Wahkonsa Country Club adds creek to alleviate water issues

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Spring has sprung. Although the novel coronavirus COVID-19 has forced the stoppage of organized K-12 sports and any activities with more than 10 people, golf may be the answer — a sport played in wide-open spaces without large crowds.

At Wahkonsa Country Club on historic Highway 6 between Wilton and Durant, members are ready to dust off their golf clubs for play. When they arrive on course, they’ll notice a new man-made creek to help with ongoing drainage issues the club has dealt with for years.

Some of the lowest spots on the course, according to elevations, are the right side of hole No. 7 extending from the clubhouse south toward the highway, extending through holes No. 8 and No. 5. These elevations were confirmed with drone work from Needham Excavating of Walcott, which helped create a new creek feature along one of the most heavily flooded portion of the course.

Last spring was extremely wet, resulting in most of hole No. 7 being under water for much of the early part of the season. The washed away area left the hole unplayable for most of the summer.

According to Matt Finck, a 2001 Durant High School graduate who serves on the club’s board of directors, there was also tile in the area that had been damaged over the years due to tree roots and other debris infiltrating the lines.

“The field tile worked well until it got plugged up,” said Finck, who noted that a portion of tile that ran in front of the pond on hole No. 9 and the green on hole No. 6 was also repaired last year to help alleviate water issues.

“We made some Band-Aids last year to try and make it playable, then put together a long-term plan. This was Needham’s design,” Finck said.

Rather than dig up and replace all the tile along No. 7 and south to the highway, Needham used the tile route, along with elevation mapping, to decide where a new creek could go in order to help water naturally flow away from the course and to a drain that eventually runs underneath Highway 6 after exiting the course through the natural gully on hole No. 5.

The result is a creek that was recently graded and seeded in preparation for the 2020 season. “Ideally it will be a dry creek but there hasn’t been a time since that there hasn’t been water in it,” said Finck. “The tile from holes 7, 8 and 5 will drain into the creek to give it a quicker route out.”

Finck said the work was 99 percent done. Concrete bridges have been added on holes 7, 8 and 5 to help carts and walkers get across at all times. With most of the excavating work being done on hole No. 7, it will play as a short par 3 for the 2020 season as the new creek and ground around it settles and grows.

Finck also noted that four members of the Needham crew were members at Wahkonsa, making the company a natural fit to do the project. “Needham helped out greatly. We worked with their schedule,” Finck said. “They’re slower in the winter so it helped keep their staff working. They’ve gone above and beyond.”

Other renovations

Wahkonsa is also tackling several other projects around the course, providing a new look for several long-time members. One involves filling in some of the sand bunkers around the 9-hole layout, like those on holes 7 and 5. They were filled in with dirt from the creek project.

Other sand traps around the course have also been modified due erosion issues, according to Finck.

More of the fill dirt helped create a 12-foot berm in the area between holes 7 and 9 where there used to be a “no mow” zone.

The club is also in the process of taking down several ash trees due to the Emerald ash borer beetle outbreak that has been spreading around portions of the United States, including Iowa.

There were 43 ash trees located throughout the golf course that needed to be taken down. Around half have been removed and Finck noted about 10-12 have been removed this year, leaving 10-12 left to go.

Ash trees around the grounds are marked with white spray-paint around the trunks to note which ones need to be cut down. Members have created a separate tree fund in order to try and raise money to plant new trees throughout the course in coming years.

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