Bruce Beach Golf Club Restorations

I recently had a chance for 9 holes of hickory golf, and took advantage of some good late season weather at my local Bruce Beach GC. The oldest club in the county still has its greens as the “browns”, and as you can see below they were lightning fast on a breezy SW Ontario afternoon:

As the greens were drained, elevated, compacted a year ago, this summer the golf club restoration project moved on to tee rebuilding as you can see from the sixth tee below:

They are true old time tee boxes about 8′ x 8′ and about a foot high. There wasn’t a whole lot of grass on them before, and they were truly just using a handful of the plentiful beach sand to tee the old tyme golf ball up, when the course first opened in 1908.

The club is also moving the second green back to the center of the hole, and just completed a sod swap in the picture below. This is great for the new green location as it will bring in to play an original sand bunker on the right of the new green and utilizing the existing bunker in the back of the green as well. This will be some of the better work of the club’s restoration project.

And last , but certainly not least, a picture of the maintenance facility, with the hand greens/sod roller:

The subtle changes and improvements the Bruce beach GC has undertaken over the past few years will go a long way in guaranteeing the long term agronomic success of their “back-in-tyme” facility.

Until Next Time, Poor Old Dirt & Grass Farmer