The best young female golfers in Canada were at Deer Park for the Canadian Junior Girl’s Golf Championship. But in order to host the best girls in the country, one needs to have a golf course that is worthy of the talent on display. That task went to Leo Skaluba and his team.
The preparation came down to stepping up the maintenance on the course, doing extra fertilization on the course, increasing the amount of broad leaf spraying on the course to improve the aesthetics. They also increased the amount of mowing, did increased fungicide application, and hired a larger crew to maintain the course.
“We had the Saskatchewan Juniors, so we had ramped up for that one already, so we just carried it on. We hired six more people to help fine tune the course, they edged the traps, hauled a lot of sand into the traps to get them more playable. The traps really look good.”
Events that the team can’t control also worked out in the course’s favour. Skaluba says that the weather this year worked to the team’s advantage when it came to preparing the course.
“We were lucky this spring, the greens came through really well so we didn’t have to worry about the greens too much.”
A major tournament falling on a rainy week was a challenge, but Skaluba says it also gave them a bit of an advantage. Since all the girls were walking, that meant no carts, which significantly reduced the amount of damage that would otherwise happen to the course. Still, wet weather does put them at a disadvantage in other ways.
“You always get a little better cut when it’s dry, but it hasn’t been that wet that we’re really not getting the best cut, so it’s been working out well. Our biggest thing when it’s wet like this is that we’re always watching for fungus, for disease. The disease can creep up on you and do damage in no time, on tees, greens, fairways. We sprayed our greens but there’s a lot of turf around there and we don’t want disease spreading.”
While a major tournament does mean that the maintenance gets stepped up, Skaluba says that what they really want to do is have a consistent course for all the players who come to Deer Park.
“It’s good for the course. You want the course to be in the best shape possible, whether it’s for a person playing a round of golf or a person playing in a tournament. We do ramp up, we hire extra help, or we try to cut a little more for the tournament, but we try to keep it the same, because it goes back to if you do it for the tournament, why can’t you do it all the time?”
Getting ready for a tournament is a team effort, and Skaluba says that without a good team it wouldn’t be possible to get the course in the shape that it’s in or run the tournament at all. He says that Deer Park has been able to host events because the staff puts forth every effort to make Deer Park a course worthy of major events. He admits that getting ready for a major tournament can be a stressful and trying experience, and thanks the staff for all the extra effort in the days leading up to the tournament.
“The staff is the major component in this. I’m just one small end of it. The staff, they take pride in their jobs, they help out as much as they can, and that’s how it all comes together.”
Skaluba has been impressed by the young golfers on the course, and says he expects big things of more than a few of them.
“They’re just such tremendous hitters and tremendous strikers. It is supposed to be the up and coming golfers in Canada for ladies, so it wouldn’t be surprising if some are on the LPGA in years to come. It’s amazing what they can do, we see them practicing a lot and they’re very dedicated to this game.”
