Golf Course prioritizes turf health, steers clear of town drainage water

EAGLE STAFF

The Rosetown Golf Course would only again use contaminated water flowing past it in an “emergency,” club president Ryan Wickett said last week.

Board members returned Wickett as president, Keegan McAvoy as vice-president and Darren Shynkaruk as treasurer after the annual general meeting on Nov. 20.

The club used water from the town’s drainage ditch to water the course during the drought three years ago but he hopes to never again do so, Wickett indicated.

“We want to make sure we don’t leach (contaminants) into the water table so we want to stay away from that kind of stuff,” he said. Head groundskeeper Morgan Meyer has “put us in a pretty good spot agronomically now,” he said.

“I think that our turf health is a whole lot better than it’s ever been before, so I think we should be OK without ever having to worry about that stuff.”

He and Meyer are working on the course budget for next year and Wickett didn’t anticipate any major upgrades to the course next season.

“Nothing at the start of the season for sure, but we’ll see what we can look towards maybe later in the year,” if the club gets funding, he said.

The club had 50 dead trees removed from its grounds last year and Meyer has another 50 to take out this year, Wickett said. “He’s been busy with that the last few weeks and, in the spring, he’ll be busy again.”