Honey Creek has Timeout for Operation Iraqi Freedom

April 2003

A timeout has been called halfway through the construction of the new Honey Creek Golf Course & Estates just south of Boone, Iowa.

Course owners Jeff Prouty and Jim Nelson have something else on their minds these days. Both are fulltime National Guardsmen and their unit, the 109th Aviation Support (helicopter) Co. was activated in early February to serve their country in Operation Iraqi Freedom. CW5 (chief warrant officer 5) Prouty is a helicopter test pilot and Sgt. 1st Class Nelson is an inspector.

“It would have been kind of hard to keep going without them here to sign documents and be involved on a daily basis,” Brian Eldridge, superintendent, says. “I’ve built courses before where the owners just said this is what I want and weren’t involved, but Jeff and Jim aren’t that way. They are very, very involved owners. They want to be hands-on. It’s fun for me to have these guys involved in making the decisions. We all have a different vision and when we work together as a team, we really do well.

“Communication would have been difficult with them gone, so the decision was made to put it on hold. We’ll just operate the first nine holes, which were completed last fall, and wait with the balance of the project until they return safely from their deployment,” Eldridge relates.

The course and an accompanying upscale housing development are located on a 588-acre, heavily wooded site in the bluffs of the Des Moines River. When completed the golf course will use about 300 acres of the property, which has a 200-foot differential in elevation. The housing development includes 36 one-acre lots. “We certainly didn’t have to create any hills. In fact, we had to level some of them out so you could play golf on them,” he says.

Construction of the golf course, which had been in planning for several years, began late in 2001. Eldridge came onboard as superintendent in April 2002, arriving in the early stages of the rough-shaping. “As the earthmovers and shapers got done and after the irrigation company had gone through, they turned it over to me and my staff. We did the Grading and seeding. We got the green course ready and built the greens, the tees and the bunkers.

”The first seeding was done in the early part of July, which was the worst possible time, Eldridge says. “It was right in the heat of the summer, but we had to get it going. We had some exceptional growth results on the greens despite some very uncooperative weather. The first nine holes were briefly opened last fall,” Eldridge notes.

“Our October weather was terrible but we still got about 200 rounds in. The last couple of greens were only four to five weeks old and they were still a little thin, but the people enjoyed the course and we got some really good comments. We’re looking forward to spring when the grass can kick-off and fill in. I think it will fill in really quickly and be ready for play.

About the greens that were seeded first, Eldrige says, “We had from 10to 12 inches of root mass in only 90 days. And on the greens that were seeded later and were only four to five-week old greens when we opened for our fall preview, we had from eight to nine inches of root mass.

The preview was held so that the locals could see that the course was actually going to happen. There had been a few naysayers in the community who didn’t believe that these two guys working for the Iowa National Guard could really build a golf course. Secondly, we wanted to show the banker that it was going be a viable business.

“I’ve done four courses and never before had one grow in so you could actually play golf on it in just four months. We were able to get it in respectable shape with a crew of four guys and the owners, who worked out there with us whenever they could,” Eldridge says.

Golf course architect Bradford Benz, San Jose, Calif., believes that the peat used in the blends for greens and tee boxes had a big part in the strong growth. “I attribute much of it to the peat and the precision with which it was blended into the green sand. The peat was so totally uniform and it was absolutely the correct amount. It does its job very, very well for both putting greens mix as well as tee surface mix. We put it on everything,” he says.

Benz became a fan of Dakota Peat after an Iowa State University study determined that it was the best product for greens mix. The study compared peat to several materials that might be used as substitutes. “Nothing has the water retentive characteristics that peat does. It has substantial superiority when compared to the other products,” Benz says.

The new course features some very unusual character in the greens surfaces. “We were able to create some unusual rolls, valleys, small mounds and other features… things that under normal circumstances would become a little too wet in the low areas and parched and dry on the high areas,” Benz says. “But because of the Dakota Peat, that didn’t happen at all. I have found that once the root mass gets established into the full depth of the soil-sand profile, then all those problems go away. Peat is definitely an advantage in terms of the grow-in of the grass season greens and tee surfaces. I personally won’t consider any other product than Dakota Peat. I’m very particular and I’m also very loyal to it because it is such a quality product.”

The sand used in the blend for the base came from Hallet Materials Co. “Jack Sinclair of Hallet was providing the sand, so I knew that it would be good sand,” Eldridge says of construction plans. “And with Jack involved, there’s never a question about using anything other than Dakota Peat. But I was happy with that because I had used it on a course at Des Moines. I had seen what it could do,” Eldridge says.

Sinclair got into the golf course business about10 years ago he provided the sand for the construction of the Glen Oaks Golf Course at West Des Moines, Iowa. “Since then,” he says, “we’ve furnished USGA greens mix sand in the construction or expansions of the Briarwood and Otter Creek courses and the Ankeny Golf & Country Club all at Ankeny, the Copper Creek course at Pleasant Hill, Woodland Hills at Des Moines, Urbandale Golf & Country Club, Wakonda Club at Des Moines and the Des Moines Golf& Country Club where the 1999 Senior Open was played.

“We provide mixes for greens and tees along with bunker sand, and we furnish top dressing sand for golf courses, putting greens and driving ranges, baseball and football fields. We’ve done 20 golf courses in this area in just the last four years. We do all our work with Dakota Peat,” Sinclair says.

In the development of Honey Creek, Eldridge says, “We got those exceptional results even with the worst of conditions. It was too hot to use a quick-release fertilizer, so we had go with a green release protocol. When we did get rain, it was a three-inch rain. And then we went 67 days in the fall without any precipitation whatsoever. I had to go out in January of this year and put water on the greens. I was afraid it would be so dry that we would lose turf, so we put a 350-gallon tank on the back of the Pro-Gator and hauled six loads of water to every green. The plan for now is to get the front nine as perfect as possible for this year. I’m looking for a real good spring and, with the superior root zone that we have to hold the nutrients, some more fantastic development of the greens.”