I came across a video released last week highlighting St Andrews Links and the maintenance of the eight courses that make up one of golf’s most iconic destinations. It’s exceptionally well produced, and I thought it was worth sharing here.

The video is a little longer than the average golf course feature, but for anyone interested in turf management, the history of the property, or the challenges of maintaining golf at the highest level, it’s well worth the watch. Beyond the courses themselves, it also explores the Links Trust’s stewardship responsibilities and commitment to the surrounding environment.

Watch the video here → Maintaining St Andrews

Some of you may recall from a previous post that I was fortunate to spend a week at St Andrews working alongside the team during the 2024 AIG Women’s Open. Having the opportunity to work with the team and spend time with both Sandy and Jon, who are featured in the video, will forever remain one of the highlights of my career.

The experience provided a unique behind-the-scenes look at the people, culture, and philosophy that have helped make St Andrews the Home of Golf. Watching this video brought back some great memories, and I think many of you will find it just as fascinating.

If you’ve played one of our back-nine start mornings this season, you’ve probably wondered why we’re doing it. Fair question.

I understand that these twice weekly starts are not ideal, and for the record I agree. Olympic View was designed to be played from the 1st tee. There’s a natural flow to the course, and as golfers we all enjoy easing into a round. Starting on the back nine means you don’t quite get that experience. You don’t even get to pull out a driver in the first few holes, and what kind of fun is that?!!?

So why do it?

The answer comes down to time.

Our first tee times begin at 7:00 a.m. on weekdays and 6:30 a.m. on weekends. Unfortunately, municipal noise bylaws don’t allow us to operate equipment before 7:00 a.m. on holes 2 through 8 Monday through Saturday, and 9:00 a.m. on Sundays.

That means by the time the first group is standing on the 2nd tee around 7:10 a.m., we’ve had less than 10 minutes to prep that hole yet alone prep the rest of the front 9.

Unlike some golf facilities, we don’t have dedicated maintenance mornings or delayed-start days built into our schedule. Every day is essentially a full-play day.

At the same time, we’re actually doing more maintenance than ever before.

This season we expanded our wetting agent, iron, and nitrogen spray application beyond fairways and into the rough every two weeks. That increased our spray area by nearly 70%. We’ve also added blower cleanup after fairway mowing every time to improve turf quality and presentation.

We’re also doing our best to reduce noise. Our fleet now includes an electric greens mower, seven electric utility vehicles, electric hand blowers, and electric trimmers. As technology improves and costs become more reasonable, we’ll continue electrifying equipment wherever practical.

Trust me, if there were no houses around the golf course, most of us would happily start at 4:00 a.m. and be completely out of the way before the first golfer arrived. That’s simply not the reality of maintaining a golf course adjacent to residential houses.

After looking at all the options, we felt twice-weekly back-nine starts were the best compromise. The alternative was delaying tee times twice per week, which we felt would have a bigger impact on members.

We know it’s not perfect, but it allows us to maintain your preferred tee times while still giving our team the opportunity to prepare the golf course safely, efficiently, and to the standard you expect.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

After an extended hiatus while we transitioned to a new data platform, our much-requested Daily Greens Conditions page is back!

You can find it on the Olympic View website under the Course Conditions section, or if you prefer, you can save this link directly to your phone’s home screen for quick access.

Along with daily green speed and smoothness measurements, you’ll also find rolling 7-day, 14-day, and 28-day averages for each metric. You can also see what maintenance practices are being performed on the surfaces today. We’ve enjoyed some fantastic playing surface conditions throughout the season (and I promise that’s not just my opinion—many of you have been telling me the same thing!), and this page provides an objective way to track performance and consistency over time.

Our goal is to update conditions each morning before 8:00 AM. If measurements haven’t been posted yet, don’t worry—the team is hard at work preparing the golf course and collecting the day’s data.

We hope you enjoy the return of this popular feature and find it useful as another way to stay connected to the daily condition of the golf course.

T-Jay Creamer
Golf Course Superintendent

After a moist winter, we’re now experiencing our fair share of dry weather over the past few months. The team has been working hard to keep pace with these conditions, and the photos below highlight the impact of that effort.

Heading into 2026, we made a strategic decision to expand our fairway nutrient program into the rough—essentially treating much of the rough as we would fairways. This includes bi-weekly applications of nitrogen (to support growth), iron (for improved colour), and wetting agents (to enhance water efficiency).

While many rough areas still receive less irrigation due to limitations in our system design, the water they do receive is now being used more effectively. This approach represents a meaningful investment in both product and labour, but as we continue working to elevate course conditions, we saw this as an opportunity to make a noticeable improvement.

Importantly, this is not about using more water—it’s about using water more efficiently. We are not aiming for wall-to-wall green conditions in August, but rather a consistent improvement in turf quality across a broader footprint. The photo below from #1 fairway is a good example. While it’s encouraging to see stronger rough conditions on the left and start of the hole, a bit of natural browning in select areas is both expected and acceptable.

In addition to expanding our wetting agent program, we’ve also introduced irrigation improvements in targeted areas. The #12 approach is one such example, where three new sprinkler heads were added in 2024.

For context, the image below shows the same area from June 2021.

While we didn’t make major irrigation upgrades to the #11 approach, we did incorporate additional growing material and seed last summer, which has paid dividends in 2026.

As mentioned, the goal is not uniform green coverage, but rather to expand the areas of high-quality playing surfaces throughout the course. On #2 tee, for example, we relocated a sprinkler head last season to better target the areas that needed it most—resulting in improved playing conditions without increasing water use.

Finally, we’ve increased staffing this season to support improvements in several areas, including fairway hand watering. While labour-intensive, hand watering remains the most precise way to ensure water is applied exactly where it’s needed.

