Golf season will be upon us in a few short weeks, and while we continue to see regular weekly snowfall events, I thought now would be a good time to reflect on the many improvements we already made and plan to make to the golf course in our effort to continually improve the Ravenna experience for Members and guests.

We have continued to improve the aesthetics of the tee complexes on holes #4, #6, #7, and #12. These improvements have included tee leveling, reshaping of certain tees, irrigated and sodded walk-ups, extended cart path pull-outs w/curbing, and we added a new alternate Forest tee on #6 that will play 160-170 yards.

We continue to make improvements to our bunker quality and have made a reduction to the greenside bunker on #11. We will continue to remove bunkers and reduce square footage of bunkers that have been noted in our Master Vision that Kevin Atkinson provided in 2015. Additionally, we will focus on improving the quality of bunkers throughout the season.

This season we will be employing a new technology available to the golf industry and we will be the first golf course on the front range to use GreenSight. GreenSight is a service that provides daily aerial photos, infrared heat images and plant health imagery of the golf course with daily drone flights that are piloted from Boston, Ma. The daily updated maps can be integrated into our Toro central control irrigation system, providing us with precise irrigation scheduling that has never been provided before. The goal is to provide more consistent playing conditions, to identify irrigation inefficiencies before they become a problem, and ultimately reduce our water usage. I am very excited that Ravenna will be an early adopter of this technology that will provide our membership with improved playing conditions.

With construction complete at La Bella Vita, the final landscape portion to the south of our practice green is nearing completion. Our team is in the process of expanding the practice putting green by adding 1,800 square feet of puttable surface for a total square footage of 9,000 square feet. In addition to the green expansion, we have re-graded the large mound on the south portion which will provide additional practice hole locations. This project will also include a connecting cart path from the cart staging area to the new clubhouse parking lot. This will allow members with private carts easier access from the community to the clubhouse. This area will have upgraded landscaping, lighting along the cart path, and will improve the overall appearance of the practice area. We are targeting April 1 for completion of this project, weather pending, of course.

Steve Datwyler
Golf Course Superintendent

See below for photos from the project over the last few weeks:





(Photos above from February 14)




(Photos above from March 1)

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