A Maine PGA pro and three friends played 100 holes in a day to help build a range for kids

Unlike many other golf courses in the region, Kebo Valley Golf Club in Bar Harbor does not have a driving range.

Thanks to a marathon day during which Kebo club pro Peiter DeVos and three friends spent more than 14 hours on the course, there's a good chance that it may have one next year.

DeVos, assistant club pro Eric Morris, Jon Nicholson and Wyman Tapley teamed up on Saturday to play 100 holes of golf.

DeVos on Monday said the quartet raised nearly $28,000 for Acadian Youth Sports to build a limited flight range at Kebo.

MORE: Tips on choosing a putter for a junior golfer 

Tapley and Nicholson are Acadian Youth Sports board members.

"We're looking to break ground this fall on it to where it would be open in the spring," said DeVos, who explained that the project will cost approximately $45,000.

A limited-flight range is a large cage with roughly eight to 10 stations in which golfers can practice.

DeVos said balls will fly 30 yards before hitting the netting.

"It's a way for us to grow the game with the youth as well as the adults," he said.

There is enough land on which to build the range, DeVos said.

"We've been growing our youth golf program for about a decade now, it's getting to the point where we need to figure something out," DeVos said.

DeVos, Nicholson, Morris and Tapley teed off shortly after 4:30 a.m. Saturday and finished up just before 7 p.m.

The players, who had caddies hauling their clubs in golf carts and marking their balls, walked every hole. The group played the first 72 holes at a 2-hour, 10-minute pace, which allowed for a lunch and shower break.

All four players shot under 80 on their scorecards over each 18 holes.

"We didn't lose a ton of balls," DeVos said.

It took the group an hour and five minutes to play the final 10 holes, which was when the grind of the day started to set in. But the foursome had trained for the challenge by running and walking.

"You're walking a marathon. It was almost 23 miles we walked," said DeVos.

The group took about 58,000 steps, he added, and went through a case of water and a case of Powerade. Volunteers brought the team breakfast sandwiches and other items.

DeVos said 83 donations came from different individuals and businesses throughout the day.

"Towards the end of it we had quite a few people on the deck here watching us finish," he said. "There was good support."

DeVos, who has been at Kebo since 2001, said the structure would go a long way not just in getting more kids involved in the game, but allowing more flexibility in teaching golf lessons.

"You're impacting the course at times because you're taking up part of the course to do the instruction," he explained. "This structure, you're not limited in time now because you can do it at any time during the day, and you take the impact off the course. It's going to be a huge positive for this community and for the island."

This article is written by Ryan McLaughlin from Bangor Daily News, Maine and was legally licensed via the Tribune Content Agency through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.