We hope you’re noticing the improved conditions and that we’re able to maintain this level of quality throughout the summer. The team is fully committed to doing everything required to make that happen.

We added (5) new targets out on the practice facility today. This has been a long time request and we are happy to have some “natural” targets for you to further dial in those distances with.

The rounds came from the trees that were removed on the left side of #7 and each is equipped with a prism receiver to make it easy to get exact yardages with your range finder from anywhere on the tee decks.

Our in house craftsman, Scott Robinson, is behind these and is also the person behind the new divot stations that were installed out on the course this past winter. We are very fortunate to have Scott’s talents and creativity as part our Team. We hope you enjoy these and appreciate our efforts to keep Olympic View as much of an “Experience with Nature” as possible.

The answer is simple: nothing. Our dogs are trained to leave goslings and their parents alone at all times.

They are carefully trained to target only adult Canada geese, and only when given a command. Under strict handler control, they respond reliably to “wait,” “leave it,” and “stop,” ensuring precise, low-stress herding.

In early spring, our priority is to move adult geese without goslings off the course before moulting, typically occurring mid-June through late July, when adult geese are temporarily flightless. This reduces the number of flightless birds that would otherwise remain on the golf course for several weeks. At that point, our dogs pause their work and return only after the birds are fully airborne again.

Golfers may also notice that smaller birds, like ducks, red-winged blackbirds, robins, and other songbirds, are undisturbed by the dogs. This is intentional. Our focus is on moving Canada geese while leaving native bird species undisturbed.

- Sydney Dixon
Wildlife Biologist and handler at Flock Away Geese

We have resumed our goose dogs patrols this season based on the success of last years program. While I would not say we were 100% geese free in the fall, it does help to harass the birds on a regular basis and we did see less of a resident population because of this.

This is especially true coming into the nesting season as we look to encourage the birds to nest somewhere else. Once they enter the moulting / flightless period after nesting we will be pausing the program until later in the summer.

As we embark upon another season at Olympic View, I am excited to announce we are continuing to invest in the improvement of the golf club. Last season we took on the most significant work the course has seen since its original construction 35 years ago and I am glad to say that is only the beginning of our master plan work.

I hear there has been some gathering and discussion around the master plan posted outside the golf shop at times and that is great to hear! The intent of posting the image there was to foster discussion, and build excitement for the work we have ahead. While I’m certain that in the end the course will not be exactly as the plan depicts, having a plan is our first step to success as we evolve the property to it’s highest potential.

Fall 2025 Project Update

While we managed to achieve all our stated goals in the fall work, as you can see we still have some peripheral finishing work to do. The heavy rains of December were no friend to this timeline as any significant rain sets us back another couple weeks before we can work on bare soil. Rest assured, as we get some dry periods, the work will come together quickly. I always tell the Team that even if we are working in a months timeline to complete a project, provided we do a proper job, no one will remember this time in the years that we will be playing on this work.

The new 7th green is coming together nicely. Mild winter temperatures have allowed for slightly better than expected rooting of the sod and sod seams have all but disappeared. We have been applying substantial amounts of top dressing to the green to help smooth the surface into a proper putting surface and have started to reduce mowing heights as well. A timeline for opening is weather dependent, but we are targeting a mid April - mid May opening.

Spring 2026 Project Continuation

With the widening of the 5th fairway out to the right hand side, we consequently outgrew the irrigation system that was in the ground for the old fairway. This was an expected (and welcome) consequence of the project last fall and now we are back to remedy this situation. Over the next 12 weeks, we will be installing new irrigation for the entire 5th fairway and the 5th green. Along with the work specifically for #5, we will be installing a new irrigation mainline that will feed future irrigation upgrades on holes 3,4,5,6 and 7.

We will once again be taking on this project in house, and Assistant Superintendent Genghis Usher will be in the lead of the currently muddy Team you will see out there. I told the Team that having snow on the first day of the project yesterday was a good omen. Just like I tell my son that it’s good luck when a bird craps on you. I don’ think either party is buying it.

We aim to have minimal disruption to play throughout the works but of course there will be some. I expect multiple days where either golf will play from the tees on 5 as a par 3 to a pin in the fairway, or to the green from blocks at the 150 yard marker. We will let the golf shop know each morning and post signage on the course.

Thanks you for your understanding as we work through this project and I hope you are sharing the same excitement about the upcoming golf season at Olympic View as myself and the Team are!

The goal of the project work on #7 fairway this year was to help guide play further to the left side of #7 and away from #6. To that end we decided to significantly lib up the trees left of the cart path in hopes of providing golfers a better chance of finding & punching out a ball hit into the trees on the left hand side. This is a mature stand of trees and we did not want to remove them.

Through that process though, our arborist discovered that in fact the largest of the trees (6 in total) had either significant signs of rot or other fungal fruiting bodies that are signs of internal rot. When climbing one of the trees for the planned limb work, a discovered internal cavern starting about 20’ up the tree was so dangerous we actually removed our crews from the surrounding area until the tree could be removed. You may also have noticed that we diverted all golf traffic out of the area until the trees could come down as well. These issues could not be spotted from the ground. Below you will see a video of the cavern that was discovered in the tree closest to #7 green.

Now, I won’t tell you that losing the large trees front left of the green doesn’t make this a better golf hole. I believe it truly does. As we bring a large excavator in to remove the trees and stumps we are also going to roll the rather large rock away from the line of play as well. Another improvement.

Developed within the master plan are areas that we are able to re-plant trees over time and we are working with both the arborist and architect to determine desirable species and specific planting plans for these areas. Below is a clip of the last, and largest of the trees coming down.

I stumbled across this picture on the club website early on this season. A great shot looking back down the 15th hole in what I would assume is the very early years of the course. I shared the picture in a chat group between myself and Assistant Superintendents John Braddock & Genghis Usher and remarked, “Look at all that grass!”

