Now that the golfing season is over, improvements are being made at the Olds Golf Club and plans are in the works to do more next spring or summer.
As per Phase 4 of the club's master plan, over the past few weeks, workers have been reconstructing bunkers on holes 10 and 18. Plans were also in the works to undertake reconstruction on hole 4 as well.
Club pro and manager Wade Bearchell says over the years, the bunkers have become more and more difficult for golfers.
"That's just the process of time," Bearchell says. "Every golf course -- especially the ones that are 40 years old, like this golf course --- the bunkers, the water stops draining in them and then the sand compacts and they become difficult to play out of. So we've redone some of the real problem ones, softened up some of the green areas on hole 18."
Bearchell pegs the cost of this year's bunker reconstruction at about $45,000.
"This project's fairly small, but people will really notice it because these are bunkers that haven't been very friendly and we've just made it a little bit nicer for the average player and more playable for all levels," he says.
Bearchell says the master plan is now about 12 years old.
He says the first work under the plan began in about 2009 when new tee boxes were built to make the golf course more playable.
Over the years, more holes were improved.
"We spent a lot of money on those. We spent about a million dollars in the last 10 years on this golf course," Bearchell says.
Bearchell says the club has done what it can to make improvements in a challenging season.
"This year wasn't a great year weather-wise. We lost about six weeks on the front and the back end of the season," he says.
"But we were having an OK season. So we are doing just some small capital projects -- this being one -- that will make fairly significant changes to the golf course but aren't really expensive, where some of the other capital projects we did were a quarter of a million dollars, 400,000 dollars."
Earlier this year, a pergola -- a decorative wooden structure -- was constructed over the barbecue area. Bearchell estimates the cost of that project to be about $8,000.
"When we do tournaments and stuff it's very hot on the barbecue area where our food and beverage staff does their work. As well, it does provide some shade for people who don't want to sit in direct sun; things like that," Bearchell says.
Next spring or summer, the goal is to replace siding at the back of the clubhouse because that area tends to get hit with the occasional golf ball.
"(You can) see the holes in the building where a ball's hit and it rips the siding off. Moisture gets in and then you get rot. So we're hoping that when they take it apart that we don't have bigger issues," Bearchell says.
The plan is to replace that older siding with much stronger Hardie board, which is made primarily of sand and cement.
"I'd like to buy new carts, but we're very strategic in what we do with our capital purchases," Bearchell says. "The back of the building because there's the potential for moisture to get in the wall, that's a higher priority than new carts for example."
Long term, the goal is to improve the front of the building by installing some "accents" such as decorative brickwork.
"Just like we did a master plan for the golf course, we developed the master plan for this building," Bearchell says.
