The Wakonda Club Grounds Department is excited to be hosting the Principal Charity Classic for the next few years. Hosting a tournament of this magnitude will be a challenging but rewarding endeavor for our staff.
We are always looking for ways to improve the golf course for our membership but with the Champions Tour coming to Wakonda we are now scrambling to make more improvements sooner. We have a seemingly endless project & course improvement list that we have been prioritizing to focus our labor where most needed. The good news is that the golf course is already in good condition and the improvements made will have lasting effects for our members to enjoy.
The two largest projects, which will have the most dramatic impact on
playability and aesthetics, are already under way. Country Landscapes
has begun reconstructing the failing rock wall on #17 while your Wakonda
Grounds Staff has taken on the monumental task of refurbishing the
bunkers.
Below are pictures of work being done on the rock wall.
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| The old rock wall: "before." |
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| All the old rocks were removed by October 9th. |
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| Some of the stones will be reused while there will be some new larger stones added to improve stability of the new wall. |
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| The pond is partially drained to provide access for the crew and to allow for the construction of a footing made of crushed limestone which the old wall did not have. |
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| The crew is working out of an empty lot north of 5 tee which we have permission to use throughout the project. |
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| We constructed a long mulch path to the job site to mitigate damage caused by the large machines. |
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| The turf from the approach will be kept alive on plastic under a tree near 17 green. We will reuse this sod once the project is complete. |
This project should take approximately a month to complete. While the project is in process golfers will play both holes at #2 to provide a full 18 hole course. Once the wall is erected our staff will do the final grading and re- establish turf in impacted areas.