I am of course not only referring to the grass off the back of the green, but to the right side up towards #16 tee and also the area to the top left of the picture that is in the shade. Often we have struggled to keep grass in these areas as you know. You may also know that we made some significant strides in making the current 15th green surrounds look a lot more like this picture from decades ago.

After my comment, Genghis took it upon himself the make my comment the new reality. He hand dug a trench on the right side of the green to re-establish an irrigation zone there and we now have a lot of grass between the bunker and the green. Not done yet, he then renovated the slope up towards #16 green and now has lots of grass growing there too!

That slope in particular can be a challenge as it is basically north facing (no direct sun), heavily shaded by trees, extensively dominated by tree roots taking moisture & nutrients, and on top of that it is used as a walk path to the next tee. Basically no hope for grass. Since we can not change where the sun rises & sets, nor will we be taking down all those trees, our best hope is to eliminate the walk traffic up this slope.

This seems like a worth while sacrifice to have as much grass as possible adjacent to a green right? A place where your ball can easily land and with a favourable lie still allows you that up and down par opportunity? To this end we established a permanent wood post & rope fence at the edge of the tee, and have directed walk traffic around the trees and up the front right of the tee.

Now to the point of my story (apologies for the drawn out length here), some golfers or heck perhaps even just a golfer, has decided this just is not right and is continually pulling up our permanent rope / stakes in what I assume is protest? First off, I am always available to discuss any changes we make to the course and happy to do so as well on this change. Secondly, anything we do is with the intent to make the golf course better for all to play and I think working to establish more grass immediately adjacent to a putting surface is a fine example of that. Finally, we work our butts off out here and on this project Genghis especially. To have this work not only not appreciated, but even intentionally vandalized is extremely demoralizing.

I know that while I am sending this to a number of players at the course, the person or persons responsible for the above may not even see this. However, if you ever have the opportunity to pass along this message, myself and the Team would greatly appreciate it.

I also want to state that we do feel a lot of appreciation for our efforts and it is almost a daily occurrence that someone on our Team passes along a positive comment from a golfer to the rest of our Team. Thank you to the vast majority of you for your continued support in our efforts!

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Yes, yes you did see concrete going into the new bunkers this week if you happened to be at the course. Before that fear of your sand wedge hitting concrete completely reverberates through your body, let’s dig into this system and shed some light on why we have chosen the Capillary Concrete System as our bunker liner.

For those looking for full detail on the system, I encourage you to click on the link above and review the company website. That should allow us to keep this post a little bit shorter and a lot less technical. The capillary concrete system is one of the premier systems when is comes to building bunkers that last a long time, are easy to maintain, and most importantly perform exceptionally. We are investing more in the up front cost to ensure that these bunkers can be enhancements to Olympic View for years to come.

3 Key Features

Contamination Barrier

Obviously a layer of concrete (2” deep by the way) will form a good barrier between the sub grade soil and our very expensive bunker sand. Preventing migration of stones and soil into the sand is the first priority of any liner.

Retain Sand on Slopes

The porous concrete takes water quickly from the sand and through the concrete into the subgrade drainage system. This ensures that after rainfalls, the sand stays up on the slopes and does not wash down into the bottom of the bunker. This means not only do we have less maintenance costs, but also we can build some very cool sand flashed slopes on the bunkers. The system also ensures that bunkers drain off excess moisture while at the same time retaining enough moisture to keep sand firm. We sent our bunker sand off to a lab in Kansas for specific testing with this liner to ensure we know the exact depth to fill the bunkers to ensure optimal sand performance. Check out the quick video below of us testing this out one day after concrete application on #5 greenside bunker.

Long Lifespan with Capillary Edge

One of the weak points of any bunker design is always at the interface of the sand and the turf. We can now have the sand raked up to a vertical face but it is very difficult to grow grass consistently on a vertical slope. New bunkers may look great for a year or two, but eventually that grass dies and the soil in behind it can then easily start to contaminate the bunker. Check out this very cool bunker edge at London Hunt & Country Club in London, Ontario. While it would take some time to build it, it definitely adds a lot of character and even a unique look to their property. Be sure to scroll the entire article where it discusses specific products applied to grow grass on that slope continually, the fact that only a select few of his trusted team can be tasked with hand trimming the bunker edge, and finally how he estimates 25% of his morning labour goes towards bunker maintenance. While that may be worth the investment at that property, it is certainly not the desire at Olympic View.

The use of the Capillary Edge system in our new bunkers reduces the concern of sand contamination from above as the artificial lip will cover off the vertical slope portion of the bunker sand / turf interface. The majority of this artificial lip will be covered by sand and we expect it to be not a part of the final look of the bunker.

What About My Wedge vs Concrete?

I can easily understand why this may be a concern but fear not, we have a system in place! The pink tassels in the image above are anchored into the concrete and are about 6” long. We will be filling the bunker slightly above these tassels and using them as an indicator on when to refill, or reshape sand in bunkers. This should always ensure we have a 6” layer of sand on the floor between that new sand wedge you picked up this year and the concrete surface.

Summary

You may have further questions on the system and as always, I am happy to field questions in the comments below and or in person. We are excited to be bringing this system across the entire course in the coming years as we re-build every bunker as part of our master plan. Investing in a quality bunker construction system, with quality bunker sand, should ensure a lasting positive impact on Olympic View Golf Club for years to come.

I recently heard an engineer likin a project they were doing to a doctor doing open heart surgery on a patient that is jogging down the road. Well this certainly isn’t that either! Come on now, we’re just growing grass here 😉

First of course we need to determine the problems we are aiming to fix with this project. I could have had a company come out with a cool laser and give us a really neat image of a putting green sloping severely left to right. I think you have seen far too many balls roll past the hole, and beyond, to need an expensive image to tell us that. In fact, even this conversation may bring up some PTSD (or anger!) regarding multiple putts on #7 green.

