Photo By Chuck Cannon | Looking down the first fairway at the green with its two new sand traps at Warrior...... read more read more
FORT POLK, La. -- Local linksters will soon
have a familiar place to tee it up when the newlyrefurbished
Warrior Hills Golf Course reopens
for play Aug. 31.
Sporting 18 renovated greens, 50 tee boxes and
10 sand traps, WHGC remains true to its 60-year
past while offering players the finest in up-todate
technology and playing conditions, according
to Mike O’Brien, golf course manager and
club pro.
“We also redid the driving range tees and
added a practice putting green,” O’Brien said.
“We built an emergency sod farm behind the old
club house, replaced all the wooden bridges and
we’ve done a lot of cleanup to make it a place a
person is proud to play on.”
O’Brien said the renovation was a fun process
to watch. “They used lasers to get the proper
slope on the greens, and they put a 3-foot collar
around all the greens for additional protection,”
he said. “A lot of the original look and character
of the course was restored.”
The renovations were driven by the fact that
the golf course had basically become unplayable
due to its deteriorating greens and tee boxes in
poor shape, O’Brien said. That led to fewer
golfers who wanted to play the course.
“IMCOM (Installation Management Command)
had been looking at all of its golf courses,
especially the ones that haven’t been profitable,”
O’Brien said. “They had closed the course on
Fort Riley (Kansas) because it wasn’t profitable
and were looking at doing the same with Fort
Polk.”
O’Brien said two Fort Polk leaders persuaded
IMCOM leaders to give it another chance.
“(Former garrison commander) Colonel
(David) Athey and (former Joint Readiness Training
Center and Fort Polk commander) Major
General (Gary) Brito got on board and wanted to
keep the golf course here,” O’Brien said. “With
Fort Polk being in a somewhat isolated area, this
is a great benefit for our community.
Jeff Helminiak, business operations officer for
Family Morale, Welfare and Recreation at Fort
Polk, said a big question on whether to move forward
with renovations was this: Did the post
troop population support enough rounds played
to generate a profit?
“We’re a high-tempo war-fighting installation,
and a training installation, so that takes a large
population of our Soldiers away for significant
periods of time,” he said. “That hurts the play.
The question becomes, as MWR, are we a business
or are we a service? In our case with high
deployments, and fewer Soldiers on the course as
players, the profitability goes down and some
decisions were made to start cutting expenses.
When you cut expenses in labor, one of the side
effects was it became more difficult to maintain
the course, and it slowly deteriorated over time.”
In spite of the poor conditions, Helminiak said
there were a few die-hard players who continued
to support Warrior Hills and a lot of credit for the
refurbishing work goes to them.
“The voice of the customer was part of the reason
why we put this project together and pushed
it through to IMCOM headquarters for financial
support,” he said.
Since the Soldier population is still the same,
Helminiak said the plan is to also market the golf
course to retirees and the local civilian population. “Normally, DFMWR-authorized patrons are
Soldiers, their Families, civilian government employees
and retirees, but in the case of the golf
course, we have a general public access waiver
for normally non-authorized patrons to play on
our course,” he said. “We’re going to rely on that
customer base to keep this place going for the
Soldiers to play.”
Helminiak said allowing the local populace to
play also helps foster good community relations
with the areas around Fort Polk.
“We need to communicate to the outside community
that it is easy to get on post and you are
allowed to get on the golf course and play. We
are working with the garrison leadership to come
up with an annual pass for those outside of post
to enter the installation to play golf.”
Helminiak said the cost of renovations totaled
about $900,000. Although that seems a significant
sum, he said leadership had to weigh it against
other alternatives.
“As funding gets tighter, we have to look at
our programs and go back to that old adage I
mentioned earlier — are we a service or are we a
business?” he said. “If we’re losing $100,000 a
year on the golf course, is that acceptable to provide
the service, or do we close down the course
and have the garrison spend a few hundred
thousand dollars a year maintaining this area as
a park?”
For now, the decision is to keep the doors of
the golf course open. Raven Golf Construction
Inc. performed the work. It’s president, Jim Kirkendall,
knows Fort Polk well — the former infantry
Soldier went through Tiger Land on his
way to Vietnam.
“He (Kirkendall) was relentless in how he approached
the work to make sure we were going
to have the best product in the area,” Helminiak
said.
O’Brien said golfers can expect to see tournaments,
monthly scrambles and other events at
WHGC.
“We’re going to offer 50 percent off greens fees
from Aug. 31-Sept. 7, and then have our grand
opening ribbon cutting on Sept. 8,” he said.
The grand opening event will include a 144-
player invitational tournament with local civic
leaders, DFMWR sponsors and military leadership.
“Although there will be no open play that day,
the driving range will be open all day and there
will be food and sponsors tents,” Helminiak said.
O’Brien said players can expect to see him on
the course on a regular basis.
“I’m going to be spending a lot of time on the
course, teaching new golfers course etiquette,” he
said. “We’re going to have to change the thinking
of golfers since we are going to have a great
course that people will be proud to play.”
| Date Taken: | 08.24.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 08.27.2018 10:22 |
| Story ID: | 290400 |
| Location: | FORT POLK, LOUISIANA, US |
| Web Views: | 192 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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