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Dundee
gets its turn at sign code
Proposed pipeline could skirt St. Paul
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Course's second nine poised to open |
Officials predict a late August, early September
launch of Chehalem Glenn's back nine |
By Laurent
Bonczijk, Newberg Graphic
reporter
E-mail Laurent at
lbonczijk@eaglenewspapers.com
|
The grass has grown. And been mowed. The cups have been cut. The two
artificial lakes have been filled. The Chehalem Glenn golf course is
so close to opening its back nine holes that a tournament will be
held there Aug. 24.
Yet, the general public will have to wait. “We hope to open it by
the first of September,” said Don Clements, superintendent of the
Chehalem Park and Recreation District. He explained that the parking
lot has to be finished and the pathway along the roadway must be
completed before everyday golfers may play the course.
The addition to the
course comes two years after the opening of the front nine at a cost
of nearly $3 million that was financed through a revenue bond,
Clements said, which the district will be paying off over the next
two decades. The course has so far beaten revenue expectations. The
financial forecast was for the 18 hole course to be meeting
operational costs in its third year. “We did that the first year of
operation of the nine,” Clements said.
Branden Thompson, the course’s head pro, said that while the back
nine will be somewhat similar to the front nine it will be played in
“a more serene setting,” a fact that he attributes to the absence of
a subdivision close to the links. The Green subdivision adjoins the
front nine of the golf course.
There are “more native trees over there,” he said. There are a
couple of lakes golfers will encounter adjacent to holes 14, 15, 16
and 17. A small flock of geese was resting or swimming in the larger
one earlier this week. Thompson said the lakes would have to be
emptied of balls a couple of times a year.
Holes 10, 11 and 12 will be on the left side of the current driving
range and are listed at respectively 402, 418 and 583 yards
respectively. All three will require the golfer to play across
Springbrook Creek. Hole 12 will prove tricky with sand traps
sandwiching the fairway after crossing the creek. Hole 10 features a
steep slope in the fairway.
At 230 yards, gently rolling Hole 13 should give golfers a respite
before attacking the longest hole in the course — a dogleg left of
612 yards.
Hole 15 might prove quite a challenge because the 348 yards dogleg
left involves the largest of the two water features: a lake that
borders the fairway on the left and then wraps around the green.
The players will then be confronted with the shortest hole, 173
yards squeezed between the water behind the green of hole 15 and the
driving range. Holes 17 and 18 are straightforward par fours at 442
and 421 yards.
Although Thompson said that when creating a golf course one works
with the land rather than aiming at making it harder or easier, he
believes that once the Oregon Golfing Association releases its
ratings Chehalem Glenn will be one of the harder courses in Oregon. |
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From
Aug. 11, 2007, Newberg Graphic
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