Aside from the slope issue that severely limits where we can place pins, there are no other real concerns. We have good light, it drains well, traffic flows well and it is easy to maintain.

So lacking the above mentioned fancy laser image, I did shoot elevations on a 5m grid to give architect Alex Hay a clear picture of the site. Each number represents the elevation shot for the grid point to it’s lower left.

With this, Alex can not only design a green that fits our site, he can also generate a cut/fill quantity. Meaning how much material we would take out of the site or bring in to the site to create his design. These quantities help us determine the project budget & timeline. The green also has a great setting on its own with the recently exposed back left rock face, front right bedrock (which we are going to further expose), and the front right grass bunker (which will be 50% more shallow than currently). There is no need to trick out the putting surface to make this green interesting, nature is doing most of the work for us. If only there was a rather large tree in the way of your approach shot blocking half the green off, too bad we don’t have that……

Anyways, below you can see the proposed sketch of the green with slope and contour lines.

While the numbers above are neat to study, below we have the practical implications of the design. Each circle is a 4 meter diameter and represents a pin location. I’ll save you the squinting and counting and let you know there are 14 potential pin locations on the image. That is, if I squinted and counted properly at least.

The idea being that we do not have to return to any 4m circle for 2 weeks with a pin! Want to hear a fun number? That is a 1300% increase over the current single 4m circle we use on the 7th green around 350 days per year.

I promised to keep these brief so now that we have determined the problem, and deigned a solution, next post we will get into how to build the design. Get ready for a soil physics lesson!

Just a quick heads up that you may see these two highly trained Australian Cattle Dogs herding (hazing) geese off the course over the next few weeks. These pups have been successful at some other courses in town at encouraging geese populations to move off somewhere else!

Their handlers will be in orange vests and working the dogs under constant supervision. Most of the work will occur in the early mornings and late evenings.

If you have any questions about the program please feel free to contact Randy or myself.

Also congratulations all those that took part in the Club Championship. I’m told that it was the largest field ever at Olympic View and myself and the Team enjoyed putting in some extra work to have the course looking and playing great. A cool 12’ on the stimp meter and 10/10 smoothness is a great way to test for champions!

I wanted to provide a few key notes on the project schedule that was discussed in the meeting for those that were note there. I have attached one of the architect plans for reference. Not all of the work on the plan will be completed this fall but please see the list below.

Scope of Work

• construct new forward tee #5

• move cart path and expand #5 fairway out to the right

• rebuild new bunker in front of #5 green

• fill in back 2 bunkers #5 green and establish short grass kick slope*

• fill back 2 bunkers #6 green and establish short grass kick slope*

• construct new forward tee #7*

• remove current fairway bunker #7 fairway and construct 2 new bunkers further up

• rebuild new bunker front #7 green

• reconstruct the entire #7 green complex

• installation of new fairway irrigation on holes 5/6/7

The items with asterisks beside them are technically extras on the project scope but we are hoping with an efficient plan, and some luck on the weather, that our timeline will allow for completion of these items as well

We will be looking to complete the work on #6 as the next phase of this work but we do not have a timeline confirmed for that as of yet.

Timeline of Construction

Phase 1 - #5 Fairway Move, #5 Bunker & #7 Bunkers

• Start date Monday September 29th

• Estimated 2 weeks of work plus fairway grow in

• We will limit disruption to 1-2 holes at a time playing shorter

  • ie Par 3 playing from #5 tee to a pin in the fairway or from #7 fairway to #7 green

Phase 2 - #7 Green Reconstruction

• Estimated start date Monday October 13th

• Estimated 3 week construction period

• Strip the entire greens complex, lay it on plastic, rebuild the green, lay the sod back down - sounds like fun right?!?!?

• We are currently establishing a temporary green at the 150 marker on #7 and this will be the green in play until roughly mid April 2026 when the greens sod has re-established itself (actual date is subject to weather)

Phase 3 - 5/6/7 Fairway Irrigation

In order to ensure that we are utilizing our irrigation water most effectively, we will be installing new irrigation sprinklers & piping at spacing designed most optimal for the new width of these fairways. This installation will begin in early 2026 and be complete before the late spring of 2026. This will be a very weather dependent process.

Bunker Design & Construction

Below is a rendering of the greens complex on #5. You will see the back left bunker is removed and the back bunker will be as well. The new bunker design front right will be typical of new bunkers being created on the course. The use of some sand flash, and some grass face, in what I consider to be a nice blend of both. The bunker design is more rustic, and fits (as best as possible) into our natural surroundings at Olympic View.

#7 Green Design

Below you will see an initial concept sketch of the new 7th green. Here are a few items of note:

• increase pinnable area on the green from 8% (estimated) up to 80% (calculated)

• reduce current left to right slope of the green from almost 6% down to ~1.5% (USGA pinnable guidelines is <3%)

• limb up trees & clear underbrush to expose rock face left side and allow for kick slope to green

• maintain slight trough on left side to ensure mountain rainfall runoff does not flow onto green

• expose bedrock front right of green

• reconstruct front left greenside bunker

• expand green slightly forward, slightly right behind the grass bunker, and contract the back edge to eliminate the lower back tier

• reduce grass bunker depth by 50%

• green will be approximately 5% smaller to allow for turf loss during sod removal / reinstallation

News Along the Way

I mentioned on the information night that I will be creating a blog series regarding the reconstruction of the green. It’s not everyday that you get to rebuild a greens site so why don’t we all go along for the ride! I will try to keep the posts brief but frequent, providing quick hits of info without getting bogged down in too many details. Oh but do I love details! Anyways, look for this series of posts to start soon as we are of course well underway into planning what will no doubt be a challenging but rewarding project.

