Golf course projects!!

[Bravo]

Maintaining a golf course is so incredibly expensive....here's what we have going on simultaneously now...

1) Complete reconstruction of upper practice putting green. Our fairways are 419 Bermudagrass and our greens are bentgrass. Well our last stupid superintendent allowed the bermudagrass to invade the bent on the practice putting green. We fired the guy and replaced him wth the assistant, who has done a great job battling the drought and keeping the overall course in good shape...but couldn't get the bermuda out of the bent....so they came in with backhoes and tore it down to the drainage level and rebuilt it from the ground up. Just seeded it....

REOPENS: July 2008.

2) Complete reconstruction of driving range drainage. Our course is on the side of a hill/mountain...a homeowner below the course sued us because when we get heavy rains, they get excessive runoff onto their property. This comes from the driving range landing area which has eight 'target greens' at different distances from the tee. So we've brought in bulldozers and backhoes and are putting in an extensive new drainage system that will keep us out of trouble with this homeowner.

REOPENS: January 2008.

3) Complete reconstruction of lake/reservois. We built this in 2001 after a huge drought. Well this year's drought put that one to shame. It's called a "100 year drought". So we have drained the entire lack and are going to excavate to make it deeper while simultaneously raising the dam level by three feet. This will double the water capacity.

REOPENS: April 2008

Thank God we have a lot of new members (took in $1million in initiation fees in the first 7 months of 2007) and there are no assessments for this stuff....

ARRRRGH...these aren't really improvements....just trying to maintain what we already have.....

 

[Lil_Huth]

Wow that sounds like more work and frustration then I could ever even imagine.

 

[Bravo]

Yup,,,you can't warm up and you can't practice putt before you play...(although we do have a lower green but it's a ways down there).

So you go out and play stone cold golf...take a few practice swings and blast away....

 

[Sandpiper3]

You work at this course Bravo? What is your position?

Is it a really nice country club kind of course? Or more of a public kinda thing?

 

[WildCatGolfer17]

I think hes just a old old member if im not mistaken.

Also, I shot Par 70 no practice swings.. only practice puts and that didnt help much.. haha

 

[VtDivot]

I think hes just a old old member if im not mistaken.

Also, I shot Par 70 no practice swings.. only practice puts and that didnt help much.. haha

Wow - you really know how to make a guy feel good

 

[Fourputt]

My course has just started digging up a couple of the tee boxes. This has been an ongoing project for a few years now, trying to expand and level them. The course was built on a very tight budget in 1971-72, and most of the tee boxes were only wide enough to be able to move the markers forward and back a few yards, not side to side. As a result, the tee boxes get crowned from years of filling divots with sand, since most players only use the central area of the tee box.

There is also a proposal before the board to expand our water storage capacity. We have water rights to significantly more than we can store at the moment, but no place to put it (in the West, all life is controlled by water rights - there is constant bickering and litigation over who gets what). The golf course staff has identified two areas of what is currently native rough that could easily be converted to ponds to serve as water hazards and storage for irrigation. The difficulty is getting the board of directors for the Foothills Recreation District (the overseeing body for recreational facilities in southeastern Jefferson County - part of the Denver metro area) to let loose of the funds. Foothills Golf Course generates more income for the District than any other funding source aside from property taxes, but the district board doesn't seem to be able to understand that if you starve your cash cow, the milk dries up. I guess the battle is still going on, but they haven't begun to dig a hole yet...

 

[Bravo]

You work at this course Bravo? What is your position?

Is it a really nice country club kind of course? Or more of a public kinda thing?

It's a private club and I have been a member since1986...that is why I was happy we were going to do all of these projects without an assessment. I can only imagine that the cost will run several hundred thousand...and once again...the projects really don't improve the facilites...they are maintenance oriented.

Doubling the lake capacity is absolutely essential bc with the drought we have had this year....outdoor watering is against the law. So if it weren't for our vision of creating the lake iin 2001, our golf course would have died completely. (There are signs on the practice course which is adjacent to the street where you enter the front gate explaning "course irrigated with lake water" so the police will not issue a fine when they see the sprinklers running). We've got 27 holes and a lot of grounds to irrigate too. We also tried drilling two new wells and got dry holes.

But we found out the hard way that you've got to create lake capacity for a '100 year drought' like we had this year. The lake was almost dried up by the time fall came around. So its back to the drawing board on the lake/pond.

They need to do it quickly before the winter rains come. We get a good bit of rain in January and February and then quite a bit in March as Spring comes along. They are going to rely on Mother Nature to refill the lake once it is ready...

 

[SCGolfer]

Bravo, my home course is beginning this process as we speak. They have raised the damn at the pond on 18 so they can get more capacity and use it to fill another pond that has been added. They are trying to get all of this done before the spring so we can get them filled, hopefully. The club closes on November the first and all of the tees and greens are coming up and the fairways are gonna be reseeded. They will reopen in 10 months, so I will have to travel for golf in the spring. But my property value should increase when they are done with the entire renovation...clubhouse, amenities and all the works.


