A $2.4 million California renovation is getting a high-tech USGA boost

“We are going to remove about 40 percent of the square footage of bunkers, either reducing size or changing the shape of them a little bit,” Winant said. Winant added that some bunkers will be removed completely in the project.

The South Course is known in part for its bunkers, large bunkers with high faces along the fairways and near the greens. Other work on the bunkers will also be part of the process, refreshing the 20-year-old course designed by Schmitt-Curley architects.

“We are going to remove all the sand from the bunkers and we are going to re-line all the bunkers,” the general manager said. “We are doing spray-on liners so we won’t have the liners sticking up anymore.”

Like most golf courses that do renovations these days, the focus will also be on the greens on the South Course. Bermuda greens that are overseeded with cool-weather grass all tend to shrink over time. Brawley and Shadow Hills will take the existing greens back to their original size, adding as much as four to six inches around the entire collar of the green. But unlike many desert courses, the South Course will not be converting to the popular MiniVerde grass for its greens.

“We are not going to change that yet,” Winant said. “It might be something we look at down the road as Troon does some more research on an annual grass that you don’t have to overseed.”

The 18th green near the clubhouse of the South Course at Shadow Hills Golf Club in Indio. The course will close on May 18 for the summer for renovations on bunkers, greens and tee boxes.

Other work on the golf courses will include irrigation work on some areas that get too much water from the irrigation sprinklers, but there won’t be a complete overhaul or changing of the irrigation system, Winant said. Some areas where Bermuda grass no longer grows will be sodded with Bermuda to aid in overseeding in the fall.

“We have wet spots just due to drainage issues and we are going to fix all of that,” he said. “We’ll do some of the landscaping on the course.  We are overseeding wall to wall now instead of browning out the rough.“

The tees on the golf courses will also be leveled to make up for 20 years of traffic. It all might seem like a lot, but it is work that can be completed in one summer.

“It’s going to be a pretty big project. It’s about $2.4 million,” Winant said. “We’ll be back up after overseed. So the traditional date that we would open up, about the first of November, that’s what we are planning.”

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: California golf course renovation using golfer data from USGA