High-tech par 3

All the way back in 2019, golf course architect Tom Clark was contacted about designing a new course in northeast Oklahoma. Clark wasted little time, visiting the site for meetings and subsequently staking the initial layout.

The meetings, planning, and construction were transformed into reality as The Battlefield at Shangri-La Golf Club & Resort on Grand Lake opened in May. Construction didn’t begin until late 2021 and it proved a methodical process.

“It was a little bit slower than anticipated because of availability of materials, the shipping backup and everything,” Clark says. “And traveling back and forth to get out there was arduous. It was finished last August (2022), and the grow-in happened in the fall and this early spring.”

The Battlefield is an 18-hole, par-3 course and adds to the resort’s existing 27 regulation holes. Clark has been involved in remodeling the three regulation nines for the past decade.

The terrain is rugged and hilly, with more than 100 feet of elevation changes throughout the 80-acre course, resembling that of a Word War II battlefield. Each hole is named after an Oklahoma military personnel, with a clubhouse called The Canteen.

Hitting surfaces are covered with Tahoma 31 Bermudagrass. The course consists of native areas where they hydromulched 26 acres for the native grasses of bluestems, little bluestem and a half dozen pollinators with Indian blanket and purple coneflowers.

Greens contain Triple Seven bentgrass supported by a SubAir system, which “is something you don’t normally see in a par 3,” Clark says. Humalfa rests underneath tee complexes to aid with Bermudagrass recovery. The course includes formal and waste bunkers.

There are five sets of tees for different levels of players. When designing, Clark, who received help from fellow ASGCA member Kevin Atkinson, took a “three-pronged approach.” The tees are based on preference and skillset with the back tees ranging from 110 to 245 yards.

Running through the course is a stream that serves as a drainage system after Clark re-envisioned the original drainage system. Now the stream has recirculating pumps with waterfalls and ruffles where it comes into play on multiple holes. The Battlefield has large specimen trees of big oaks, hickories and even a sycamore tree or two, which “adds to it but it doesn’t overwhelm it,” Clark says.

The construction process was a “team approach.” Clark had many brainstorming sessions with director of golf and club operations Rob Yanovitch and United Golf part-founder Dale Forrest to solve problems or devise changes to the course.

One situation that ended up working out better was the irrigation pond: It turned from effluent to freshwater, where they pump out of Grand Lake and recharge it with freshwater. Clark decided to then put two holes around it.

Superintendent Justin May was on the ground during construction and played a big role in working through the surprise discovery of significant rock ledges. “We knew there was rock there, but we didn’t know they were rock ledges,” May says. “The more we started pushing with dozers and moving dirt, the more it exposed them.” The discovery caused the construction team to move tees back and closer, and move some green locations.

The ledges now play to the aesthetic of the course. The ninth and 12th holes boast about a 200-foot rock ledge, which encroaches within 20 feet of both greens and runs the whole length of each hole on one side. “The green sits in there and then there’s a big rock wall there on the side that looks like it was built there, but it was actually not,” May says. “We just cleaned it up and left alone where we found that ledge. That was really the biggest surprise.”

Once construction concluded, new dilemmas emerged. May and his team had to grow in new turf amid the tough Oklahoma weather. The winters in Oklahoma can get very cold, while the summers are very dry with little rainfall. And May’s staffing situation was a challenge, as the team still maintained the 27 regulation holes during construction and grow-in before additional hires were made in 2023. One of his key cogs was assistant superintendent Zach Roach, who now leads The Battlefield’s maintenance efforts.

Crews installed a comprehensive irrigation system to keep turf healthy in harsh conditions. “We went with Rain Bird, and we ended up using a 752 (full/part-circle rotor series). Some of them have 20-foot spacing, some of them have 60-foot spacing,” May says. “We basically outline the entire property where the sump was gonna go and nothing goes into our native. It’s a pretty high-tech irrigation system, where we don’t have any coverage issues on the grass.”

Sodding commenced in October 2022 and the Bermudagrass handled a challenging winter in the region. “Thank goodness we went with Tahoma and didn’t have it mowed real short, because all the courses around here, including our 27-hole course, got demolished with winterkill,” he says. “We didn’t have any missing grass up there and the grow in was great. And we didn’t have any issues. So, when spring came around, it opened up and away we went.”

Despite the abundance of emerging equipment and technology, nothing could prepare May for the construction weather swings. Three days after seeding the greens, a torrential downpour dumped 2 inches of rain on the course in about 30 minutes. Greens had germinated the morning before the storm. “We had to wait to go back and repair 18 of the 20 greens and reseed into those areas,” May says.

The challenges were just beginning.

“On about Day 12, it did it again,” May says, “but we were able to get the silt fences a little more established in a little more areas after the first rain. And then we only had to reseed like three or four of them. Then, on about Day 15 or 16, armyworms came in and we got those taken care of. The first 20 days were rough. Twenty days beyond that went pretty good.”

Despite the early dilemmas, the greens have matured nicely. “The thing that will set it apart — because they do such a good job on the grooming of those greens — is that people aren’t used to playing a par 3 that has terrific greens,” Clark says.

Surfaces are being maintained by a team that has expanded in size compared to previous seasons. The peak-season crew swells to 38 employees, with around 10 devoted to maintaining The Battlefield. A cold and wet winter made it tough to execute work on young turf, but the team has resumed filling sod seams. “All in all, I’d say it’s about 85 percent right now, as far as growing in and everything maturing,” May says during a late-spring conversation.

The course has generated instant buzz, receiving around 150 rounds per day, according to Clark. The community and crew were eagerly anticipating The Battlefield’s debut.

“The crew was getting excited … and the entire community,” May says. “We had a ton of people just watch us every day and post pictures and they were excited for it. And then to finally make it to opening day was a lot of work, but it turned out even better than we thought it would.”

Jacob Hansen is a Kent State University senior participating in Golf Course Industry’s summer internship program. Follow him on Twitter at @JacobHansen_12.