Spring has sprung at Gold Mountain Golf Club, even if the weather is a little late to the game.

We are full steam ahead for our busy months and have full confidence that the rain is behind us and sunny days are to come!

In the anticipation of spring, Gold Mountain has undergone a bit of a face lift.

The clubhouse and Olympic room look incredible and feel brand new having just received a fresh coat of stain!

The improvements aren’t just inside the building, we are currently in the process of updating out Grand Patio!

Our new items are not in quite yet but keep your eyes peeled for beautiful new patio furniture.

Couple with the beautiful blossoming flowers around the property, Gold Mountain is a sight to be seen.

The golf course has also seen a notable change on our Cascade Course!

The par four fifth hole has been transformed into a par five and continues to be the hardest hole on the course.

Visit the new website at www.goldmountaingolf.com

Our maintenance staff has done a fabulous job with the transition and continue to uphold the quality of our golf courses each day.

We have also seen a change in our technology world at Gold Mountain.

We are very excited to introduce our new website, and along with that an entire new point of sale system.

This new system allows our guests to book their tee times online, directly with

the course, and they are guaranteed the lowest rates available!

With this new technology, we now have the capability to check guests in outside of the Golf Shop, so not more waiting in lines trying to get to your tee time.

Once you check-in once the system retains your information and your preferences in our system, this makes your return visits to Gold Mountain easier each time.

The system even extends to our snack shop and beverage carts!

We want to continuously improve your experience at Gold Mountain and everything we do is for the enjoyment and ease of our guests.

Our goal is to make Gold Mountain Golf Club your number one golf destination!

Make a tee time online or call the restaurant at 360.415.6895 to make a reservation today.

Jesse McGee
Sales and Planning Manager

As the golf season quickly approaches I wanted to take you behind the scenes of what goes into maintaining the entire Gold Mountain golf complex.

The greens are a crucial part to the success of our golf courses, we mow on both courses every day (weather permitting) during the summer at a height of cut (HOC) of .110 inches.

It takes two mowers per course and totals about four hours a day to mow all 36 greens, and immediately after cutting we take one roller out and smooth the greens.

We set up both courses every day, this includes cutting fresh cups (holes), picking up broken tees on each tee box, sanding and seeding divots on the tee boxes, moving tee stones and benches, emptying all trash bins, and moving/fixing the ropes on the course.

One team member is devoted to this task on each course, taking between four and five hours to complete, depending on how much play there was the day before.

Moving on down the hole, we mow our short cuts of grass at a HOC of .450 inches, this includes tees, approaches, and fairways.

These areas of both courses are mowed two days a week and take about six hours per course, with two team members on Olympic and one on Cascade.

The areas we consider our rough take the longest for team members to complete.

The area surrounding the greens take between 16 and 20 hours for two team members to complete between both courses, the area surrounding the tees take up to 16 hours to complete on Cascade and only four to six hours on Olympic, and the rough takes about 10 to 14 hours to complete on Olympic, whereas Cascade can take up to 40 hours to complete depending on traffic throughout the property.

Our rough areas are moved at 2 inches throughout the property, apart from Olympic course tee surrounds, which are mowed at 1.25 inches.

While we are proud of the entire golf complex, we especially take pride in the condition of our sand traps.

of weeds.

The Olympic sand traps are hand raked throughout and weeded three to four times per week.

The Cascade course sand traps are raked once a week using a Sand Pro, followed by hand raked edges, and manually pullingThere are various other tasks that take place throughout the week depending on weather, overall it takes our team up to five hours to complete sand trap care.

Filling divots with a sand and seed mix is one of our ongoing projects on both courses, and as long as we have golfers this will continue to be a big point of concern.

We dedicate a minimum of two and a half hours a day with two team members just to our practice area recovery and our fairways get their divots filled as often as possible, which ends up equaling up to 30 hours per week for our team.

Fertilizing and spraying the property is done on a regular basis throughout the year.

We do one granular fertilizer application on both courses that covers everything, except our greens, and this takes one person up to 35 hours to complete.

