Plum Creek Golf and Country Club

Here at Plum Creek we understand the importance of course conditions to an enjoyable round of golf. Walk mowing greens, daily raking of our 74 sand traps and the close 3/8″ mowing height of our bentgrass fairways are only a few examples of our efforts to provide the best playing conditions possible. Greens are topdressed and groomed regularly to provide smooth ball roll and enhance green speed. Many hours are spent hand watering on greens, tees and fairways in an effort to reduce wet spots and provide a playing surface as consistent as possible. Maintaining a championship course the caliber of Plum Creek also means tremendous effort goes into the mowing operations particularly around the greens and bunkering where much of the work must be done by hand and is very labor intensive. Anyone who has been to the clubhouse during the summer months has seen the beautiful landscaping not only around the clubhouse but the pool, tennis courts and golf course where extensive annuals, trees and shrubs are meticulously maintained. Great expense is also incurred owning and maintaining the cultivation equipment to perform necessary cultivation work such as aerifying, verticutting, topdressing, and spiking. These operations are regularly scheduled to manage and control things like compaction and thatch. Projects such as irrigation system upgrades, drainage, bunker renovation, cartpath replacement and tee construction are constantly going on as it is management’s philosophy to improve the golf course every year.

As is often the case with visionaries such as golf course Architect Pete Dye and PGA Tour Commissioner Dean Beman they were able to foresee the future by identifying the need to protect the environment. By recognizing the need to conserve things such as water, especially in our climate and reduce the need for pesticides they were able to create a very environmentally friendly golf course. The decision to build a “target type” links golf course has created a challenging golf course rewarding the well-placed golf shot, while still being very environmentally friendly. They have accomplished this by surrounding the highly maintained turf on the greens, tees and fairways with the extremely adaptive fine fescue turf chosen for the roughs. This decision has proven to be a very effective way to lower the water and pesticide usage of a significant amount of acreage as compared to commonly used bluegrass.

In accordance with this original design concept it is also management’s philosophy that we need to take care of the environment as well as the golf course. Through daily monitoring of the turf’s water requirements and extensive hand watering operations in the summer we are able to conserve our most precious recourse, water. Additionally a truly comprehensive approach to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is practiced. This means that through a program of sound practices applied towards watering, fertilizing, cultivating and monitoring for pests we can greatly reduce the need for pesticides while still providing outstanding playing conditions. Planting trees and relocating trees from surrounding development projects before they are destroyed is another great example of how the club is committed to not only protecting the environment but enhancing it as well. Finally the club is an active member in the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program. By building birdhouses, allowing Naturalized Wild life areas to exist around the course and simply being a large expanse of open space the golf course provides an excellent area for all types of wild life to exist in and migrate through. As you can see we believe it is extremely important to us that we not only provide our members with such an outstanding golfing facility but we do so in a way that protects and enhances the environment as well.