Project Cost

The combination of projects represents a significant investment of over $350,000 into the course this off season. We are excited to kick off our master plan release with a bang this fall and couldn’t think of more notable projects than blowing up #7 green and starting to re-build all of our bunkers.

While completing projects in the latter part of the year is great for avoiding high play times of year, it gets pretty dicey with weather. We have a solid plan with some contingency built in, but we appreciate your patience through what will hopefully be minimal disruption through the construction and grow in phases.

When you are applying your bug spray or sunscreen, please make sure to not do it on the putting surfaces. You can see the image above of #1 green and then below it is quite evident on the putting green when I can put my feet in the exact spot as where someone else’s were.

I imagine this may come as news to you as it is not all that common of an occurrence here. Now you know though, and please feel free to pass this new gem of knowledge along to your golfing friends.

A New Initiative at Olympic View

I wanted to introduce you to the name GEO in this post, as it’s something we’ll be talking about a lot more in the near future.

GEO Sustainable Golf Foundation and their certification program serve as a kind of sustainability report card—designed specifically for golf courses. It evaluates how we care for the land, manage water and energy, reduce waste, and connect with our community.

This isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being thoughtful, transparent, and always improving. GEO helps us measure where we are today, and guides us toward where we want to be tomorrow.

This initiative is part of a broader program to eventually have all GolfBC courses certified. I’m just the smart guy that put his hand up first, so we get to be the first ones. The Canadian Golf Course Superintendents Association and the National Golf Course Owners Association have also partnered with GEO to encourage course participation on a national scale.

Why It Makes Sense for Olympic View

We’re lucky to be surrounded by some pretty incredible natural beauty here on southern Vancouver Island. From the forested edges to the streams and wildlife, the course is part of a much bigger ecosystem. GEO Certification helps us protect that. It gives us tools and guidance to make smart choices—like strategically using water, reducing chemical inputs, and improving habitat areas—without compromising the quality of your round.

It’s also about being efficient. Better resource management means healthier turf, more consistent playing conditions, and smarter maintenance. That’s good for the environment, and it’s good for your game.

What You Might Notice

Some of the changes will be behind the scenes, but others you’ll see and feel. Maybe it’s a naturalized area that used to be rough, or a shift in how we manage irrigation during dry spells. You might notice fewer inputs, better turf health, or even smoother pace of play thanks to more strategic maintenance.

And while GEO Certification is a formal process, it’s really about a mindset—one that puts long-term care ahead of short-term fixes.

GEO Around the World

GEO Certification isn’t just a local initiative—it’s part of a global movement in golf. Courses like St Andrews Links in Scotland (The Home of Golf), Le Golf National in France (host of the Ryder Cup), and Finca Cortesin in Spain are all GEO Certified. Here in Canada, Mickelson National Golf Club in Calgary is currently the only GEO Certified course— while I always prefer to be first at anything, I’m excited to be working toward joining that short list in Canada.

It’s a Team Effort

This isn’t just a Superintendent thing or a management thing—it’s something our whole team will need to be behind in order to achieve certification. There’s also a significant community involvement portion. Whether it’s sharing feedback, participating in habitat restoration, or helping us tell the story, you can bet I’ll be reaching out to the membership if there’s anywhere I can use your help.

It’s Also Personal

Outside of work, I spend a lot of time outdoors—camping, hiking, fishing, and hunting. Part of what makes Olympic View so special to me is that being here often reminds me of the places I love to be when I’m off work.

That’s why achieving GEO Certification is something I’m deeply invested in. While I believe we already do a good job of protecting and enhancing the environment we’re part of, GEO gives us a framework to keep improving. It helps ensure Olympic View continues to live up to its promise of being “An Experience with Nature”—not just today, but for decades to come.

I talk about this being a process, as this is something I have been working on for a couple months now and it will take at least a year to complete. I will be sure to keep you updated about our progress along the way. If you’re interested in learning more about GEO, have a look through their website HERE.

Due to some timely rainfall & judicious watering practices throughout last summer we didn’t actually need to purchase any water at all. Having the water in the budget allowed us to water appropriately through a warm July 2024, and we had saved enough water in May & June to cover August & September. Win win.

Now fast forward to July 2025:

I’m sure everyone remembers the heat dome year of 2021. I know I still have nightmares about it that’s for sure. First year as a Superintendent and it’s 42 degrees! Anyways, back to the point here. Even though it has been a warm & dry last couple months, we have been able to keep the course reasonably green. While I’m not striving for a colour, the green shade is in indicator of a healthy, actively growing plant, that will provide a quality surface for which to land and strike a ball off of. Now across 10 hectares of fairways are we perfectly uniform and green? Na, of course not. While maybe that is a goal, it’s neither a realistic goal nor a sustainable level.

So what goes into managing the amount of water that goes out on the course each day? Let’s touch on a few of the key steps we carry out.

Weather

Well of course this is step one. Not only do we use on site temperature and rain sensors, we also download daily computer generated models of weather specifically for Olympic View. This data generates the amount of water lost in a day, or the daily “ET”. This stands for evapotranspiration and represents the evaporation of water from the ground and the transpiration of water through the plant as it performs its daily growth and self cooling practices. I can tell you that for the last week the daily average ET has been 3.6 mm. Putting on my math hat, 3.6 mm of depth spread across 1 square meter, to a 10 cm depth (roughly our growing depth) represents 3.6 litres of water. Isn’t the metric system vastly superior to any other form of measurement?!?!?! Ok, so now we have a theoretical idea of how much water has been consumed and therefore how much we need to re-apply each day.

