After opening early last month with only 18 of its 36 holes playable, the Colonie Golf Course plans to fully open for the season this week, according to Colonie Golf Course Superintendent John Risler.
The course, which saw its first season in 1969, is located on the west side of Colonie, on Consaul Road. It is open to all residents and non-residents of the town, with residents receiving a discount.
According to PGA Head Professional Noel Gebauer, the golf course opened early this year, on Thursday, March 26, with nearly 80 golfers testing the grounds for the first time in 2009.
The weather and the course condition dictated we did have playable conditions, said Gebauer of opening day. However, only 18 holes of the 36 were playable on opening day due to the wetness of the grounds.
According to Risler, wet ground can affect the course and golfers for the extent of the season.
`When [golfers] are walking on the wet greens, they make a lot of footprints, and the greens stay bumpy all year long,` Risler said. In the event that the greens do become bumpy, Risler said, agricultural practices have to be completed to restore the ground. While two greens with wet ground were not utilized until now, Risler said they could have come into good use a few times so far this season.
`We’ve had, probably, three big days, busy days this spring, where it would have been nice to have those two nines open,` he said.
But, at the same time, Risler said he, and other employees at the golf course, are lucky that the ice storm that took place last December did not do significant damage to the greens.
`We lost a little bit of turf here and there,` he said, adding that the damage could have been a lot worse.
Risler explained the process that is involved in preparing the greens for the golf season.
`What we typically like to do is we typically like to mow the grass at least twice a week to stimulate the grass,` he said.
According to Risler, typically, grass seeds are not planted in the spring at the golf course and instead, the bare areas, if there are any, are nursed back until the time comes to plant the seeds when the weather is warmer.
`But fortunately, we didn’t have to do any of that on the greens anyways, and a lot of that is what we do in the fall to get the grass to go to sleep in the winter,` he said.
On average, Gebauer said the golf course tends to be open from the first week or two in April until around Thanksgiving.
This year, Gebauer was named Golf Pro of the Year by the Northeastern New York PGA.
`It is the most prestigious award that we can receive,` Gebauer said of his award.
`We are the busiest golf course in upstate New York,’ Gebauer said. `That’s actually a fact based off of the rounds that we do. We did 70,000 rounds of golf last year and I cannot find anyone in upstate New York that’s done that many.`
Gebauer also said that all four of the course’s greens are of championship level difficulty.
The golf course hosts about 80 tournaments a year, of varying size, the biggest being a 280-person tournament of the New York State Tax Department, which competes annually.
Also located within the golf course is ChipShots Sports Bar, offering breakfast, lunch and dinner.
For more information about the Colonie Golf Course, including rates and tee times, visit the course’s Web site at www.colonie.org/parks/golf.
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