Thursday, August 24, 2017

Montana site visits, day one

Since serving the Northwest Region as the GCSAA field staff representative, I have learned that certain times of the year are busier than others. For the most part, everything seems to run together with the exception of the three summer months. This is normally when members are up to their necks in the middle of the season but it is also a good time for me to hit the road and make a few site visits. For the month of August, I decided to give the Peaks & Prairies a visit.

For the first leg of my journey, I was invited by Bob Lee of Simplot Partners to tag along and ride with him to Western Wyoming. Bob lives in Hayden Lake, Idaho, and serves Montana and Eastern Washington. Bob and his trusty traveling companion CB picked me up in Spokane where we made a quick stop at Gonzaga University to visit their field manager and previous golf course superintendent, Tom Brown. I had once considered a job in the athletic field industry and, if you ask me, it looks fun. Tom had some of the most incredible Kentucky bluegrass that I have ever seen. CB was surely impressed.

As we made our way across the Idaho panhandle, we made a quick stop to visit with Tim Heeney at The Idaho Club. The Idaho Club is managed by a small management company providing a high-end product on a pretty limited budget.

We finally made our way to our first destination which was at The Wilderness Club, just eight miles south of the Canadian border, near Eureka, Montana. I was thrilled when we drove up and met Mike Turner, CGCS. Mike was previously at The Reserve Vineyard in Aloha, Oregon, and had decided to take the assistant position under Larry Newlin so he could be closer to his and his wife’s family. Mike and Larry had worked together before and their working chemistry was evident. We had time for a quick nine-hole turf inspection before we headed off to dinner.

Just to explain how tinder dry the forests are in Montana, we were having dinner and a small system blew through which contained a couple lightning strikes in the hills above us. When we walked out of the restaurant we could see a fire starting just above us. The trees were literally exploding as we saw it start to grow.  By morning, the blaze had spread to over 1000 acres. We never seemed to get out of the smoke for the rest of the trip. Today, there are currently thirty wildfires burning across Montana including the Lolo Peak fire which displaced Lori and Tom Russel from their home for a couple days. Lori explained to me that most of these blazes will not be controlled until the snow begins to fall in October/November.


The next day we woke up to a smoky morning which gave the effect of an amber-colored light filter. It provided an interesting light for photos but I would have preferred to see the mountains.

Bob informed me that he was going to take me to a golf course that day that is probably unlike anything I had ever seen. Check back for my next blog post for a recap on that visit.

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