Computer Control

Ever so slightly before I started in the industry 30 years ago, golf courses have been able to use specific computer software to control irrigation systems. While I still feel their capabilities are sorely lagging, there are some exciting new technologies on the horizon. That’s for another article though. For now, at Olympic View, we were fortunate to upgrade our central control system to the latest and greatest in 2023. We can enter in our pipe sizes, spacing of sprinklers, nozzle sizes, and water pressure in, and then tell the system that we want to put 3.6 mm of water on the 10th green tonight. Not only will it calculate the right time for the sprinklers surrounding the 10th green to run (say it’s 10 minutes) it will also calculate all the other times for all the other sprinklers across the course to run. They obviously can not all run at once, so it times the whole night out using the limitations of the amount of water we can supply to each area of the course at one time (pipe size & pressure). While this sounds complex (and it is) this is pretty much what these systems have been able to do for 30 plus years now, only each new version has cooler graphics. Anyways, so we have the amount of water we need to apply and then told the computer to apply it, job done right? Naaaaa.

Efficiency

The best designed, brand new irrigation system is maybe 80% efficient. Pesky things like wind, slopes, designing around curved shapes like greens all contribute to non-uniform water distribution across large sites like golf courses. Now take our system at Olympic View that was deigned “economically” with the latest and greatest knowledge 1988 had to offer and we are sitting around 60% efficiency at best. That’s even a stretch. So what does that mean? Well that means that some spots within the 10th green will get 40% less than 3.6 mm and some will get 50% more than 3.6 mm. The chart below illustrates this challenge.

The worst part is these wet & dry spots are often no more than ten feet apart.

Chasing Uniformity

So if it’s not as simple as just setting and forgetting at the computer, how do we accurately get the water where we need it each day? The old fashioned way, with a hose. Each day we send out a minimum of two people and sometimes up to four with hoses. The idea being to put out just enough water with the sprinklers to not make things wet and then try and top up the low areas or dry spots with a hose. Seems like a simple plan when you are talking about the 10th green at a size of 500 square meters, but take that over the 25 hectares of turf we irrigate each night and it gets a little daunting.

Thankfully we have a dedicated Team that dutifully caries out this task all summer. It may seem nice to be on a hose when it’s hot out, but often it’s not that warm at 6 am and an extended drought like we are in right now can be mentally taxing.

Ground Truthing

I mentioned before that the calculations of how much water is required is theoretical. We ground truth that data in a couple of ways. First we use our experience and expertise to not only evaluate the turf health but also signs of saturation or drought and yes, colour is a part of this. Secondly, we use a soil moisture meter to check the actual soil water content on each green.

We take 9-12 measurements on each green every day. The device gives us a percentage of soil moisture and we can now use that number to do some more cool math. 1% soil moisture equals 1 litre of water over 1 square meter, 10 centimetres deep. Which if you remember from before equals 1 mm of irrigation depth over that area.

So say we do not want the soil to get below 20% soil moisture by the end of the day. We also have a forecast that says that we are going to have an ET of 3.6 mm today. That person hand watering and taking moisture samples is going to make sure that each of the 9 quadrants on that green is above 23.6 (really 25%) so that we do not have any wilt on the green through the day. I was going to make a joke about how they measure out 3.6L of water and pour it evenly over each square meter of the green, but yeah, we’re not there yet….

When we set up the computer for the night, we will shoot for 70% or so of that 3.6 mm taking into account the challenges in system distribution uniformity. Don’t get the wet spots too wet and chase the dry spots with the hoses.

The Art

Numbers and hoses aside, there is an art to managing and irrigation system. Not only do you need to understand the microclimates around the course, you also need to know how hundreds of sprinklers heads throughout the course irrigate those areas. I have often said it takes 3 seasons to get to fluently managing a system. I started to learn, and am still learning the system at Olympic View 5 years in. Fortunately I have a great Team who know it even better than I do now. Assistant Superintendents Genghis Usher (5 years) and John Braddock (3 years) have been learning the art of managing our system over those respective times. They need to be constantly plugged into the system, the course, and the weather forecast in order to make the best daily decisions possible. That 70% of 3.6 mm I mentioned above could be 50 or 60% if the temperatures are dropping or if rain is coming, or it could be 90% if we are in a prolonged dry stretch and the wind has been blowing straight time for a few days. The combination of variables to consider and sprinklers to adjust are limitless.

I knew I was truly a Superintendent a couple years ago when I was told I was no longer allowed to touch the irrigation computer. Superintendents often have many many items on their plate making it impossible to stay in tune with all the details I mentioned above. If I was in charge of the system for a day or two, often I would make reactionary changes without knowing all the factors. Instead, I now leave it to the professionals and I think the product we are displaying right now is a fine example of their experience and expertise.

Wrap Up

Well if you stayed with me this long, you have now received a high level crash course in golf course irrigation. While I’m sure it was a bit extensive, hopefully it provides a bit more understanding of just one of the areas we cover each day. Long stretches like we are going through only exacerbate the challenges above and I truly appreciate the fantastic Team we have managing our watering.

Of course making those challenges slightly easier is having enough water to keep the course looking good. I’m thankful for the investment that the club has made into our irrigation water budget and I believe it is showing in the much improved condition of our fairways compared to a couple years ago. While we don’t have an unlimited supply, hopefully between what we have budgeted and some rainfall at some point, we will be able to hold on to the current course conditions.

There is a chance of rain in the forecast for next week and the great thing about rainfall it is the only way to get 100% distribution uniformity. Fingers crossed for just a little rain.

I thought we could start off with a quick update on a few spring projects and minor items in this post to keep it light. No calculations or spreadsheets in this post I promise.

12 Tee

Let’s start off by addressing our major spring project, the new 12th tee that is now open. While no one would debate the need to rebuild that tee, it’s always nice to have a picture of where we were, to where we are now.

