How Green's Your Golf Course?

Community Comments

Developer Ed Fralick bought land in Auburn in 1989 to turn it into an upscale development. After eight years of approval process, construction of homes and the Darkhorse Golf Course began. The course opened in 2002. Placer Country required the course to restore wetlands, though course General Manager Bob Peterson maintains there were no wetlands in the first place.

Sand Traps as Critter Condos

Wetlands indeed got restored, and wildlife increased so much that squirrels have turned the walls of sand traps into multi-level critter condominiums. Peterson’s crew can’t keep up with the damage. Hawks and other predators are around but can’t keep up, either.

“We’ve seen more coyotes and red fox than ever, and there are squirrels everywhere,” Peterson says. “We’ve got skunks, turkeys, deer. We can handle that stuff.”

“Ground squirrels are a big problem,” Samuelson says. Haggin Oaks has lost a couple of heritage oak trees because the course serves as a giant squirrel habitat. Their burrowing destroys the root systems.

When a course is constructed, it must prevent erosion to preserve local waterways. Marshall drove by the Del Paso Country Club during its reconstruction that took almost two years before reopening last fall. Workers removed more than 850 diseased and nonindigenous trees. Massive grading followed, then came more than 400,000 feet of four-inch drainage pipe, on top of which went tons of sand. Then came the seeding.

Del Paso dates back to 1916. Bob Hope used to hold a charity event there in the summer. But in time it became an overgrown bog. Now it ranks as one of the best courses in all of Northern California, surely the best in the greater Sacramento area.

Phillips, who used to work with Jones II and did much of the design work at Squaw Creek, planned Del Paso’s layout. Superintendent Mark McKinney oversaw the “grow-in” stage. With a degree in biology from Drury College in Springfield, Ill., and another degree in agronomy from the University of Missouri, McKinney can spin the “supe” talk.

“We’re utilizing very good genetics in the turf grass, a blend of A1 and A4 bent in the greens. These plants do much better year-round in this climate,” he says. “Their genetics make it possible to use less water and pesticides.”

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