Flying again

Staving off a double-dip of bad timing, Osprey Meadows at Tamarack Resort in west central Idaho is again spreading its wings.

Debuted with ample fanfare in 2005, the Robert Trent Jones Jr.-designed Osprey quickly filled its mantle with recognition as one of the nation’s best new courses. But the domestic downturn of 2008 soon spelled economic doom for the popular grounds, and the course eventually went dormant, its aesthetic spread of meadows, marsh and mountain terrain eschewing grooming as the playing grounds returned to their natural environment.

Enter new ownership in 2019: Compliments of a $40 million reinvestment in the resort property and a return of both Jones Jr. and RTJ II president and chief design officer Bruce Charlton to redesign and reimagine the grounds — and Tamarack was back on the roadmap.

Of course, such a rally timeline was soon met with encumbrance anew, compliments of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yet, evidencing a focus and fortitude that mirrors the genuine grandeur of its postcard surrounds, Osprey Meadows swept through the latter threat to its existence and officially reopened its tee sheet this past July. Now sporting a redesign with fewer bunkers and forced carries, the course offers a near-full rerouting from its initial design, all intended to make the experience more enjoyable for the resort golfer.

“The goal was making it more player-friendly,” director of golf Dustin Simons says, “and also, from the agronomy side, making the course more efficient for the grounds staff.”

Golf, like life, like the resort business, is all about timing.

“Time is both my friend and my enemy,” the poetic 85-year-old Jones Jr. said, smiling, at the course’s grand reopening ceremony.

As for the renovation, the famed designer offered of his approach to the project: “Some things you have to learn to leave alone, because they’re good; and some things require the tweaks here and there. And this is initially done in the dirt, before seeing the green grass. But then when actually playing it, my golfing eye kicks in and you feel the shots and those needed tweaks. I always like to say that golf is really designed through your hands and your feet.”

When Sean Parsons took the gig as Tamarack’s director of agronomy in late summer 2022, the veteran superintendent wasn’t saddling up for his first rodeo. What he soon realized, however, was that the in-process project required some organization to match the team’s earnest motivation.

“It was a mess,” he says with a smile of recollection. “There were just a lot of pieces that needed to come together. I’d been a part of some renovations and done a lot of irrigation installs, so I knew what I was getting into a little bit. The tough parts were that there was no equipment here, no staff here. But the leadership here told me they’d get me what I needed and work with the landscape team to come up with a schedule and a plan. So, while everybody really did want to hit the ground running, I think it was my job to make sure that we had a real blueprint.”

Before Osprey Meadows could truly hatch, Parsons explained his need to get soil samples, put down fertilizer and compost, endeavor rototilling, and to come up with a seeding plan.

Oh, and on the heels of the pandemic, he also needed to get creative with acquiring equipment.

“Getting the equipment was the biggest hurdle. After COVID, the wait times were 18 to 24 months,” Parsons adds. “So, I just searched around and bought a couple of used rough mowers and walk mowers, greens mowers. Just picked up what I could to get us through the first six months until winter.”

As for the long-unattended soil he was manning?

“I mean, when the soil, which is sand-based, just sits for almost a decade — everything leaks out of it. There was nothing left. I had to wake up the soil,” Parsons says. “Top-layering all the fairways with truckloads of compost I had brought in from Boise, along with dozens and dozens of bags of organic stuff that we were tilling into the top 2 or 3 inches of the greens, so that when we did seed, it was gonna be successful.”

Grounds gone fallow will do strange things to former turfgrass.

“When I got here, everything was so thatchy, it had turned into, like, bricks — tee boxes and greens,” Parsons says. “It looked like cobblestones. That thatch was about 7 inches deep. They’d let it go and it ran out of nutrients. A very weird look.”

Challenges didn’t cease with cobblestones. Provided the resort’s remote locale — about 100 miles north of Boise — the labor pool for Parsons didn’t run as deep at that thatch. But rather than seeing his local prospects as French fried, the agronomist got to work mashing fresh spuds into shape.

Forming a maintenance staff of 12 golf first-timers (the self-coined “Dirty Dozen”), Parsons filled his team with multiple white-collar retirees — a former insurance salesman, a pediatrist — and hired a welder as his mechanic. Together, the new crew busted butt across 75-hour work weeks to get the rework ready for play in short time.

“I call it ‘speed agronomy,’ because we did do it in about a year and a half, and got the whole thing renovated in under two years,” Parsons says. “And I called in every favor I could. At this point, it’ll be weird for us to not work a 12-hour day.”

Parsons relished the combo of turf work and construction. “I love the maintenance side, but it’s so exciting to be working with the construction side of it,” he adds. “When I took the job, I told my wife, ‘This really gets my mind going.’ And the chance to bring this course back, just a huge opportunity. There’s been a lot of excitement around this reopen.”

The hands-on enthusiasm was well-paired via a teamwork mind-meld with the designers. While some projects see egos force separate-but-equal task tables, the Osprey Meadows endeavor proved a true collaboration.

“Bruce Charlton is phenomenal to work with, just a wealth of knowledge,” Parsons says. “And talking with him over time with my maintenance point of view, it became, ‘Can we soften that edge?’ or ‘Can we widen this space, so I can get a triplex in there?’ And beyond that, it was an ongoing discussion about a sight line here or there, or sending him a photo for a part of the project that I wanted him to look at for when he’d get back here. And he was very receptive and excited to have that input.”

The result demonstrates the passion and hustle to get to the finish line. Working with Pure Distinction bentgrass on tees and greens — and already cutting 1⁄10th of an inch in just its second year — the putting prowess is matched with a bluegrass and ryegrass blend for the hitting surfaces, giving Parsons and his Dirty Dozen ample flexibility in mow lines along fairway and rough.

With Osprey perched to reclaim its original glory and renown, Parsons won’t pause in purview — but, after the renovation sprint, he does aim to finally trade work boot for soft spikes.

“There have been moments (of relief), but I still see all the little things that need to be done. And that, of course, is the curse of the superintendent,” Parsons says. “And while I have enjoyed the pressure of getting this done in under two years, I’ve just put so much focus on this goal and getting to this stage that I now really need to get out and play it and enjoy the grounds.”

Judd Spicer is a Palm Desert, California-based writer and senior Golf Course Industry contributor.