Canyon Springs--Southern Idaho

[Dave McCollum]

OK, in response to some requests, I’m going to try and post some pictures of Canyon Springs GC in the Snake River Canyon at Twin Falls, Idaho.  I’m a total virgin at this, so go easy on me.   I’ve never done a hole-by-hole series.  These are just some snapshots I took last year.  For a landscape scale, the river is 500 feet below the bridge seen in a few of the shots.  The course is on the south side of the river.

As I’ve said before, CS is an affordable track, less than $40, and pretty scruffy.  I’ll try to answer any questions.

[Dave McCollum]

I forgot to thank everyone who helped me learn how to do this.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Dave,
Two questions: How much did the waterfall cost you and where's Evel's rocket bike? 

Very pretty location. Thanks for the photos.


p.s. Do you get flooded very much? Can you use the river for water?

[Garland Bayley]

You've got a waterfall! Are you sure Jim Engh did not do the course instead of Max Mueller? 

I bet those ponds weren't there (or really anywhere in the canyon) before the course was built.

[Derek Dirksen]

Thanks for posting.  Looks like its a beautiful setting for a round. 

[Jason Topp]

What a beautiful location!  I think the "scruffiness" fits perfectly with the setting.  Do you have a favorite hole on the course? 10 looks good on the web-site -  http://www.canyonspringsgolf.com/index.html

Also - what is the Rock Chuck Open?

[RJ_Daley]

Dave, are those K-blue and poa fairways?  HOC about 3/4"?  How many maintenance crew and what are they, i.e. Super, assist-mechanic, number of full timers and PT seasonal?  Just curious, surely don't answer if it is not appropriate.  

Do you have enough snow and ice over periods of time to have to worry about winterkill?  

Bob Baldock built a tremendous number of small western town golf courses.  We probably should ask and talk about him more on this forum.  His C&W bio is interesting but not very detailed.  I played one of his in Cody WY called Olive Glenn or some such.  It was a decent place to play.  He was a Father-Son-Jr team,  much in the same tradition as Dick and Rick Phelps, working some of the same territory, it seems.  Not to forget the Packards Larry and son Roger.  If I'm not mistaken, they all came out of the lineage/tuteledge of RB Harris Chicago School tradition.  Curiously C&W don't list Baldock under his bio body of work as doing your place.  Yet, Mueller is in italics and listed as a one trick pony - no bio, but he is in the cross reference to Canyon Springs.  Are there any construction or as-built plans laying around the shop?

[Matt_Ward]

Dave:

Just how "fast" does the course generally play. From just the photos it appears that the playing areas are kept a bit too green for my tastes. Again, I'm gleaning that from photos alone -- your comments will help add to my understanding.

[Bill_McBride]

Dave, what does wood sell for by the cord in your neighborhood?   

Those 45^o slopes down from the canyon rim are exactly what I remember from the Snake River canyon 48 years ago in eastern Washington, a spectacular setting down below.

[Dave McCollum]

Jim—

Two miles downstream from Evel’s ramp.  No floods, the river has dams to divert for agriculture.  As for falls, the water comes, we deal with it.

Garland—

The waterfalls have been here a long time.  They’re natural but augmented by irrigation return flows.  Don’t know Jim.  Max is MIA.  Busted on the ponds.  Does it help that they are working ponds?  Certainly, they are golf features, but they are collection/storage/distribution points for the fish farming as well as golf.  They are also settling ponds to remove silt and ag runoff, clarify the water from irrigation returns, capture fish waste, etc.  Then we grow fish before we pump it back on the golf course. 

To be honest, Garland, I’m rather a fan of your tagline.  Water and golf should be mixed in small quantities, if at all.

You are only 2.5 hours away.  Hope you come up and give it a go sometime.  Give me a call, I’d love to show you around and tee it up.  Consider yourself and all of the rest of tree house invited.  I’ve learned a lot from you rascals.