A failing wall, a really lame lower tee, and in general a tee really in need of a facelift. As you may recall, I had some intel that perhaps there was not bedrock under that tee and the plan was to build one big tee deck maximizing the tee space. Somewhat unsurprisingly, we hit bedrock about 12” down on the top deck. A pivot, with an opportunity to use that natural feature as a wall, led us to two decks but still an overall increase in tee space from the previous tees. We also removed the 1990’s era stairs and ended up with a nice set of new decks maximizing the available land on the hole.

Now due to the poor growing conditions (heavy shade) and predominantly iron play (divots) this tee will always struggle to grow and sustain regular play but again, we made the most of the available land and will give it the best support we can.

I thank you for your patience playing off the mat while we grew in this tee. I did have some questions on sodding vs seeding and why we went the latter. Mostly, this is due to the lack of available quality sod. If I purchase sod that is established at lawn height, I still need time for that sod to knit and heights gradually dropped to be ready for play. Typically the available sod types for purchase look great when they are new. After that first winter though the sod that was established in pure sun, with seed types that are designed to establish and look great quickly all pretty much disappears and we are left with a lot of bare soil and not much grass.

There is sometimes sod available that is poa sod mown at tee height. This is an option but at it’s high cost, it is a decision of do we sod this one tee deck and use a lot of our project funds for that, or do we seed this deck and build the other 3 forward tees we have planned this year as well? I don’t want to say cost is an issue, but we do have a budget and making decisions on how to maximize value for our members and guests is what we do every day. In this instance we chose the extra 3-4 weeks for seed vs sod establishment and then to construct an additional 3 forward tees this year with that savings. I’m always open to hearing your constructive feedback on these types of decisions though as conversations about a decision like this is what helps shape future decisions.

In a perfect world, we will establish our own sod nursery that we can draw from for projects like this and rest assured there is a future plan in place to do this.

New Tee Blocks

I loathed the tee blocks I inherited here and have been longing to replace them. Not because of their general style or appearance, more because of the 2 weeks of sanding and painting we would need to do on them each winter. For most of the rest of the country, where courses are closed all winter, sanding, staining, and painting various course wood fixtures is a common winter task. For us, we are open and we are busy with other projects that make the course better. I don’t want to waste time sanding & painting tee blocks every year. So enter the above aluminum / powder coated tee blocks that look great and will require little annual maintenance. As an added bonus, there were designed, cut, and bent at a local Langford metal shop and powder coated at a Langford shop as well. Keeping investment within the community that helps support us.

New Machinery

Last season we trialled a new program where we mowed all the grass around tees at one height. Early last year I was mowing tees and got to thinking about why we mow tees at one height, and then come by with a second mower mowing around these tees at a higher height. The long and short of it was there was no good reason other than “because we have always done it this way.” A phrase I of course despise. There was a couple other reasons but let’s keep this at a reasonable length.

So we started mowing all one height for tees and surrounds. The only trouble is the machine we had that could do that was on it’s last legs. Thanks to Brad & Scott in our shop, they kept it running all season and we were able to prove out the concept. Not only was it mine (and others) opinion, that the visual look was appealing, we also saved labour throughout the process.

I say saved, but this does not mean we reduced out budget. Instead, any savings we can gain through our efficiency improvements are then just re-purposed to make other areas better. After proving the concept out, we were able to justify the purchase of the brand new machine above for 2025. This story is a great example of not only how our Team works to continually make the product better, but we are also supported by GolfBC in our initiatives. Kinda sounds like a great place to work right?

New Course Conditions Page

You may find that the odd time this link will be slow to load (or not load at all), but on most occasions you can use this link HERE in order to access our new greens speed data page. I have added a few items to it including the weather, UV index, and what practices we are carrying out on greens each day. I recommend adding the link to your home screen on your phone if you are checking it regularly. We try our best to update it by 8am each morning.

That is it for this post, but as mentioned I have a number of great topics rattling around in my head. Greens smoothness, organic matter levels, lack of aeration, overseeding with bentgrass, update of greens drainage tests. See, I can’t even make the list short! Looking forward to getting these topics and more out to you in the coming weeks.

Perhaps you have not been back out to the course yet, but we were finally able to re-open the course fully just this past week. Between freezing temperatures, then snow, then waiting for snow to melt, it has been weeks since we have been able to cut a pin in a green. It’s good to be back!

Of course our Team has been busy through these weeks as frozen ground is a great time to move lots of material around the course with minimal damage. We took full advantage of this time to finish off, and pick off a few new projects around the course.

#1 Green Surrounds

What started as removal of a couple of hazardous trees, most notably a large Douglas Fir to the left of the green, moved into an enhancement of the entire greens complex. As part of the master plan, the bunkers adjacent to the green were slated to be filled in and we did just that. Both bunker areas will now feature short grass areas flowing into the green.

We also did an extensive amount of brush clearing behind the green that has the double benefit of further highlighting the extensive arbutus tree grove that surrounds the green, and also allows you to find your ball should you end up long on this hole. We know that typically this is one of the more firm greens on the course and hitting anywhere past the middle of the green often leads to a couple bounces and a roll into a lost ball on the very first hole. Not fun!

#3 Fairway

As mentioned above, with frozen solid ground we had a great opportunity to move a lot of material on the course. We took full advantage of this to clear the line of trees between the pond and the fairway on #3. Please see the before before & afters.

I’m sure most of us have been behind this wall before and they were awfully penal to a drive that leaked slightly right. Their removal leaves a much better opportunity for that ball to return back to the fairway on the second shot now, without having to give up any distance.

#8 Tee

The re-construction of the white/black tee on #8, that began last fall when we stripped the sod to complete the new white tee on #8, has now reached finished grade. We have been able to double the width of this tee deck and improve the walk up / surrounds to make it a much better complex.