We then spray our greens, fairways, and tees with a variety of fertilizers and other products to continue growing healthy grass, this process totals about 20 hours per week for two team members to completely over the entire property.

A key part to our success includes the topdressing, venting, aerating, and verticutting of our greens, fairways, and approaches.

Topdressing our greens is done every four weeks, this improves overall playability and takes four people about five hours to complete.

Venting, aerating, and verticutting is implemented within each four-week window and takes one to two employees up to six hours a week to complete.

There are a few final miscellaneous jobs that we try to squeeze into an already tight working window.

Hand watering is a crucial part in maximizing course conditions, we dedicate 20 to 26 hours a week to hand watering localized dry spots across the property.

Irrigation issues are also an ongoing struggle and are difficult to anticipate, between the Cascade and Olympic course roughly 15 to 20 man hours are dedicated to prevention and repair of the irrigation systems each week.

Lastly, cleanup on the course is always a top priority, anything including trash, debris, tree limbs, divots, etc. is considered a cleanup item.

We try to accomplish this before our guests arrive so they have the best experience possible, this process takes about seven hours on each course to complete.

None of our course maintenance would be possible without the work of our two mechanics, Andrew Goodell and Jim Gregoire.

We have well over 60 pieces of equipment here at Gold Mountain, and they are responsible for making sure each piece of machinery is running and cutting perfectly.

This includes everything from string trimmers and chainsaws, to mowers and carts, and even our tractors.

They are also responsible for making sure the fleet of 127 golf carts at the Golf Shop is working properly.

And as if that is not enough, they make time to help on the golf course whenever assistance is needed.

It is pretty obvious that it takes a tremendous amount of man hours to maintain at 36-hole facility.

We are able to achieve this with five full-time team members on the Cascade course, six full-time team members on the Olympic course, seven seasonal members, two mechanics, and a superintendent.

There is so much more that goes on outside of what I have listed here, but needless to say it is very impressive what this group of people can do in such a limited amount of time.

We love Gold Mountain Golf Club and we want to make sure our guests love it just as much.

Patrick McKenzie
Gold Mountain Golf Club

Well, spring has officially arrived today and hopefully the spring weather will arrive with it.

With the arrival of spring comes our semi-annual greens aerification, this project is scheduled for the week of April 10 through 14.

My plan is to use 1/4” solid tines this year as they will cause the least surface disruption of the tools in my arsenal.

Normally I would use 3/8coring tines in the spring but with the slow start we are experiencing this year, and the unpredictable weather we have been having, I have opted to go with solid tines.

If the greens are too wet it becomes difficult to completely pull the 3/8″ cores out, and it risks the cores being stuck sticking up out of the greens.

Needless to say this is not preferable for course conditions or the golfers!

After the aerification we will follow up with a light sand topdressing and off we go for the season.

During the summer we will occasionally “vent” the greens with a small solid tine, or our Planet Aire, which is more of a slicer.

We have many different options available to us to perform this task, in the fall I like to use a larger coring tine and backfill with sand.

This allows us to remove organic matter (thatch) that accumulates in growing turf and filling with sand keeps that channel open for good drainage going into winter.

The main reason we aerate greens is to introduce oxygen into the rootzone and release gasses built up in the soil.

Aeration also allows better drainage as the greens will seal up and not allow water to penetrate easily if we don’t perforate the surface regularly.

I know aeration is not popular with our guests but it is the single most important maintenance practice we accomplish each year.

With that being said, this spring our guests will hardly notice we have done anything to the greens thanks to the small solid tines.

Happy Spring!
Ed Faulk
Area Golf Course Superintendent

 

When it comes to deciding a grab-n-go menu for our golfers we strive to make the hot and cold products readily available at your fingertips.

The placement of the snacks, soda, Gatorade, and water, is easily accessible in the pro shop during registration, or at a nearby entry or exit to the golf course.

Hot items ordered in the restaurant at the turn, such as a huge Chef Jon burger, will take no longer than 8-12 minutes for our golfer’s in-between their nine holes so they do not lose their place on the course.

