BELLA VISTA – The golf committee met on August 11th and Golf Maintenance Director Keith Ihms told the committee that the greens around the golf courses are looking good despite the recent hot spell.
He said the Scotsdale “sprigging” project, a method of planting grass, has been a success and the second nine are reopening on schedule. In the Highlands, however, a hydroseeding project was not as successful.
Highlands will host a junior golf championship tournament in early September, which will be attended by around 80 young golfers between the ages of 14 and 18, said pro golfer Alex Sanford.
A Pro / Am tournament was recently added to the event, said Golf Operations Director Darryl Muldoon.
This is the busy season for tournaments, Sanford said. POA tournaments include a Senior Club Championship and tournament to raise funds for Alzheimer’s disease.
A road project will affect the Country Club Golf Course for at least another year, he said. The project will upgrade Arkansas 340, including the bridge over US 71B. He said he was not confident that the road project could be completed in a year.
Floods earlier this year are still affecting irrigation systems, he said, and his staff will likely spend the winter cleaning sprinkler heads.
Rounds of golf have increased compared to last year, said Muldoon. Most of the extra rounds were guests, but some out of town groups recently canceled, possibly due to the increase in Covid cases. The numbers since the beginning of the year are also high.
“And we thought last year was busy,” he said.
He told the group that he had recently met with golf group leaders and plans to continue to meet with the leaders in the future. He also plans to design posters for the golf carts to help educate golfers about local rules.
Like the other Joint Advisory Committees, the Gulf Committee discussed its recommendations for the 2022 budget.