The tees on #8 have always been challenging to grow grass on due to our high play and the shade conditions that are prevalent in this area. By doubling the size of this tee, and adding an additional white deck, we look forward to spreading this wear around a lot better and in turn having better tee surfaces for you to play off of!

Are We Making the Course Easier

I have had a few comments of concern that we are making the course too easy. In particular when it comes to the bunker removal on #1. This seems like a great place to outline our thinking behind these changes, and certainly more to come.

First off, Olympic View is already regarded as a very tough course to play. While some relish at the challenge of target golf to tight fairways and protected greens complexes, the greater majority of our members and guests would enjoy adding one or two more par scores to their round each time out. Does removing bunkers and trees make the course easier? Yes, you could say it probably does. Most importantly though, it makes it easier for the player that would like it easier. If you are a single digit handicap you are probably not missing the green short left on #1 and in the bunker that was there. Instead that bunker was catching the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th shots from golfers just trying to get through the first hole.

Is Short Grass Easier or Harder to Play From

At first glance, one would think that short grass is much easier to play from around the green. Take your putter, whack it up closer to the hole, good to go! However, for those single digit handicappers, is the putter the best play? How far do you have to roll on short grass before you get to the actual green? How will the ball react in that distance? How will it react at the transition to the actual putting surface? It is hard to see in the 2D image below but there is subtle undulations left in the grade on purpose. You will need to read the short grass as much as you do the putting surface to play your putter from here.

So maybe you elect to chip the ball avoid the subtle undulations, that’s a bit more tricky execution but you’ve practiced this right? It’s only the first hole but you warmed up your short game before the round right?

Or hey, you know Tiger does that 3 wood bump thing, maybe you should try that?

What the short grass has done here is perfect. It has made it a non-decision, and reasonably acceptable outcome, for the higher handicap golfer while at the same time inviting indecision for the low handicap golfer. Not only do they have to decide how to play the ball, they also have to be able to execute that choice and even more importantly, stand over the ball just prior to executing the shot and erase any self doubt that they have made the right choice.

So in essence, easier for the high handicapper and harder for the low handicap golfer. Pretty much the exact opposite of a bunker shot.

I’m sure you’ve noted my affinity for short grass through the extensive increase of it at Olympic View over the past four years. This started back during my time at Victoria Club and probably not long after my return from working the US Open at Chambers Bay in 2015. Well that trip to St. Andrews last year has only fed my love for this and I am of course not alone in the golf world either. Our architect, Alex Hay of Lobb & Partners, shares this vision for the course and you can expect to see more of these type of transitions as we continue to work our way around the course.

Rest assured, we won’t remove every bunker. Once we are through, every bunker that remains will have multiple levels of value to the course a the game of golf played here at Olympic View. Oh, and the best part is they will eventually be all re-built!

I hope you are enjoying the sunshine of late (greens stimping 10’ this morning!) and I look forward to another year of communications through this blog.

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and I promised to finish this post before then,

So let’s walk through the year,

Through thick and through thin.

Alright, that’s the extent of my creativity exhausted, now can we get back to some numbers?

Way back in March, I shared with you our goals for the season and revisited those again mid season.

A quick recap:

• #14 Cart Path - patching, drainage, & sod work

Well, we went a little better on this one! Instead of a patch repair, we opted for a complete move of the path and in the process created a much better golf hole!

Throw in a bunker fill for good measure and I bet we are starting to see the average score come down on this hole. Hands up if you’ve made birdie from where this bunker used to be now that you’re playing off grass 🙋‍♂️

• #12 Irrigation - Install 2 heads in the approach area over the pond

Well, we didn’t get the heavy irrigation pressure we have become accustomed too over the past few years, but here is a reminder of what #12 approach can look like in a drought year with no sprinklers (2018 Google Earth):

Wow, ok then. These 2 bad boys did, and should make this area a lot better every summer going forward:

• #3 Forward Tee - Install new tee as laid out in master plan

How about we do that, and throw in an extra tee on #8 too:

• #11 Approach – redo path up to and around green, sod as required

Ok, so we missed one. I can share with you what the area will look like as this will now be in our 2025 plan:

A little tricky to see but other than removing the path in the approach, improving irrigation, and growing some grass out there, we are going to bring the cart path down behind the green. This will serve twofold: get golfers in and out of that hole quicker, and allow maintenance vehicles access to the hole so we do not have to drive up the approach. You know, where we are going to grow some grass. 😉

• Complete 40 hours/month of invasive species removal (broom & blackberry) from April through December

As you most likely would have noticed, we smashed this one, averaging 70+ hours/month May through August!

There was of course multiple other small projects that we picked off along the way. Like this fix of the eternal wet spot on the back of #18 green with this very nice bench:

Some nice mulch additions:

And how about these hanging baskets at #6 washrooms:

So with a quick recap then, I would say we had a pretty good year! While it’s a great time to reflect and appreciate where we have come, why don’t I throw you a few teasers as to what we have coming for 2025!

We haven’t yet set our goals for 2025, but here are a few projects that are planned so far:

New Forward Tee #2

New Forward Tee #7

New Forward Tee #8

New White Tee Deck #12

As you can see, there is a focus on tee decks in the projects above. This is something we know we need to improve and an item that often comes up in member survey comments.

Bunkers are always in there as well and while I can’t speak on anything concrete, there will be a few more bunker fills this season and perhaps one more substantial project that is currently on the drafting board.

Overall though, I would like to make clear that we are excited to continue our path of improvements around the course and I am certain that 2025 will not disappoint.

As I sign off for the last post of 2024, I would like to thank you for your patronage at Olympic View. These projects would not be possible without your support and myself and the Grounds Team look forward to bringing you an even better course in the year ahead!