No need to worry about a baaaaaaaaaaad shot.
Rather, some helpful newcomers at Ruttger’s Bay Lake Resort in Deerwood, Minnesota, are clearing the way for a unique agronomy assist on its Alec’s 9 par-3 course, long one of the more popular short plays in northern Minnesota’s bustling Brainerd Lakes golf region.
This past summer, Ruttger’s introduced five Pygora goats to its short course. Bred namely for fiber production, the goats have fast provided the additional benefits of reducing chemical application on the grounds, while concurrently saving maintenance staff the time and toil of manually clearing woody or grassy course perimeters.
“It’s in lieu of stabilizing what we do when we manage land,” Ruttger’s general manager Mike Cameron says. “The golf industry, of course, is high-demand land management and gets very expensive — not to mention a challenge to always find employees for these jobs on a repetitive basis.”
Before actual goats, Alec’s 9 was the original shortie GOAT, dating back to 1921 as the state’s first resort course. In recent years, the par-3 play enjoyed a rework in its 100th year of action, seeing a design makeover by architect and former superintendent Scott Hoffman; the par-3 grounds, a sister complement to Ruttger’s Jack’s 18 Course, reopened in 2024.
“We’re in the second year of operation with the redone Alec’s,” Cameron says, “and our new ownership group decided that they wanted to reduce the dependence on herbicides for some of the areas that weren’t directly impacted by play.”
As manifestation of the goat grazing, once the hoofed squad eats and digests the weeds, according to Ruttger’s, the seeds are “Non-viable for future germination; this allows native plants to grow in their place.”
The Pygoras are enjoying some rather fine fruits for the inborn labors.
“The goats work seven days a week, and they don’t ask for a whole lot,” Cameron says. “They get treated with oats in-season and then wintered in a very nice facility and grained-up really well. They’re very spoiled.”
Belled, collared and named (Buddy, Ollie, Alfred, Sherman and Waylon), the charcoal- and/or white-coated helpers evidence no perturb of golfers and the wooly crew isn’t afraid to put on a show for visitors. Whether locking horns, or simply staring at players, the goats are gaining a fast following from guests on the walking-only course.
In time, Ruttger’s has plans to further personalize the crew by way of providing posted bios for each goat.
“Folks playing the Alec’s have just been delighted to stop and visit the goats, and the kids are getting a kick out of it,” Cameron says. “Some people are just coming out to see them in the evening, so it’s really been a fun project and guests are really embracing it.”
Working with a rotational grazing method (adjacent to the fifth hole, as of August), the goats clear a fenced area — complete with goat house, water troughs and feed bins — and then, once facilitated, eventually move them down the line to start the process anew. Ruttger’s has employed electric fencing for purposes of both portability and to keep the goats contained as protection from possible predators.
Shorn in the autumn and spring, the goats may soon provide yet another benefit.
“That shearing will happen for this first time under our ownership this fall; and that fiber is very valuable in the world of yarn,” Cameron says. “We don’t yet know where that piece of it will go, but we are heavy into the retail business, so we’ll see what we can do.”
Whether Ruttger’s eventually derives a line of novelty golf socks, sweaters, head covers or towels from the four-legged maintenance team, Cameron believes in earnest that goat notice in the golf-heavy region may well evolve beyond guest selfies. Much like a scorecard, golf agronomy is a results-based game.
“I think that when people see the results from where we started and how much work the goats do in a short amount of time,” Cameron says, “they just might take note of this.”
Judd Spicer is a Palm Desert, California-based writer and senior Golf Course Industry contributor.
Tartan Talks 111
Chris Jordan and Drew Rogers first met in the upper level of a clubhouse at a South Carolina golf course bracing for a gigantic transformation. The bonding that day continued at an outdoor tiki bar serving delicious cheeseburgers.
“It was a life-changing cheeseburger,” Jordan jokes on the Tartan Talks podcast.
OK, maybe cheeseburgers don’t change lives. But the project Jordan and Rogers are close to completing will give hundreds of people serene living and recreational experiences. Jordan is the superintendent at Olde Eight Golf Club, a layout designed by Rogers on the former Links at Stoney Point in Greenwood, South Carolina. Everything about the course besides hole locations and playing corridors will be new when Olde Eight debuts.
“These holes are in the same place they have always been,” Rogers says, “but they are expressed so differently. There’s so much more drama, enhanced aesthetics and stronger strategic values across the board. The golf course should be really memorable from the get-go, and that’s how we tied it together.”
The regular encounters between Jordan and Rogers over the past year have also been memorable. In addition to describing Olde Eight, Jordan and Rogers use the Tartan Talks forum to share strategies for developing a solid superintendent-architect relationship. The podcast can be found on the Superintendent Radio Network page of popular distribution platforms.
Quickly back into play
Country Club of North Carolina director of agronomy Ron Kelly and his team rebuilt a hole disheveled by Tropical Storm Chantal.
By Kelsie Horner
Director of agronomy Ron Kelly has seen his handful of heavy storms and rainfall during his 35 years at the Country Club of North Carolina. But on July 6, as Tropical Storm Chantal hammered the private 36-hole facility in the Sandhills of North Carolina, Kelly knew this storm was intense.
