By Gord Montgomery
In golf everything eventually wears out. You spikes get worn down and need replacing. And it’s the same thing for your clubs’ grips. But outside of personal gear other parts of your golf game, seen or not, wears out. Such was the case for the irrigation system at the Leduc Golf & Country Club.
Now though, after a year of somewhat disrupted play, everything is back to normal, said the club’s General Manager, Rick Brown. He explained the process of replacing the watering system across the 18-hole layout was part of a bigger picture in conjunction with the City of Leduc.
“Right out of Covid we did a land transfer with the City of Leduc and in a nutshell what we got out of that was a new $4 million clubhouse and then the last part is paving, which we probably won’t see until 20026 or ’27. We also got tarps right out of Covid which has made a huge difference for our greens,” as well as a new pump house which has been incorporated.
The biggest change though was replacing the irrigation system which took around a year to complete, from digging up the old piping to replacing it. As noted above, virtually everything needs a facelift of sorts at some point and since this infrastructure was in place for decades it was due for makeover.
“The irrigation is a game-changer! I imagine the irrigation has been in the ground here since we opened in 1961 so probably in the ground since then,” explained Brown.
What this upgrade does is magnify the care the grounds crew at the Leduc course can do going forward. “We’ve gone from 250 (sprinkler) heads to 900,” said the GM. “And just the ability to be laser focused on whether we want to water the greens, water the tee boxes, the fairways, we can just focus directly on what we want done and not do the bunker, the fairway, when we’re trying to do a green. It’s definitely a game-changer.”
The work was all done by Alpine Irrigation, who Brown referred to as “The best in the business,” in combination with Oakcreek Golf & Turf. The work was awarded through a bidding process.
As for the disruption this work caused for players, while it was perhaps annoying to some, there were always 18 holes in play. You see, the course put an extra hole into play … And no, it wasn’t your prototypical 19th hole found in the clubhouse!
“It was handled extremely well by Alpine,” Brown said of how players worked their way around the workers. “There was some anxiety from our membership prior to work starting just because of the fear of the unknown. But, we have a 19th hole, a par-3 that we have out by our sixth hole, so we were still able to at least give the golfer a full 18-hole experience. Maybe not the full length of our course,” but still a full slate of challenges.
The renovation was done by shutting down an entire hole, usually for about a week, while the underground work was done. “They’d (Alpine) work on a hole top to bottom. Put the lines in, button it up, and put it right back together then move onto the next hole,” explained Brown. “You hardly noticed it, what was done, because they were so good at what they did.”
In regard to that little extra hole, Brown noted that it will stay around even though the full length track is back in operation. “We set that up years ago as a practice hole so we will keep it in play as a practice hole,” and if any unforeseen circumstance was to take place, it’s always there to act as a temporary challenge to keep a full 18 holes in play.
So, after a minimal amount of pain, the long term gain for the Leduc Golf Club looks good as they move forward with new amenities. Some like the clubhouse are visible and some, like the new irrigation system may not be seen but still serve the paying customers in a bigger, and better, way.