A rugged beauty

The GCN staff presented the 2006 Golf Course News Builder Excellence Awards at the Golf Course Builders Association of America’s awards dinner, which occurred in conjunction with the Golf Industry Show in Atlanta. This year, four awards were presented. Landscapes Unlimited won the Creative Award for best new construction with Laughlin Ranch Golf Club in Bullhead City, Ariz. Ryangolf won the Heritage Award for best reconstruction with Boca West Country Club’s Course No. 2 in Boca Raton, Fla. McDonald & Sons won the Legacy Award for best renovation with Hermitage Country Club’s Manakin Course in Manakin-Sabot, Va. And Mid-America Golf and Landscape won the Affinity Award for best environmental project with Lambert’s Point Golf Course in Norfolk, Va. The following four articles are about these award-winning projects.

In Bullhead City, Ariz., nestled in the heart of the Mohave Desert and the Colorado River Valley, lies a master-planned community that features Old West charm as well as modern luxury and comfort. The centerpiece of the community is Laughlin Ranch Golf Club.

Laughlin Ranch Golf Club brings elements seen in Ireland, Scotland and England to Arizona's Mohave Desert.

In the fall of 2003, golf course architect David Druzisky received a call from Laughlin Ranch’s owner, David Lords, who Druzisky knew, after Lords purchased the land. It was already partly planned and some permitting was in place.

“We just had to fine detail the course and route it,” Druzisky says. “Because part of the land was planned, it made the development go a lot smoother.”

The course has a lot of topography to the point that it would be hard to build anything without manipulating the land, according to Druzisky.

“We recreated some of the land and made it look more natural,” he says. “The land is stark but subtle in its beauty. It’s striking terrain.”

Golf course builder Landscapes Unlimited became aware of the project through Druzisky. The company had developed a relationship with Druzisky because both were looking into a golf course project in Kansas, according to Bob Armstrong, regional manager with Landscapes Unlimited based in Scottsdale, Ariz. They also worked together on a project in Las Vegas in 2000, Druzisky says.

Armstrong was impressed with the dramatic site the first time he saw it.

“For a desert golf course, there’s a lot of elevation change and rugged terrain,” he says. “David framed in beautiful mountain backdrops and did a fantastic job of taking a rugged piece of land and turning it into a beautiful golf course.”

Chris Sachen, the golf course superintendent at Laughlin Ranch, arrived at the course about a month after it opened from Seville Golf and Country Club in Gilbert, Ariz. He heard about the opportunity and thought it was too good a project to pass up.

“The golf course is fantastic,” he says. “The tie-ins are exceptional. The cart-path construction and the bridges were all done first-class. While driving the course for the first time, I remembered almost every hole.

“And the community will be one of a kind,” he adds. “It’s built on 11,000 acres, and there will be 100,000 people in the development when it’s finished. There are going to be three more golf courses built before the development is complete.”

Timing is everything
The timeline for the development of the course was short, and if the project was delayed any further, the course wouldn’t have opened for another year.

“We needed to have an asset that reflected the quality of the development,” says Morgan Neville, chief executive officer of Laughlin Ranch. “There was a lot of pressure to get it done.”

“It was a fast-track project,” Armstrong says. “The goals of the developer had been set. We started the project [Jan. 15, 2004] before the design was complete – they hadn’t finished the back nine. We budgeted as we went along. The goal was to open nine holes by the end of the 2004, and nine holes were opened in December.”

 

At A Glance

Location: Bullhead City, Ariz. Owner: Laughlin Ranch Architect: David Druzisky Builder: Landscapes Unlimited Superintendent: Chris Sachen Length: 5,150 yards to 7,250 yards Greens: MiniVerde Bermudagrass Fairways, tees and rough: 419 Bermudagrass Project cost: $13.5 million Date construction began: Jan. 15, 2004 Date course opened: Dec. 18, 2004 (front nine); April 2005 (back nine).

Druzisky says Lords had never built a golf course before, so a builder who could start in a big way was needed.

“Landscapes has the resources to get things done at this level,” Druzisky says. “We did a lot of work in a short period of time in a quality matter and introduced something to a market that hasn’t been introduced before.”

“We were convinced they would deliver on time,” Neville says about Landscapes Unlimited.

Because of the short timing, the entire course was sodded. MiniVerde Bermudagrass is on the greens and 419 Bermudagrass is on the fairways, tees and rough.

“The choice of overseeded sod, which was grown outside Phoenix, was because of the slope characteristics of the course and the timing of the project,” Druzisky says.

Armstrong says sod takes more time to lay down than sprigging or seeding – it might add a week or two – but the course can open sooner because of it.

“Ideally, you want 60 days between when you finished laying sod and when golfers play on it,” he says. “At Laughlin Ranch, the time was less than 30 days. We expressed a concern about the immature grass, but everyone was aware of the goals and realized it wouldn’t be perfect. We didn’t have problems after it opened.”

Everything wasn’t perfect for Sachen. He says the turf on the greens and fairways was a little long and some of the sod lines were showing when the course opened. Also, transitioning the sod was a bit challenging because it was overseeded already. Even though the transition wasn’t the best, Sachen says the course is off to a good start and the imperfections were remedied easily by getting the maintenance staff on the same page, mowing more consistently.

To grow turfgrass, good soil conditions are needed, however, soil conditions aren’t ideal for growing grass in the desert. So, 11 inches of topsoil were processed on site. Five inches is pure topsoil, and the top six inches is a mixture of topsoil and Profile Porous Ceramic, a soil amendment. The mixture is in all the fairways, greens and tees.

“By using Profile, we’re pretty confident that over time we’ll save money we would have spent on water and nutrient applications,” Neville says.

Maintaining the turfgrass’ color also is challenging, Sachen says.

“We’re using more organic fertilizers and are trying to build up organic matter,” he says. “We’re using wetting agents to hold the moisture in the fairways and rough. We’re also using a lot of liquid fertilization in the fertigation process.”

Irrigation
Even though the 400-foot elevation change throughout the property helps make the course scenic, it made installing the irrigation system challenging.

“When there are that many elevation changes, it’s hard to put in a reservoir because you need a flat piece of land,” Druzisky says.

Two pump stations were installed: one irrigates six holes on the front nine and the other, which is at a higher elevation, irrigates the other 12 holes. The transfer line that came into the site wasn’t in place when Landscapes Unlimited started, but the line was in place when Landscapes needed it, according to Armstrong.

The irrigation system features Toro’s new 835 sprinkler heads wall to wall. Because of the high winds, Sachen needs to be able to change the arc and trajectory of the water coming out of the heads. Also because of the wind, the sprinkler heads were installed 55 feet apart, which is closer than on most golf courses, Druzisky says.

Presently, the course is being irrigated with a mixture of well and reclaimed water, and as more houses are built, less well water will be used on the course. Eventually, 100 percent of the golf course will be irrigated with effluent water.

The crown jewel
Druzisky says working on the project was nice because Lords let him do his craft.

“David put trust in me,” he says. “I did what I wanted from a golf perspective. I worked with people who didn’t have agendas.

“Designwise, I was able to do things you might be afraid to do in other markets that are worried about what the golfer will accept in terms of fairness,” he adds. “There are some slightly hidden aspects such as tucked greens, or greens that fall away from the golfer, cross bunkers and some semiblind shots. We wanted to create a special, unique course harkening back to some of the things we see in Ireland, Scotland and England.”

Overall, the project went smoothly and turned out fine.

“Our contract started at $12.7 million, and we ended up at $13.5 million, which is good because we didn’t have the budget finalized going in,” Armstrong says.

“The golf course is the crown jewel of the development,” Neville says. GCN