Jason—

10 is a good choice.  So many options.  Anything from a 7 iron to a driver off the tee and a bunch of ways to play the approach.  We tend to think of it as a birdie/double type of risk/reward.  We are kind of the formula course:  6 hard holes—4, 7, 8, 9, 13,17; 6 medium holes—1, 2, 3, 6, 12, 18; and 6 easier holes—5, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16.  Although 18 requires a precise tee shot.  Miss the tee shot and you have upped the pressure.  Not sure this was by design, but that’s kind of how it plays.

No, I don’t really have a fave hole.  Do you have a fave kid?  If pressed, I’d say 13, the waterfall hole.  The hill kills most drives for mortals, leaving a blind 200-160 shot.  Big hitters fly the hill and have it easy.     

Rock Chuck Open is a women’s tournament with all the usual falderal.  A rock chuck, I believe, is a yellow bellied marmot in other regions.  We have a bunch of them along with a lot of other critters—deer, cougar, coyote, badger, beaver, porcupine, mink, skunk, muskrat, eagles, raptors, ducks geese, …oh, everything indigenous lives here.

RJ—

Yes, the fairways are K-blue and poa, greens bent and poa.  Due to the dry summer heat, the poa recedes and the K-blue and bent dominate in the hot months.

Off the top of my head, I don’t know about the maintenance crew numbers.  We have a lot of part-timers and retired guys.  Three salaried—super, assist-mechanic, irrigation—and I suppose about 15 others during peak season.

Snow season is only Dec-Jan due to our micro climate.  Turf freezes 2.5 months.  We treat for snow mold/winterkill.  We’ll shovel greens or apply charcoal/fertilizer mix (to absorb sunlight and heat to promote melting) during bad winters.

Baldock dealt with my father.  Never met the man.  It is my impression he did a lot of small, cheap projects.  I ran into one of his courses on Maui (Silver Sword?) and, of course, the Monterey Peninsula Shore Course that Strantz reworked.   As I said before, we had more problems with Baldock’s work than the rookie Mueller.  As for plans, not much that I’ve been able to locate.  I’ve had to re-create everything we have, more or less from scratch.  Pity, I know they once existed.

Matt—

You’re right.  If memory serves me, I shot these snaps last June when we had 5” of our annual 8” of rain fall.  Very wet, record rainfall for June.  My favorite time of the year to play is before we turn on the pumps in the spring and after we turn them off in the fall.  I love this place firm and fast and preach constantly that brown is beautiful.  For the most part, I’m a voice in the wilderness.  I battle my crew and customers constantly on the virtues of “playing conditions” above gardening clichés about lush green.  I’ll win in the end, but I’m stroking up stream against the current of a couple of generations of American golf still hung up on Augusta sensibilities.  Every TV in the clubhouse is tuned to the British Open in July, my favorite week of the year.  To answer your question, we’re pretty firm in July-Sept with our share of brown spots due to the heat.  The greens less so—there I cave to the consensus.  You can do almost everything wrong on a golf course except the greens.  Give the paying customer what they think they want.  We maintain around a 10 stimp and speed them up for a State Am or other big event.

I’m very interested to see how the irrigation philosophy works out at Sagebrush in BC.  Similar environment to ours. 

Bill—

I have no idea about cordwood.  Everything here is heated by geothermal (102 F).  I just called my cowgirl bartender and she says $90-100 and up to $125 split and delivered.

We are a long way from E. Washington.  Over there the Snake runs through Hells Canyon, deepest in N. America at over two miles down. 


Thanks, guys, for the questions.  When I said “go easy on me” I meant about the computer posting.  Feel free to tear my hide off about the golf course or anything else. 

Aesthetically, everything I do to this golf course from this day forward will be in reverse direction from what has been done for the last 34 years.  I think our prime asset is the rugged, natural beauty of the site.  Future work will be focused toward moving the golf course into its landscape instead of trying to civilize our wild and rocky canyon.  Live and learn.

