Course Markings and Native Areas

The greens committee toured the course a few weeks ago to discuss some of the markings on the course and to look at moving around some of our native grass areas that we have added over the years.

One of the major changes we decided to enact was to remark what had previously been Out of Bounds in the prairie area between holes 2, 3, 4, and 6 into a lateral hazard.  There was really no reason for the area to be marked Out of Bounds as the area is all property of the GFCC.  Remarking this area as a hazard will allow players to look for and play their ball out of that area, or drop a ball along the hazard, as opposed to having to take a stroke and distance penalty.

Furthermore, we made some tweaks to our native grass areas.  We mowed out some areas on the left side of 2, the right side of 9 along the creek, and the right side of 17 behind 16 tee.  These areas are where a lot of only slightly errant tee shots were getting lost in the tall grass.

We also reclaimed some areas that Cole Creek and constant flooding have turned back into weed infested wastelands.  These areas are along the right side of 9, right side of 15, and the right and left side of 17 on the green side of the creek.

Previous native area left of hole 2 mowed back down to rough height.

After cleaning up a bunch of weeds, overgrown trees, and some piles of old
flood silt, we were able to reclaim 15' - 20' of rough on the left side of 17.

Previous native area on the right side of 9 mowed back to rough height.

We reclaimed a lot of area on the right side of hole 15 where years and years of
silt removal had created massive piles of dirt and weeds.  The area was leveled,
weeds sprayed, and will be reseeded next week.

There were also some areas on the course where we moved our native areas out into the course a little further as well.  Most of these areas are along or behind tee boxes, or in areas so far away from the line of play of the hole that very few balls will end up there.  That isn't to say that a few extremely errant shots won't find their way into some, but it should be few and far between.

The reason for letting these rough areas grow back into native areas is two-fold.  Most importantly, it comes down to dollars and cents.  Our rough mowers are extremely expensive machines with a lot of years and hours on them, diesel fuel is expensive, and so are operators.  Every bit of rough that we can quit mowing is money back in our bank account, and more time our staff can spend working on other areas of the course.  Secondly, letting these areas grow back to prairie gives the course a more natural look and adds a lot of extra texture to the property.

This area right of 2 tee is getting let go back to native.  If you miss the fairway
on hole 6 by more than 100' you could lose your ball here.