Strathcona Golf Course Turns On The Water
by Scott A. Sumner
www.golfingnews.ca
Tom Forsythe, Manager of Golf Thunder Bay is a happy man these days. His flagship golf course, Strathcona now has a $600,000 brand new watering system which will certainly improve the conditioning of this popular north ward course. “ We have been using it for about a week and can turn it on by radio control. We like to be where we can see the heads popping so we won’t get any golfers wet,” smiled Forsythe. “ It is a 2 way radio with a key pad. You punch in a code and the radio signal goes out to a satellite, through the the wiring and activates
that zone. We started construction late May 2008 and finished the last week in August.”
There was almost 59 miles of control wire and 10 miles of pipes used in the project. Every head has a control wire going to it and a power wire. They are 4 metal boxes out on the course. They are radio controlled to the 450 heads on the course. “ We run all four zones at
the same time with 12 heads going. Each head uses 50 gallons a minute of water and we have 12 heads so it is 600 gallons. Our water is on the city water system now and we will leave it on the city system for about 3 to 5 years. Our long term plan is to build a reservoir or pond along no. 3 fairway and use water we collect from rainfall and supplement it with city water. The fairway heads run along each side of the fairway and they get well out into the rough”, smiled Forsythe. “ It is huge for Strathcona. In the next few years you will see significant improvement in the golf course in terms of it will not burn out in the summer. This golf course is going to be a little challenging to water because of the different soil structures that are out there but we will
be able to improve the turf quality significantly. This will allow us to lower the height of cut on the fairways and have a tighter lie similar to what happened at Chapples where their turf improved. The members will be paying that back over the years. It is a good day!”
Strathcona has been like other Thunder Bay courses this season. July and August have been good months play wise but May and June horrible. We had 41 of 61 days with measurable rainfall in May and June stated Forsythe.
