Golfers flock to Olds golf course

Golfers are flocking to the Olds Central Highlands Golf Course, which opened earlier than ever this year (April 1), thanks to a warm winter and very successful techniques that keep greens in pretty good shape.

“Our bookings are good and that's typically not the usual in April. Usually you see the diehard golfers come out, but we're seeing more. It's almost a mid-season feel,” says golf pro manager Wade Bearchell.

“People are golfing now that you probably wouldn't see normally until May, when it warms up a little bit, just because we've got some pretty nice temperatures, pretty nice daytime temperatures. And it hasn't been too windy, so it's been nice.”

However, although the warm, dry winter helped, the currently relatively dry spring, is not so good.

“Hot and windy doesn't really help. A lot of guys are firing up their irrigation (equipment) right away because they need it,” Bearchell says.

That includes the Olds Central Highlands Golf Course.

“We're just in the process of firing up our irrigation. It's a bit of a process. There are always breaks and things like that that happen. It takes a bit of time to fire it up, but most courses are starting to fire it up already because they need to start watering,” he says.

Because of the good year, hole 8, the last hole to be completed in the club's roughly half-million dollar renovation project, is likely to reopen in a few weeks, well ahead of the June 1 target, Bearchell says.

Starting in 2014, five holes: numbers 6, 7, 8, 9, 16 and 17, were renovated. Golf course renovations involved new tee boxes and new greens. In some cases, changes were made to the fairway.

For the past eight years or so, the Olds golf course has been utilizing new green maintenance techiques, which involve tarping the greens and blowing air underneath those tarps.

That also has allowed the greens -- and thus the course – to overwinter well, Bearchell says.

“That's been really successful and that's helped just make our greens that much better every year,” he says.

“It's not a perfect science, but we invest a lot of money in our tarp system and how we take care of the greens over the winter, and it's paid off by us having great conditions right away when we open.”

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