During my 34 years at the IAA, I have visited over 350 students interning at golf and sports facilities throughout the U.S. This year was going to be the year I visited Hawaii; somehow those plans changed to a golf course facility in Anchorage, Alaska. Yes, Alaska! As you would surmise, jokes about an Alaskan golf course internship abounded: “Will you need a dog sled to get to work?” or “Do they really have golf courses in Alaska?” I, too, was curious to learn more about a golf course facility just south of the Arctic Circle!
On August 5 I boarded a 2.5 hour flight to Minneapolis followed by 5 more hours to Anchorage where I landed around 6 p.m. and still had about 6 hours of daylight left. I saw a youth baseball game being played at 9:30 p.m. without lights. During the summer Anchorage can have sufficient light 24 hours from mid-June to early July. During my visit it was light from 4:40 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.
I met with my student intern, Tim Burkhart, and his superintendent, Marty Baumann, on the morning of August 6 and spent 6 hours discussing and viewing the challenges of golf course maintenance in Alaska. Anchorage Golf Course is a public facility, open from mid-May to mid-October with most of the play occurring from June through August.
A view of the course with the Chugach Mountain Range in the background.
The course averages 33,000 rounds of golf per year, that’s over 220 rounds of golf per day! Because of the length of daylight they can have a 7 a.m., a 1 p.m., and a 7 p.m. shotgun! A superintendent attempting to complete maintenance with this amount of play faces a major challenge. Often, maintenance activities begin at 4 a.m. to get ahead of play.
The fairways and tees, consist of Kentucky bluegrass, annual bluegrass, and perennial ryegrass while the greens were annual bluegrass and creeping bentgrass with annual bluegrass the major species. Lawn turf and roughs were a mixture of Kentucky bluegrass and a fine fescue. Any type of overseeding and seeding does not occur until July and August when soil temperatures are warm enough for germination.
The major problem is winterkill since winter temperatures can drop to -30 to -40 degrees F. The greens are covered to insulate them and a snow mold preventative fungicide is applied. Gray snow mold is their major disease.
While I was there fairy ring and red thread were active. Fortunately, there were no major insect pests such as the dreaded annual bluegrass weevil; however, annual bluegrass is a common weed problem both in Maryland and Alaska. During my visit the temperatures reached into the mid-60s while night temperatures only dropped into the mid to high 50s. The days were partly cloudy or sunny depending on the time of day. For example one may have overcast conditions in the morning but sunny from noon to 10 p.m.!
Anchorage Golf Course offers its summer interns a unique experience by requiring the students to work in the Pro-Shop for one week. Interns help coordinate golf outings and interact with golfers. General Manager, Rich Sayers, believes it is important for golf turf maintenance interns to be exposed to Pro-Shop type decisions and allows the interns to convey their knowledge of course maintenance activities to their clientele.
And, yes, I even had time to play 9 holes with Tim to see the course from a golfer’s perspective. During our golf outing Tim explained some of the different maintenance activities that he was involved in as he consistently sliced the ball into heavily wooded areas.
One other point of interest was how he came up on a bull moose during his morning rounds and he posted this picture on his blog.
Tim Burkhart’s photo of a bull moose on the course at the Anchorage Golf Course.
This internship provided an opportunity for Tim (and me) to experience Alaska’s scenic beauty, and learn the agronomic and management skills needed to run a successful golf course operation in Alaska.
Finally, to answer that nagging question about the number of golf courses in Alaska, there were once 9 and now there are 8 courses (personal communication, Marty Baumann, GCS Anchorage Golf Course). So, yes, there are golf courses in Alaska. And, no, you don’t need a dog sled. Now can I get a student to intern in Hawaii?