On course, we provide beverage carts and two full-service concession shops to cater to your needs during a round.

Join us before or after in the restaurant and have a delicious breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and enjoy one of our drinks designed with golfers in mind.

We take great pride in being able to customize any menu to fit your specific event requirements whether you have a group of 30 guests or 300.

A big highlight to all events at Gold Mountain is our big screen TV that is always showing local and national sporting events.

When you visit us for golf retreats, weddings or corporate meetings, please take advantage of our outstanding views of the Olympic Mountains and the beautiful Pacific Northwest scenery.

We will be hiring food and beverage employees for our upcoming 2017-2018 season in March.  Join our exciting team today!

Happy Eats,
Chef Jon Forcier

Brrr!

The winter struck us early and fiercely this year, luckily it now looks like we are well on our way to spring.

Our Olympic golf course officially had its longest closure since it was built in 1996, totaling a staggering 37 days!

Our Cascade course was open periodically during that time, but was on all temporary greens.

We officially opened play on both courses on Saturday, January 21, 2017, and all regulation greens are now opened.

Since our reopening, we have heard nothing but positive things about the condition of the courses from our guests.

I played this past weekend and my shoes hardly got wet!

So, if you have been itching to get out and play some golf during this arctic winter, Gold Mountain Golf Club is the place to visit!

As I mentioned earlier, we are creeping into spring time and golf season is right around the corner.

You know what that means, it’s time for our first annual golf event, Mountain Madness.

Saturday, March 25 – Sunday, March 26

2 Person Scramble/Best Ball

$290/team: Includes a practice round for each player, competition rounds, prize fund, and lunch on Saturday.

Call the Golf Shop at 360.415.5432 for more details.

You can register online, call the Golf Shop at 360.415.5432, or register in person! The registration deadline is Monday, March 20, 2017, so reserve your team’s spot today!

Finally, if you want to establish a handicap and play in some of our Gold Mountain men’s club events this season, join the Men’s Club today!

It is just $55 (cash or check) for the year and you will receive various benefits, such as:

– Access to all the men’s club events throughout the year
– A GHIN handicap so you can post scores throughout the posting season
– A one-time 15% discount in the golf shop on an item (excludes golf balls, PING, and sale items)
– One free round on either the Olympic or Cascade Course
– Men’s club membership forms can be found in the Golf Shop, call us if you have any questions
– We hope to see you out here playing golf soon. Here’s to warmer weather and lower scores!

Thanks,
Travis Cary, PGA
Assistant Golf Professional
Gold Mountain Golf Club

Saturday November 12th and the proceeding week was a very exciting time for the maintenance crew at Gold Mountain.

It began Saturday morning with a city council member tour and ended later the following week with the arrival of our four new John Deere Gator utility vehicles.

Saturday morning afforded us with the opportunity to not only show off our property and facilities, but also inform some of our City of Bremerton council members as to what our team does to make Gold Mountain Golf Club such a successful and sought after commodity.

Three city council members, Leslie Daugs, Pat Sullivan, and Christine Grenier joined Daryl Matheny (GM), Shawn Cucciardi (Director, Golf Division), and Patrick McKenzie (Assistant Superintendent) on their first facilities tour.

This was a great opportunity to show our guests, from a maintenance stand point, the equipment we are working with and how we maintain the grounds.

This allowed us to show and explain to them some items such as water usage and capital equipment improvements, which are always hot topics.

This was the first time Ms. Daugs, Ms. Sullivan and Ms. Grenier have toured our property and it seemed to be any eye opening experience for them to see what a production, in all facets, it takes to run a golf course.

Overall, the tour went very well and it is always great to show our city council members what we do to make this place so great.

Next, our new John Deere Gator utility vehicles arrived!

This is a major capital equipment improvement for the maintenance team. Our fleet of utility vehicles was in desperate need of improvement and these new Gators will allow us to perform daily jobs in a more efficient manner.

Work on a golf course is not all riding around on mowers. We rely heavily on utility vehicles to set up the course, complete projects, hand water, clean up downed debris, and a long list of other tasks.

