There’s an inside joke among golf course superintendents.
“People will ask, what’s the worst part of your job?” L.C. Lacy told the Register this week. “Everyone will give the same answer — golfers. They get in the way of what we’re trying to do.”
In Lacy’s view, however, dealing with golfers has been one of the perks of his job as golf course superintendent for the past 25 years at the Allen Country Club.
And they’ve been particularly invaluable this fall, as the picturesque course on the outskirts of Gas undergoes one of its largest upgrades in recent memory.
Since late October, teams of volunteers — nearly all of whom are avid golfers — have been working non-stop to add a new irrigation system to the fairways of each of the course’s nine holes.
Earth-moving equipment has been crisscrossing the grounds in the effort to add three ponds and expand another, along with 7,000 feet of new 3-inch water lines and 65 or so sprinkler heads, as well as a more powerful pumping system.
The system is designed so water can be transferred from one pond to another as needed, and will operate in much the same manner as the old system along the course’s greens and tee boxes.
Only rainy weather, and now the cold, has slowed the process, noted Jim Chandlee, president of the country club’s board of directors.
Still, the pond construction and water lines should be wrapped up in the coming days.
From there, the focus shifts to repairing the damage incurred by the heavy machinery on the course, accompanied by reseeding the grounds.
“We’ve needed this for a long time,” said Lacy, who will retire from his post at the end of the year. “We’ve struggled for the last three years keeping up course conditions.”
Three consecutive abnormally dry summers have taken their toll.
“L.C. has done everything he could to keep the grass growing,” Chandlee said. “But if you don’t have water, you don’t have grass.”
“The weather patterns have changed a lot,” Lacy said. “We’ve had more droughts, more periods of non-rain.
“Years ago, growing up here, we had snow all winter long, and we used to ice skate and sled,” Lacy continued. “We haven’t done that in years. People can say what they want, but we definitely have a warmer climate.”
