The three-year renovation plan for the Sioux Falls, S.D., property began last September, and is a result of the nearby airport expanding its runway safety area by clearing out trees.
Elmwood Golf Course in Sioux Falls, S.D., kicked off a three-year renovation plan last September, the Sioux Falls (S.D.)-based KSFY News reported.
This past weekend, golfers got to check out the opening of the new East Course, but starting Monday, the next phase begins as the North Nine goes down for about year, KSFY reported.
The reason for the makeover of Elmwood Golf Course has more to do with the blue skies, than the green fairways. The Sioux Falls Regional Airport needed to expand the runway safety area at the airport and clear out any trees that may have grown into the airspace, KSFY reported.
Dakota Golf Management president Tom Jansa recently talked about the plans for closing the North Nine at Elmwood, KSFY reported.
“Our goal was to try to do it in the shortest period of time, while keeping golf open all the time, 18 holes of golf at Elmwood. It would be very difficult to find places for those players to play if we didn’t. As a result, this grow-in process that we’re doing is very accelerated. There are some things around the edges here that will take a little time to grow in, but the playing areas are absolutely fabulous,” Jansa said.
Some of the changes golfers will see include re-routing four holes, concrete cart paths, and a re-grassing of all of the tees, fairways and greens. The management also fixed some of the drainage issues that the old course had when it rained, KSFY reported.
As one course opens another one closes. “They’ll work through the fall. They will seed in the spring. We’ll be back here, hopefully maybe even a little earlier next year if we don’t get 13 inches of rain in ten days in June, which kind of put us behind, but we anticipate each of the next courses coming online in the fall of the next two years,” Jansa said.
“We tackled the hard one first because we knew we needed to play this golf course. We knew we needed to have a golf course that was going to be, not only just acceptable but really embraced by the golfing community, in these intervening two years,” Jansa added.
In September 2016, there will be an all new Elmwood Golf Course, with all 27 holes open, KSFY reported.
“What I hear is from anybody who’s either been out or the few folks who came out to play is it’s a golf course they’re going to want to play at the end of three years,” Jansa said.
And with a $5 million price tag, this renovation is huge. It was funded by the FAA, the Sioux Falls Regional Airport, and the city of Sioux Falls, KSFY reported.
“The purpose of the renovation here was not to create an equal nine among nines, in terms of difficulty or any of those features, we wanted the east course to be an updated version of what it was before, a very friendly golf course. A course that is great for developmental players, but great for everybody else as well,” Jansa said.
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