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by Scott Hollister, Editor |
Golf catches renovation fever
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If you’re a superintendent who has never been involved in a golf course renovation project, you’re in a select group, a member of an ever-shrinking minority. And chances are you won’t be in that group for long.
In an era when more golf courses close than open each year — 2005 was the first time in 60 years that course closures outpaced course openings — our industry’s emphasis has clearly shifted to improving what we already have as opposed to creating something new. That’s meant more renovation business for golf course architects and builders, and more opportunities for superintendents to test their skills at remaking courses they normally just maintain.
The granddaddy of all renovations might be the one that we’re featuring in this month’s GCM — the renovation of TPC Sawgrass (See “The rebirth of Sawgrass” on Page 48). In the span of just seven months last year, the course that will host this month’s Players Championship was almost completely remade, from new turf to new irrigation to a new clubhouse.
But with apologies to Sawgrass superintendent Fred Klauk Jr. and the enormity of the work that he and his team oversaw in Florida, I’m casting my renovation sympathy vote this year for Sandy Queen, CGCS, and Terry Rodenberg, who will begin renovating St. Andrews Golf Club in Overland Park, Kan., later this month — for the second time in the last two years.
In September 2005, this popular municipal course in suburban Kansas City shut down for seven months for a project that focused primarily on the rebuilding and regrassing of all 18 greens. The new USGA greens with A-1/A-4 bentgrass surfaces debuted in April of last year to rave reviews.
They didn’t know it at the time, but a year later they’d be doing it again. This time around, six existing holes, along with their brand-new greens, are being turned over to a new youth soccer complex being built next door to the course, and St. Andrews will get six new holes that will wind through wooded land already owned by the city adjacent to the course.
Ironically, Queen brought this all on himself. The manager of golf course operations for Overland Park and a member of GCSAA’s board of directors first proposed the idea to city officials when plans for the soccer complex stalled after the city struggled to find a suitable tract of land at a price they could afford. Queen’s solution gave the soccer project some desirable real estate in the heart of the city, while St. Andrews got a facelift for six of its least popular holes.
So how did Rodenberg, the superintendent at St. Andrews and a 23-year GCSAA member, take the news of back-to-back renovations? “I wish I could have taken a picture of Terry’s face when I told him,” Queen laughs now. “Complete disbelief. Almost depression. But as this has gone along, he’s gotten more and more excited about it.”
From disbelief to depression to excitement. That’s probably a common reaction from the growing number of superintendents who are finding themselves in the exact same boat.
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