Not only are these new Gators in better working condition than our previous utility vehicles, but they also have a better towing capacity as well as can haul a much bigger payload.

Some of the perks the team members enjoy are the covered cab and wind shield.

This allows them to get around the property on cold rainy days with some protection from the elements, which we all can appreciate the importance of after last week’s snowstorm!

Happy Holidays from all of us at Gold Mountain!

gold-mountain-golf-club-fountain

It still feels like summer on the Kitsap Peninsula.

Supermarkets are starting to stock their shelves with anything and everything pumpkin, and football season takes a hold of Sunday afternoon.

People may be gearing up for fall, but Gold Mountain is still in summer condition. This means firm and fast greens, well defined rough, and beautiful warm afternoons filled with great putts for birdie and amazing par saves!

Our aerification schedule does not take effect until October 4th and 5th and we still have the Dave Williams Best Ball tournament on our slate.

Our greens always recover quickly from the fall aerification, and our fall events showcase this fact:

The winter tour starts in November with the first date being 11/12/16. And our men’s club stays active with the Captain’s Cup (a Ryder Cup-style tournament played November through February).

Check the PNGA website for more details on the Winter Tour including the Entry Fee for both events.

We have always been a golf club that plays extremely dry in the winter and this year will be no different.

Winter rates make playing more affordable and the sunny weather usually stays around until the end of October.

If you have a desire to continue the fun that has been our fantastic Northwest summer, continue to visit Gold Mountain Golf Club in the next few months.

We will make a year-round golfer out of even the most stringent fair weather fan!

Lastly, I’d like to take a moment to thank all of you for the tremendous support this year. It has been an amazing experience for me personally and for all of the staff at Gold Mountain to serve you.

Happy fall!
John Sitton
Golf Operations Manager, Gold Mountain Golf Club

It is officially summertime and the days are getting longer and warmer! Many people have begun to look for ways to experience all that the golf scene in the Pacific Northwest has to offer, and we here at Gold Mountain are no different. The Gold Mountain Men’s Club has been offering our members a Home and Home Tournament, giving players a chance to play new courses while still enjoying the camaraderie of their fellow golfing partners. This also gives our members the opportunity to meet new people who share the love for the game at a facility not easily accessible to all players. This year so far, the Men’s Club has been to White Horse Golf Club and Wing Point Golf and Country Club, playing both with and against fellow club members from other courses.

Now is the time to sign up for the Men’s Club if you have not done so already. We will be hosting a four team Home and Home Tournament on the Olympic Course on September 16th and October the 14th against the members of Port Ludlow Golf Club. We hope that these events will give you the prospect of meeting a new golfing buddy, potentially one with the ability to give you admission to a local golf club that would not normally be accessible to you. Stay tuned for our next update on happenings at Gold Mountain, and enjoy the incredible weather we have managed to steal from Hawaii!

As we gear up for the U.S. Open week, I can’t help but think back to the USGA Junior Amateur we hosted in 2011. Little did we know our Junior Amateur Champion would go on to be the current #2 ranked player in the world, reigning Masters Champion, and one of the favorites going into the U.S. Open.

The field for the Junior Amateur was littered with great young players like Beau Hossler, Adam Ball, Jonah Texeira, and Will Starke to name a few. But the one that stood out to all of us was Jordan Spieth. Not just because of the way could hit a golf ball, but more of the way he carried himself. He was golf wise beyond his years, and the way he managed his way around the Olympic course was magical. I remember congratulating him in the clubhouse after his victory and thinking to myself that this young man was going to succeed at anything in life. He was sitting with his father and his caddie talking about his victory and enjoying the moment. There were a lot of interruptions from folks trying to shake his hand, and even ask for an autograph, but every interruption was met with a smile, a hand shake and some small talk from Jordan. Here was a young man after the biggest victory of his life taking time out for perfect strangers!

This is just one of the many reasons why I will be pulling for Jordan in this year’s U.S. Open, along with millions of other golf fans. Jordan is a breath of fresh air for the game of golf, and one little piece of history for Gold Mountain!

– Daryl