Renovated Lakes West course opens

After four months of renovations and rebuilding, golfers are teeing off at Lakes West again.

The course reopened Saturday, two days ahead of schedule, due to overseeding being completed early. Lakes West Course Superintendent Dan Cramer was not scheduled to work Saturday, but he was there anyway, giving a tour to family members in town for a visit.

"Everything looks great. They did a really good job," Cramer said. "It’s exactly what we were hoping for."

The project began in July, with plans calling for a complete overhaul of the course’s bunkers. Some were removed, some rebuilt and reshaped and some built from scratch. John Snyder, director of golf operations for the Recreation Centers of Sun City, said the sand traps had to be rebuilt. In the state they were in before, Snyder said they could not be maintained.

"There were bunkers put in on top of other bunkers," Snyder said. "Sand traps are supposed to have about 5inches of sand, right? We have 3 feet or more of sand in every one of these bunkers. "And they didn’t have any drainage in place, either. So what do you get when you have all that sand and no place for water to go? It just stays there. It’s a mud pit."

Lakes West was not supposed to open until today, but Cramer said with work finished ahead of schedule it made no sense to wait.

"We were ready to go, so we decided to open it up," Cramer said. "We’d been closed all summer. We wanted to get golfers out here as soon as possible."

When those golfers play Lakes West, the changes in the bunkers will be immediately obvious. The bunkers are not nearly as deep, for one thing. Golfers, Snyder said, will be able to walk easily into and out of all the sandtraps. A new drainage system will bring water out of the sand traps and into nearby sumps, meaning no more messy conditions in the bunkers. Snyder said they also put in a liquid polymer coating to prevent rocks from working their way up into the sand.

"What we’re doing, essentially, is building sustainable bunkers," he said. "After we’re finished, in order to perform maintenance on a bunker all we’ll need to do is remove the 5 inches of sand and replace it. That’s it."

Asked what he thinks the reaction will be to the new-look Lakes West, Cramer seemed wary of jinxing it.
"You know, I don’t know what the golfers will think," he said. "You’d have to ask them. I mean, I think it turned out great. It’s a new look to the place and I hope they enjoy it."

For information, call 623-561-4600 or visit www.sunaz.com.