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Flowers. Dresses. Tuxedos.

Chanhassen * 952-934-3434

“Trees Are Our Roots”

8099 Bavaria Rd * Victoria * 952-443-2990

For all your home financing needs.

Bob Merrill 952-746-9555

Saturday, September 23rd.

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Hwy 41 & 212

Chaska

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The Victoria Gazette Archives

Past issues are pushing up daisies at

www.VictoriaGazette.com

Golf Course Renovation

“My first job with a golf course was in 1971 or 1972 at the Chaska Par 30,” said Jeff. “I know I didn’t have a driver’s license yet so I must have been 14 or 15.”

“After the 1970 U.S. Open at Hazeltine, they wanted to build a junior course, a par 30,” said Jeff. “Robert Trent Jones, who designed Hazeltine, also designed the Chaska Par 30. He had a piece of equipment called a shaper that did character shaping -- of a golf course. Somehow we got connected, and the guy on the shaper and myself were the only two building the Par 30 that summer ...

“George Bender and Florian Kerber were working there in turf maintenance and Milt Wiley was the head greens keeper and turf manager. They were all local guys. It was the coolest summer for me. I just had a blast. We did the bunkers, the trees, the drainage, everything ...

“The Par 30 made so much money for the City of Chaska, which is why Chaska came to build the 18-hole Town Course. There’ a lot of money in it for them.”

The Hazeltine Golf Course needed a series of renovations after receiving negative press from the 1970 Open, and renovation included the abandonment of hole #16 and the construction of a new 16th. “I built hole #16,” said Jeff. “It’s the famous hole.”

A google search reveals that Jeff did such a superb job on Hole #16 that it’s known as Hazeltine’s “signature hole.” It became famous during the 1991 U.S. Open. The tee shot must carry over Hazeltine Lake, and the green is a raised peninsula that juts into the lake. Jeff built that peninsula.

Jeff also constructed a footbridge at the Hazeltine course that replicates a famous bridge in Scotland. Jeff hired Vogel Masonry of Victoria to help with the work and, although it rained continuously for eight days, construction was completed in those same eight days. It came to be called “the Payne Stewart Bridge” because Payne Stewart won the championship at that U.S. Open.

Jeff displays prints of his famous hole and bridge at his office. The Hole #16 print is signed by Payne Stewart and the bridge print is signed by Peter Wong, the famous photographer.

As with other of Jeff’s ventures, one thing led to another. “We built the Deer Run Golf Course in 1988 and did all the changes at Deer Run since then,” he said. “Without Hazeltine, I would not have been asked by Fred Plocher and Bill Maple to do Deer Run.”

“Business evolved into golf course renovation,” said Jeff. “The golf boom came about 2000. Now fewer are getting built. That’s okay. There’s more business in renovating the existing courses ...

“We’ve built 1,800 bunkers in the last ten years. We’ve got drainage equipment that is only one or two of its kind in the country. We brought equipment from England, Holland, and Germany. People hire us for our drainage equipment ...

“Because of this equipment, we’re also hired to build athletic fields. We build the drainage for those fields. We build fields for the Minnesota Vikings.”

Said Jeff, “You’ve got to have it in your brain. You’ve got to see it before the architects do. It’s art -- like molding clay. You have to know beforehand what it will look like in the end.” Irrigation for golf courses as well as for residential homes and commercial development is a service of Hartman Companies.

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