Local golfers will be excited to hear that Hillcrest Golf Club plans on opening on March 26 after a mild winter in Durango.
“We're excited,” Hillcrest Golf Club PGA Professional Brett Wolf said. “We have a lot of retention with staff. So this off-season, we put a lot of work into prepping for another busy season. We did over 45,000 rounds last year, which is trending to be our new norm, which is a lot of rounds. We're excited to have another hopefully busy season. Maintenance is excited about what the course looks like already.”
The timing of opening the course is pretty standard with the course opening sometime in late March or early April every year, according to Wolf. He said the specific opening date depends on the weather and course maintenance.
Opening the course on March 26 gives the maintenance crew enough time to start irrigation and aerate the entire property, according to Wolf.
Wolf said a couple of inches of snow won’t affect the opening date but a foot of snow could. The biggest impact on the maintenance team is overnight temperatures. If the temperatures get into the 20s at night, then irrigation can’t be turned on. Wolf said if the course opens too soon without irrigation, the course gets torn apart by wear and tear.
“We're not necessarily changing a whole lot,” Wolf said. “If it's not broken, don't fix it is kind of the rule of thumb. But the only change that we're excited about is hopefully, once we kind of get closer to Memorial Day in the middle of May, we're looking forward to extended hours of food and beverage. We’re trying to make that a focus this year, to enhance that.”
The tournament schedule will stay the same with the Navajo Trail Open taking place from June 12-15 and the Chili Pepper Ladies Invitational happening on July 8.
Seasons passes are on sale on the Hillcrest website, with the earlybird discount ending on March 31. Wolf said pass prices didn’t increase much because of how great last year was.
For more information on Hillcrest’s passes, rates, or anything else, visit its website: https://www.golfhillcrest.com
bkelly@durangoherald.com