Jason

 

[Bravo]

My course has just started digging up a couple of the tee boxes. This has been an ongoing project for a few years now, trying to expand and level them. The course was built on a very tight budget in 1971-72, and most of the tee boxes were only wide enough to be able to move the markers forward and back a few yards, not side to side. As a result, the tee boxes get crowned from years of filling divots with sand, since most players only use the central area of the tee box.

There is also a proposal before the board to expand our water storage capacity. We have water rights to significantly more than we can store at the moment, but no place to put it (in the West, all life is controlled by water rights - there is constant bickering and litigation over who gets what). The golf course staff has identified two areas of what is currently native rough that could easily be converted to ponds to serve as water hazards and storage for irrigation. The difficulty is getting the board of directors for the Foothills Recreation District (the overseeing body for recreational facilities in southeastern Jefferson County - part of the Denver metro area) to let loose of the funds. Foothills Golf Course generates more income for the District than any other funding source aside from property taxes, but the district board doesn't seem to be able to understand that if you starve your cash cow, the milk dries up. I guess the battle is still going on, but they haven't begun to dig a hole yet...

I've never told you this...but I have been in your area over 100 times. I worked for ten years for a company headquartered in Golden. We had a 'management meeting' once a month and as a result, I went there once a month for ten years, sometimes more than once a month if situations demanded it. My home a way from home was the Sheraton in Lakewood...so I know Jefferson County pretty darn well. It is so beautiful to be in the foothills.

As a result of so many trips to Denver, I spent quite a few weekends staying over for outside activities....skiing at Copper or Winter Park, whitewater rafting through the Royal Gorge and playing golf.

One April, we were set to play at Arrowhead at 8 am. It was a classic April morning, kind of gloomy to start but forecasted to clear off in the afternoon. Nothing really remarkable in the forecast.

We started and played two holes and then the big flakes started coming down...huge. I putted on the green and by the time my ball got to the hole, it was the size of a softball....needless to say we went back to the proshop and waited awhile to see if it would pass....nope, kept coming down so we left. They gave us a raincheck.

We went to Juan's Mexican restuarant closeby and starting drinking Mexican beer at about 10:30 am....we came out of there at about 12:30 pretty sloshed and the sun was out brightly (Welcome to Colorado folks!!).

We then went back to Arrowhead and they worked us in. It was a beautiful afternoon and we played in chinos and short sleeved shirts.

I hope you get your pond built....good luck on the water fight. They are everwhere now. Alabama's governor was on the TV last night telling everyone he had appealed to the President to get Georgia to let more water run out of Georgia and stop taking so much out for Atlanta. It's a classic Water War, like the ones that have gone on out West for decades...

 

[Bravo]

Bravo, my home course is beginning this process as we speak. They have raised the damn at the pond on 18 so they can get more capacity and use it to fill another pond that has been added. They are trying to get all of this done before the spring so we can get them filled, hopefully. The club closes on November the first and all of the tees and greens are coming up and the fairways are gonna be reseeded. They will reopen in 10 months, so I will have to travel for golf in the spring. But my property value should increase when they are done with the entire renovation...clubhouse, amenities and all the works.


Jason

Jason, IMHO good private clubs MUST do these types of projects despite the expense involved. If you don't and the course conditions get bad, then you lose members and the finances go downhill and it starts to snowball...sometimes a death spiral if the club is not old enough.

Our metro area is over-clubbed and over-golfed now....it's saturated with golf and frankly I think that capacity exceeds demand. So you have to work very hard to stay competitive. We've done three major projects: 1989. 2000 and 2004 to improve everything: fitness center, tennis courts, clubhouse and golf course and it has paid off. We've gotten a ton of new members at $33k each. This is what is paying for all of these projects. (The 2000 project cost $5m and the assessment was very expensive...nevertheless - we voted it on ourselves.) Since 1989, we've spent over $10m on overall club improvements and it has been money very very well spent.

I am sorry to hear your place will be closed for so long but rebuilding greens from the ground up takes that long....they need a long time to grow before you start playing on them....the roots have got to get down deep for them to survive the heat we have in our southern summers...that is why our practice putting green (construction already completed two weeks ago and grass already appearing) will not reopen until next August. They're going to give it 10 months of growth before anyone makes the first putt on it....

 

[MCDavis]

The local muni, where I'm a member, renovated a few years ago and added a pond behind #1's green. They now pipe in the city's reclaimed water through this pond and use it for "free irrigation". He can water 24/7 during the worst draught with no cost or ramifications.

Needless to say, the course looks the best it's looked in years.

 

[Bravo]

The local muni, where I'm a member, renovated a few years ago and added a pond behind #1's green. They now pipe in the city's reclaimed water through this pond and use it for "free irrigation". He can water 24/7 during the worst draught with no cost or ramifications.

Needless to say, the course looks the best it's looked in years.

That was a smart move and the 'reclaimed' water is likely higher in nitrogen than city water....

 

[Fourputt]

That was a smart move and the 'reclaimed' water is likely higher in nitrogen than city water....

Trouble is here in the west, even reclaimed water is already spoken for by someone downstream. We use untreated water, but anything that flows back into the river, must go on down to the next user... either to another town, or for agricultural irrigation. Once a user has consumed what he has the rights to for a year, he is just out of luck unless he can make a deal with someone who hasn't used their entire allotment.