How the club says thank you. A family plays nine holes, and every hole is reached by filling the bag with golf balls. There is nothing to pay and nothing to renew.
How golf balls come in
- Bringing people. Worth the most by a long way. A club grows by being told about.
- Collecting the stories. The songs, the audiobooks, the storybooks.
- Showing up. The smallest one, and the one children like best.
Two rewards at every hole
- The grown-up gets standing: what they can see, hear or reach before anybody else.
- The child gets something to hang in the walled garden, or print at home.
- At every hole the child chooses a sticker for their chart.
- No two charts end up the same.
The Art Gallery +
At the Collector rung the club stops asking your family to bring anything home, and asks your golfer to make something instead.
Guest Artist at Whispering Pines
Draw us a Fairway Friend. Ace, Daisy, Speedy, Sandman, Splash, Rangey, or somebody nobody has met yet. Send it in, and if it is chosen it hangs in the Clubhouse with your name under it.
Every drawing is hung
Every picture your golfer sends goes straight onto the wall of their own private gallery inside the walled garden, and it stays there for good. Nothing is ever turned away.
Mrs. Crumblestone chooses
Once a week the club's historian picks what hangs in the Clubhouse gallery for every member to see. The Gallery is not a feed. Somebody chooses, and that is the whole point of it.
If yours is chosen
We write to tell you, and there is a certificate to print at home. It hangs until the next week's pictures go up, then moves to the gallery archive, and it stays in your golfer's own gallery forever. Send us another one.
The Creators +
Crafted with Purpose
SwanKeeper Publishing is led by one family, with a handful of stories on their way to becoming books, audio, and visual experiences, and a long list still to tell.
The world of the Fairway Friends began when F.C. Salas picked up his first golf club at the age of four, and he has played on courses around the world ever since. It has been taking shape all along, built on decades of fairway experiences and life events. Now it arrives as Once Upon a Golf Swing, the first adventure in the Fairway Friends Adventures series.
F.C. Salas writes the Fairway Friends Adventures. Cristina C. Cortes brings those adventures to life as Art Director: the illustrations, the music, the audiobook. They work as a family team, and every creative decision here is theirs.
We believe a children’s book earns its place by being wanted, not by being good for you. If a child does not ask for it a second time, nothing else about it matters much.
So we write for delight first, and let the virtues travel along, the way they do in any story worth reading more than once. We also write for the person holding the book. Reading aloud is one of the few things a grown-up does that returns them to their own childhood, and we would rather that moment be worth having.
Thank you for reading with your little one. It is the whole reason any of this exists.
With gratitude to Nora and Phil Stringer, who inspired us to create all of this.
Written by F.C. Salas. Illustrated by Cristina C. Cortes. Published by SwanKeeper Publishing.
Notes from the Creators
Gift guides, reading tips, golf with little ones, and a look at how the Fairway Friends come to life.
Every adventure is built on tried and true child development science: how children ages 3 to 6 listen, what makes them ask for a story a second time, and why reading aloud gives the grown-up as much as the child. We keep our secret sauce in the workshop, but what the research means for your family, at story time and out on the course, we share right here.
Clubhouse Back Office +
Every address below is @fairwayfriendsadventures.com