Below is an article as published in "Colorado AvidGolfer Magazine" reporting that the first all synthetic 18 hole course is in the works.
Is this the way of the future? Any predictions on the financial feasibility of this concept?
"Artificial Intelligence"
Dan Bjorkman of Mancos makes history with Echo Basin, the world's first all-synthetic 18-hole layout
BY DAVID R. HOLLAND
After three years of drought in Colorado, many believed this would be a summer dominated by water restrictions and brown fairways scarred with bare spots. But Dan Bjorkman, owner of Echo Basin Ranch, a dude ranch just north of Mancos in southwestern Colorado, is building a golf course that will be the greenest in Colorado—guaranteed. Echo Basin Ranch and Golf Club will be the world’s first all synthetic eighteen-hole golf course, and nine holes should be ready for play this summer.
Bjorkman dreamed of building a golf course ever since he purchased the 510-acre property six years ago. His initial vision included summer days with the wives riding horses and the guys playing golf. But every time he mentioned building a regulation-length golf course, critics would challenge his dream. They’d remind him that his parcel of land just didn’t have access to sufficient water for fulfilling his needs—anywhere from 500,000 to a million gallons every time he turned on the irrigation system. Then last summer, during one of the worst Colorado droughts in more than a century, Bjorkman’s dream just about dried up.
That’s when his nephew, Matt Rauh V, a former superintendent at Kissing Camels Golf Club in Colorado Springs, became the Western Slope dealer for TourTurf by FieldTurf, and he planted a new vision in his uncle’s dream. “Matt said I should put a TourTurf putting green in my backyard,” Bjorkman recalls. “That’s when I said, ‘To heck with my back yard; let’s do the entire golf course.’”
Once the idea started moving, Bjorkman realized there would be other benefits as well, including much less money needed for maintenance. He wouldn’t need to have it mowed, apply many pesticides or irrigate it. In short, a crew of two could handle the maintenance. Their jobs would involve raking the bunkers, brushing the synthetic blades, rolling areas like greens to push down the blades, and replacing the “Nike Grind,” the mixture of recycled ground-up tennis shoe rubber and silica sand used as infill beneath the synthetic grass. It’s these materials that combine with the turf blades to allow the surface to respond to golf shots much like real grass. There’d be no need to cut new holes every day. Pre-cut holes would be positioned all over the greens. The holes not being used would be plugged.
And according to Joe Niebur, whose Niebur Golf Inc. of Colorado Springs Bjorkman selected as general contractor for the project, there’s another bonus: “We are always telling folks outside Colorado how we can have a foot of snow one day and 60 degrees the next,” says Niebur. “All you have to do with this turf is remove the snow and you can be back playing almost immediately. And just think about those golf courses situated high in the mountains. Keystone sometimes has only 30 frost-free days a year—if they can make a turf that holds up to the elements, it will add days to play golf in similar climates.” Hard-core golfers, however, ask about performance. Will TourTurf respond like natural grass, or will it perform like hitting off those driving-range mats?
“We already have the putting green installed,” Bjorkman says. “And I’ve been hitting off a corner of it. It plays just like grass—the difference to a pro golfer will be very minimal. When you hit a clean shot, it displaces some of the Nike Grind and silica sand and the golf ball flies like on real grass and bites. If you hit a fat shot, the ball reacts the same—it might be a pop-up and it won’t fly as far. The only thing that might be a little different is a little club drag after you hit down on it. On grass a divot flies; here no turf will fly.”
What about bounce? “A ball flying into a natural-grass green on average bounces five or six feet after hitting,” says Bjorkman. “But it is about half that on this surface, and TourTurf actually bites a little better. It’s the Nike Grind and silica sand that support the grass fibers and cause softer reception to the turf.”
THE LAYOUT
Rauh, who is in a master’s program for landscape architecture at the University of Colorado at Denver, is Echo Basin’s architect. He says it will be a target-style layout through ponderosa pines and gambel oaks, with views of the San Juan Mountains, including Star Mountain, Hesperus Peak, Shark’s Tooth and Mesa Verde. The par-72, 7,200- to 7,300-yard layout starts at an elevation of 7,200 and climbs to 8,100 feet.
“This might sound a little crazy, but we want it to look as natural as possible even though the focus is on synthetic turf,” says Rauh. “It’s going to look intimidating, but won’t play as difficult as it appears. Where the turf ends, we will have waste bunkers in low areas, wild grasses along the fairway borders and pine straw spread through the ponderosas.”
The layout will have several water features, including a creek that meanders through the property and a couple of small ponds—one surrounding a par-three green on three sides. The course will employ a sub-irrigation system for the native grasses, as well as portable irrigation.
Each hole will feature four small tee boxes (they’ll have wooden tees just like on real grass), and there will be an equal number of dogleg right and left holes. “The par threes will vary in length from 100 to 230 yards, and there will be a drivable par-four, risk-reward hole,” Rauh says. “The par fives range from 510 to 630 yards.”
Rauh, who was working as assistant superintendent at The Rim Golf Club in Payson, Ariz., when he got the call his uncle had purchased the land, says he knows every square foot of the Echo Basin property. He finished his layout design soon after the purchase.
“It was at The Rim that I developed an interest in course design,” Rauh says. “I was there from beginning of construction to completion and did much the same at another property across the street named Chaparral Pines.”
LOGISTICS, SPECIFICATIONS,
AND DRAWBACKS
How do you handle 1.4 million square feet of TourTurf, 12 million pounds of silica sand, 800,000 pounds of Nike Grind, 12,000 tons of base material and 25,000 tons of choke stone? Truck loads will come in stages. TourTurf will be rolled out just like carpet hole-by-hole. Silica sand will be stored in silos.
TourTurf costs between $8 and $12 per square foot installed, which includes laying carpet rolls of synthetic grass over the infill and a foundation of geotextile, choke stone, open-graded stone and, at the bottom layer, soil. Bjorkman doesn’t confirm what the total cost will be, but agrees an estimate between $9 million and $14 million is correct.
Drawbacks of past synthetic-turf projects have included turf-fading in intense sunlight, smokers throwing cigarettes on the turf, gophers tunneling under it, weeds coming up through the seams, and fill material being washed away by strong rains or flooding.
According to TourTurf, the unique polyethylene/ polypropylene blend fibers contain UV protection in every blade and are guaranteed not to fade for fifteen years. Smoking will only be allowed in the golf carts. Seams can be ripped up in case of burrowing animals and repairs made under specific spots. The choke stone shouldn’t allow weeds to come up. And before delivery the Nike Grind rubber and sand has been subjected to a cryogenic process freezing it to 300 below zero, making it heavier than water; particles sink rather than get washed away. In addition, each particle of rubber and silica sand is spherical in design to throw off moisture and create a permeable infill structure. In case of forest fire, the turf will melt without any toxic fumes.
With college and professional football and baseball fields converting from artificial turf to natural grass, Dan Bjorkman’s gamble may seem a bit counterintuitive. But considering the environmental challenges of maintaining golf courses in our part of the world—and considering the technological advances made in artificial turf manufacturing—what’s going on in the mountains west of Durango could signal the future of golf.
David R. Holland is a Colorado AvidGolfer
contributing editor
http://www.coloradoavidgolfer.com/avidGolfer/site/feature.aspx?iFeatureID=306