For several years Fred Huppert worked for his father's construction company, building roads and clearing lots for homes, but it wasn't his dream job.
Huppert was more artistic. So when a friend in Huntley, Mont., asked for his help on a golf course, he was ready for a change.
"I would sit on a dozer and shape the course," he says. "I said I'll move dirt if I can build golf courses. I like the art of it."
Huppert, whose business is based in Billings, has been building golf courses for 25 years. Among his projects is the PineRock Golf Course in Meeteetse, which opened with the Meeteetse Golf Classic on Aug. 1. About 60 players competed in the 18-hole contest.
PineRock was planned and developed in 1995 by the Pitchfork Ranch with Huppert. He took ownership in 2002 and finished the par 36, 9-hole mountain course. Last year pre-germinated hybrid bluegrass was given time to take root.
"We could have opened it last year, but I wanted it to be in real good condition," Huppert said. "I hired the golf course superintendent Ron Andrews two months ago, and he really brought it around."
Andrews most recently worked in Oregon and has been employed at courses in Phoenix and Idaho and spent four years at a course in Douglas, so he is familiar with growing a course in an arid climate.
The secret is a great deal of "water, fertilizer, care and manpower," he says.
"Mother nature is the biggest challenge, the layout of the land itself," he said of the Meeteetse course. "It's definitely a high desert situation."
The course is still coming together and should be completed in the coming weeks with final touches such as sand in the traps, a bridge at hole No. 4, wooden guardrails along the cart trails and pavement on steeper sections of the trails.
Huppert will have a vote on what the signature hole for the course should be. He said the choice is between No. 4, a hole among the pines and rocks for which the course was named, or No. 6, a blind shot with the surrounding mountain peaks as a backdrop.
Carl Thuesen of Billings designed the course and did a "nice job of laying the course out with the mountain views," Huppert says.
Huppert has built courses in Virginia, California, Colorado, Montana, Washington and Wyoming.
"The landscape of all of them is different," he says. "This is the first mountain course I've been involved in. And I've never built a course with such spectacular views."
As the superintendent, Andrews has heard several comments about the course.
"It's scenic and in excellent condition," he says. "It's a little narrow. And it has plenty of landing areas."
Andrews says he's open to working with organizations to create new tournaments. The Oasis Motel will have its Mule Skinner Classic on Saturday, and another tournament will probably be during the Labor Day weekend.
Source: The Cody Enterprise (Wyoming)