Four years and countless kilograms of debris later, the Kananaskis Country Golf Course is edging closer to reopening.
The premier 18-hole courses — Mount Kidd and Mount Lorette — are in various stages of repair following the devastating flood of 2013, but will be fully operational by the first tee times of 2018.
‘”We’re closing in on getting the first 18 completed in terms of grass and we expect that to happen sometime over the next month,” said general manager Darren Robinson. “We’ve been going hard since May 1 . . . and we’ve made some tremendous progress.”
Robinson said the plan was to rebuild Mount Lorette first, then switch over to Mount Kidd, but some of the work has been done simultaneously, such as the exhaustive relaying of the irrigation system. If there’s any positive from the flood, Robinson said it provided the opportunity to upgrade a 30-year-old system to one more environmentally friendly and make some tweaks to the course.
Robinson said much of the flood debris was reused: cobble became berms; silt dredged from ponds is the bedding material for irrigation; excavated sand has become the new tee boxes. What is new is the sod — bluegrass from Coaldale, for the tees and fairways, while bent grass from Abbotsford, B.C., is being rolled out on the greens. The powdery silica sand for the traps is from the same Golden, B.C., supplier used for the past 30 years.
“We had to bring in turf because we have such an aggressive timeline to complete it and get it back open. In this part of the world, we’ve got such a limited window of growth. Starting from seed would take years longer,” said Robinson.
Coming into this season, five holes on Mount Lorette remained incomplete. On Mount Kidd, all of the major construction work is finished but it still needs irrigation installation, finishing grading and grass. Looking down from the clubhouse, the scope of work is apparent as Mount Kidd to the left is all brown, contoured dirt while, to the right, Mount Lorette’s ninth fairway is a lush green belt skirting a brilliant blue pond.
