Oxford, AL – Cider Ridge, SKCC officials pleased with the way the new bermuda greens at the Oxford course have come in, just in time for the Classic
By Al Muskewitz
Cory Etter bent way down on the first green at Cider Ridge Golf Club, ran his hand over the green carpet under his feet and flashed a satisfied smile. He knows it’s the greens the golfers are coming to see to forget about life for a while. For the past 12 weeks, Etter and Cider Ridge have been in a race with Mother Nature to get their newly installed TifEagle Bermuda greens established and flourishing in time for the Sunny King Charity Classic that gets underway Friday.
More than 200 two-man teams will converge on the course over the weekend – not including the midweek practice rounds – and the operators of the Oxford course have kept their fingers crossed that everything will goes according to plan. “I really wasn’t worried,” Etter said. “I guess if there was one it was time. You want it get grown in, you want to get it to where people can play again. I would say the weather was pretty good this year, pretty good growing weather. From the time the sprigs went down to the day we opened ,it was 11 weeks and a day.
“We were shooting for 8 to 10 weeks, but we knew if we had 12 weeks that would give us the time.” Since the spring of 2011, Cider Ridge had been the only course in Calhoun County – and one of the only public-access courses in this part of the state – playing on bent grass greens. It’s a distinction all the course’s operators over the years have worn as a badge of pride, but one that presents its own unique set of challenges.
But those greens have been in place since the day the course opened the first tee in 2002 with no resurfacing other than what takes place during regular maintanence, so they were well past their lifespan. Bent greens typically are resurfaced every eight to 10 years and, Etter said, “for the future of this place to continue to be successful and progress in that way, we have to make the switch. The new grass also will be applied to a new 40,000-square-foot, 18-hole putting course , the practice putting/chipping area at the site of the current practice green and the nursery green, and they’re adding a short-game area on the right side of the driving range. [*** read more]