“I started looking at the rain gauge, and it went from about an inch and a half to five inches within three to four hours, and I’m, like, there’s definitely something that’s going on that’s not normal,” Kelly says. A few hours later, once the storm had passed and the course began drying, Kelly’s team discovered land once part of the Dogwood course’s 11th hole was now a fraction of what it used to be. Dogwood is one of the facility’s two 18-hole layouts, along with the Cardinal. Flooding submerged the area. The course is a local watershed collector, so thousands of acres of property direct water to the land. Water levels flowed above the course’s newly installed bridge over a spillway; irrigation and drainage pipes were washed out and three-quarters of an acre of sod was rolled up. “It was just in big rolls of carpet it looked like,” Kelly says.
Kelly and his team didn’t dwell over the damage. Kelly assembled a construction crew within five days to assess and fix any bridge and spillway damages. Shortly after, the damaged sod was cleaned up. Contractors were hired to assist with both tasks.
“Once we got all that done, we could go back to putting it back together,” Kelly says. Within six weeks of the storm, the 11th hole had been restored and was ready for play.
The maintenance team rebuilt the hole while continuing to maintain the other 35, all of which remained open for play following the storm. Kelly’s crew assisted in cleanup, reinstalled drainage and irrigation, and a sod company replaced the hole’s turf. “Our staff, we worked on it continually, doing what we could,” Kelly says.
Superintendent Josh Weston assisted with work and coordinating staff, and crew members Jamie Ratliff and Steve Scarborough were instrumental in excavation and construction work. In the end, the entire team was crucial to the success of the restoration.
“Pretty much the whole staff got involved with it, because there’s just a lot of little things that had to be done,” Kelly says. “We’ll still be continuing to work on the hole. It’s hard to put something back together that’s washed out. There’s always something — something will change, like drainage, and you’ll have to put in some little extra drains, probably to catch some of the underground water.”
Development in surrounding areas has resulted in the Country Club of North Carolina experiencing greater impact from storms. “The amount of building and development in our area is probably just getting all that water on us that much quicker,” Kelly says.
To prevent and minimize future storm damage, the facility installed stone boulders to prevent the area from eroding to the level it did following the July storm. Other stabilization options are also being considered. The hole reopened for play in August.
“It makes you feel good to accomplish something that was unexpected and get it behind you and move on to something else,” Kelly says.
Kelsie Horner is Golf Course Industry’s digital editor.
COURSE NEWS
Storm King Golf Club in New York’s Hudson Valley is offering fall previews and will officially open in late spring 2026. Set on 63 acres, Storm King offers more than 40 distinct golf holes within five 9-hole routing options for traditional or alternative loops. … Raymond Hearn, ASGCA, will lead designs and renovations at Aurora (Illinois) Country Club, a classic 1914 design. Hearn will also restore the course at Pottawattomie (Indiana) Country Club, which opened in 1909. … The Hermann Park municipal course in south central Houston will soon be renovated by golf course architect Jon Schmenk, in a large project privately funded by the Astros Golf Foundation and Hermann Park Conservancy. … Jackson Kahn Design will lead design efforts at Kettle Forge, a new golf course in Ashippun, Wisconsin. … El Macero Country Club in El Macero, California, reopened its renovated golf course following a four-month renovation project on greens and bunkers. … Western North Carolina’s Champion Hills Club announced its Tom Fazio-designed golf course is reopen for play. Champion Hills suffered significant damage during Hurricane Helene. … Brian Curley of Curley-Wagner Golf Design finished bunker upgrades to The Plantation Golf Club in Indio, California.
PEOPLE NEWS
Dr. Jackie Applegate will succeed Steve Clifford as president and CEO of PBI-Gordon Companies starting Nov. 1. Currently the company’s COO, she will lead PBI-Gordon and its subsidiaries — PBI-Gordon Corporation, Pegasus Laboratories, TriviumVet, and Pet-Ag, Inc. … Edric C. Funk is the new president and COO of The Toro Company. Funk, a 29-year Toro veteran, had served as group VP of golf, grounds and irrigation since 2022. … Control SolutionsInc. celebrated the career of founder and president Mark Boyd, who retired Sept. 1 after more than 33 years. . … The World Golf Village Resort in St. Augustine, Florida, recently welcomed Pace Anderson as its new director of agronomy. … Landscapes Unlimited appointed Ty Arndt to senior program manager of its Project Development Group. … The Philadelphia Association of Golf Course Superintendents named Aronimink Golf Club superintendent John Gosselin as the recipient of the 2025 Eberhard Steiniger Award. … The Florida GCSA awarded Todd Draffen, director of agronomy at The Old Collier Golf Club in Naples, with the Distinguished Service Award. … Dan Miller, a student at Michigan State University, is the winner of the Mendenhall Award of $6,000 in the 2025 Scholars Competition offered through the GCSAA. The GCSAA also honored John Patterson, CTEM, the equipment director at Atlanta Athletic Club, as the winner of the 2025 Edwin Budding Award.
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