[RJ_Daley]

Dave, how far away are the alligator farms? 

I've been reading a little about the talapia farming, and I'm still not clear on whether you actually raise them on your property as part of your enterprise, or are they across the river on the NW side of the course and a separate enterprise?  The more I read about your area, the more I'd like to see that part of the country.  It sounds very interesting.

[Kalen Braley]

Dave, how far away are the alligator farms? 

I've been reading a little about the talapia farming, and I'm still not clear on whether you actually raise them on your property as part of your enterprise, or are they across the river on the NW side of the course and a separate enterprise?  The more I read about your area, the more I'd like to see that part of the country.  It sounds very interesting.

RJ,

The Pacific Northwest is interesting land indeed.  Much of it was carved out by ancient glacial floods that left some pretty neat features/topography in its wake.

[Tim Nugent]

Dave, I think you misunderstood Bill's comment re" firewood.  I think he was kindly suggesting that you could produce some.  Your site is very picturesque and would be more so if the vistas were opened up more.

[Bill_McBride]

Thanks, Tim.  Yes, Dave, I was just trying to subtly (not my long suit usually  ) suggest that a tree removal program might be something to consider in the future.   Nothing terrible, those vistas of the canyon wall and rim are amazing.

[Craig Sweet]

I bet it gets hot in the summer down in that canyon....if he does cut down trees, I hope he leaves a few strategically placed to provide some welcomed shade and relief from the heat. 

[Jim_Kennedy]

Bill,
It doesn't seem to be overly treed when seen on an aerial.

Dave,
On that aerial I noticed the sewage disposal plant abutting the course. Do/Can you use the effluent for irrigation?


p.s. I hope you know that you were getting ribbed about the waterfall. 

[Dave McCollum]

RJ—

The alligators are about 10 miles downstream.  Technically tied into a different geothermal aquifer than the one we use, but very similar in all other aspects.  We raise the tilapia here on site (NW corner of the property).  The fish farms across the river primarily raise trout, but the one on the west end also does tilapia.  The alligator farm is nasty, but I’ll spare you the details.   

It’s a nice area.  Lots of recreation options, inexpensive, with lots of cheap golf.  The best golf architecture is 80 miles north in the Sun Valley resort area.  My favorite is the Trail Creek Course at SV, a RTJII rework of the Billy Bell original.  Don Knott is working on second course.  The White Clouds nine has been open for a year and a half.  Wild, wacky, and a fun ride through some pretty extreme property.  Not sure how they are coming on the 2nd nine.  The Valley Club (private) is a solid 27-hole resort layout.  Original 18 by Hale Erwin (don’t know the actual architect) and the 3rd nine by Fazio.  Elkhorn is also an above average resort track by the RTJ bunch.

Tim & Bill—

Duh…it was late.  The trees, yes, the trees.  The pro that leased this place in the past wouldn’t let the crew touch a branch and planted more on his own to “beautify” the course over the length of his 20 year tenure here.  Usual golfer attachment to the rest.  I don’t share the sentiment.  However, there is a far larger problem.  The old poplars planted in the pioneer days 1880—1900 are at the end of their natural shelf-life.  Unfortunately, many specimen poplars were used as strategic features in the design.  When key ones blow down, the hole changes.  I’m slowing & selectively working on this: cutting some down, clearing out others and even planting some replacements where absolutely necessary.  The old fruit trees left over from the fruit orchard days are less of a problem.  They aren’t large, we maintain them, and the golfers and deer love the fruit.   

However, I believe the ultimate solution for most of the trees is a rather extensive renovation.  I’m just getting into this right now.  I’m working with a young C&C associate, Dave Zinkand, and his design partner, Jeff Bradley, the master shaper who did the bunkering at Sand Hills and many other C&C courses.  Canyon Springs is sort of a long term project that we are working on during their down time.  As part of the process, I imagine we’ll evaluate every tree on the property and, eventually, get rid of most of them.  We’ll see where this goes.

