Golf course may get eco-friendly

Attempts to reduce turf to 20 percent could aid conservation effort

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More than 100 property owners with homes backing up to a majority of the 18 holes at Boulder City Golf Course have been invited, along with the public, to a special meeting Wednesday night to hear about plans to develop a demonstration garden and the initial removal of 12.5 acres of turf at the city's oldest course still in play.

The meeting, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at the Boulder Creek Golf Club's pavilion, will address a long-discussed water conservation plan aimed at saving 2.4 million gallons of water per acre per year, or a Phase 1 savings of 30 million gallons worth $134,865.

The water conservation and desert landscaping conversion program will remove a 50-foot strip of grass, on average, along seven stretches of fairways behind homes on Fairway, Sandra, Mendota and Bermuda Dunes drives, Del Monte Lane, Brentwood Way, St. Andrews and Broadmoor courts and Broadmoor Circle.

If Phases 2 and 3 become reality, they will affect additional homes bordering the course located on other streets ringing the course, as well as changing the look and feel of the fully grassed driving range.

The demonstration garden behind the 15th green and along the path leading to the 16th tee box, which crosses Bermuda Dunes Drive, was selected because of its strategic location.

"We plan to go in and desert landscape a portion of an area between the 13th green and the 14th tee box that had been previously converted to rock and, quite frankly, was an eyesore for years for the people living along the 13th fairway," City Golf Director Bob Conrad said. "We want to close that area off because we don't want people walking in on the course to look at that area. The area we selected is close to (Bermuda Dunes) and provides easy access for people to walk through since we plan to extensively landscape the area and have a meandering rock bed."

The driving range was left for a second, 10-acre phase because the immediate change from all grass to a few patches around the pin targets would have been too drastic to start with.

"We wanted to find and change the area's least impacted to golfers first because we don't want to change the look of the course," Conrad said. "The 12-plus acres we've selected probably provides for the least impact to visibility for homeowners, the aesthetics to golfers and the playability of the course."

In all, the city is looking to convert 30 acres, or 20 percent, of the 150-acre course to desert landscaping during the project's three phases.

The budget for the project is $520,000, of which the Southern Nevada Water Authority will rebate $300,000 because the conversion complies with its Smart Water program. Under that program, SNWA will pay $1 per square foot for up to 50,000 square feet of turf switched out for desert landscaping, and 50 cents per square foot for up to another 500,000 square feet of land converted to drought-resistant trees and shrubs.

In either case, projects must be pre-approved by SNWA.

Although the city previously allocated $220,000 in capital improvement funds for the project, Conrad hopes to use SNWA funds to pay for the entire project so that it won't cost the city a dime.

"Prior to using capital funds, we're going to try to utilize only SNWA dollars to get the first phase done," Conrad said. "By doing it that way, we'll try to avoid using any city money."

For the past two years, SNWA has been debating whether to up the 50-cent rebate to $1 for the 500,000 square-foot conversion, Conrad said. If that were to happen, the golf director would be one happy person.

"If that were the case, we'd use 100 percent SNWA money for the project," he said. "The only thing, though, is we've already waited two years for the increase."

Conrad said he hopes to start the demonstration garden this spring, or as soon as the city can issue requests for proposals. Once those go out and the bids come in, he said the city would know how the funding picture would go.

A number of drought-prone golf courses throughout the Southwest during recent years have been built more cautiously with water use in mind or have been converted to mostly desert landscaping. It's a trend that has developed target golf courses, or courses where patches and strips of grass are strategically located on fairways for the placement of shots, which are rife with prolific desert landscaping everywhere else -- in, on, along and behind tee boxes, fairways and putting greens.

For golfers accustomed to park-like courses with an abundance of grass, like Boulder City Golf Course, the difference is stark, barren and otherwise unsightly, which can make for a poor and unfulfilling golf experience.

"That Arizona-style of golf is something we don't want to achieve here," Conrad said. "For those that might be wondering, we'll never switch to target golf here."