Photo By Chuck Cannon | Retired Staff Sgt. Ron Watkins works on his putting Aug. 28 on Warrior Hills Golf...... read more read more
FORT POLK, La. — Don’t be surprised if you see Warrior Hills Golf Course crawling with local linksters today. After a summer without golf, the popular course reopens today for play with a facelift that includes new greens, tee boxes and 10 sand traps.
“We also redid the driving range tees and added a practice putting green,” Mike O’Brien, golf course manager and club pro, said. “A lot of the original look and character of the course was restored.”
Ron Watkins, a retired staff sergeant and frequent player at WHGC prior to its closure for renovations, said he’s glad to see what he considers his home course reopen.
“I’ve been playing on this course for a lot of years and I think they finally got it right this time,” Watkins said.
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.
Jeff Helminiak, business operations officer for the Directorate of 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.”
Helminiak said MWR will allow the local populace to play the course, which is in line with Fort Polk leadership’s desire to foster positive 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,” he said.
Those wishing to tee it up today through Sept. 7 can do so at half price. On Sept. 8 a grand opening with a 144-player invitation-only tournament will take place, including local celebrities and military and civilian leaders. Sponsors and vendors will have tents set up offering free hot dogs, games and door prizes.
“We’re excited about our new look and the opportunity to provide a fantastic golf experience for our Soldiers, their Families, the civilian work force and area residents,” O’Brien said.
| Date Taken: | 08.31.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 08.31.2018 15:14 |
| Story ID: | 291181 |
| Location: | FORT POLK, LOUISIANA, US |
| Web Views: | 61 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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