Others—

Yeah, I’m dense, but worse late at night.  Morning person.
We don’t use the effluent from the town shitter.  Water rights to grow fish mean we have lots of water, at least for now.  Otherwise, to paraphrase Mark Twain:  In the West water is for fighting, whiskey for drinking.


Thanks for the feedback.

[Tim Nugent]

Dave, glad to hear your thinning the herd.  I find that no one really remembers the trees when they don't see them cut, so winter is a perfect time.  With opened vistas and Jeff Bradley's bunkers, you could really make an impact.  Now that you have the picture posting thing down, please keep us updated.

Nice of you to spotlight Don Knott - very talented but unrecognized designer who spent decades as RTJII's  right-hand man.  Glad to see he's getting some kudo's now that he's own his own.

BTW, kudos on the fish farm aspect - very original.

[Bill_McBride]

Tim & Bill—

Duh…it was late.  The trees, yes, the trees.  The pro that leased this place in the past wouldn’t let the crew touch a branch and planted more on his own to “beautify” the course over the length of his 20 year tenure here.  Usual golfer attachment to the rest.  I don’t share the sentiment.  However, there is a far larger problem.  The old poplars planted in the pioneer days 1880—1900 are at the end of their natural shelf-life.  Unfortunately, many specimen poplars were used as strategic features in the design.  When key ones blow down, the hole changes.  I’m slowing & selectively working on this: cutting some down, clearing out others and even planting some replacements where absolutely necessary.  The old fruit trees left over from the fruit orchard days are less of a problem.  They aren’t large, we maintain them, and the golfers and deer love the fruit.   

However, I believe the ultimate solution for most of the trees is a rather extensive renovation.  I’m just getting into this right now.  I’m working with a young C&C associate, Dave Zinkand, and his design partner, Jeff Bradley, the master shaper who did the bunkering at Sand Hills and many other C&C courses.  Canyon Springs is sort of a long term project that we are working on during their down time.  As part of the process, I imagine we’ll evaluate every tree on the property and, eventually, get rid of most of them.  We’ll see where this goes.

Thanks, Dave, sounds you are definitely on the right wave length.  That is a beautiful property, and some Zinkand/Bradley input would enhance things greatly.  I would love to get by there but not in the cards this year.  Probably by the time I can get there you'll be way up in the Idaho rankings!   

[Garland Bayley]

Dave,

How is it that you travel from Portland to Twin Falls in 2.5 hours? Is there a Portland Idaho?

The waterfall thing was about Jim Engh having created Black Rock in Idaho, and putting in some very unnatural waterfalls. The ones that magically sprout out of the fairway were the most offensive. Your waterfall looked just as the natural waterfall that it is should.

[RJ_Daley]

I've lost track of who all "the boys" are in the C&C stable.  Do you mean Dave Axeland, or is a fellow named Zinkand working with them now?  For good old fashion western golf course construction sense, you sure can't go wrong with any of them there boys and their track record!

Do you have a Friday night Talapia fish dinner?  It looks like you have all the makings for fish and chips there in Idaho. 

[Tom Dunne]

That's so cool. I drove from Portland, OR to Providence in the summer of '96 and I distinctly remember crossing that huge highway bridge and seeing a golf course down in the canyon. And here it is on GCA.

Also in this part of the country is Bruneau Dunes State Park, which is one of the most surreal western landscapes I've ever seen. It has some of the highest sand dunes in the world...almost Sahara-esque. You pass through a couple of legitimate ghost towns on the way out there, too. Probably 45 minutes drive (?) from Dave's course.  

[Garland Bayley]

...You pass through a couple of legitimate ghost towns on the way out there, too. Probably 45 minutes drive (?) from Dave's course.  

I hear there's a big one of these in CA. I think it is called Stockton.