The Experience

The Bridges Golf Club

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The Bridges’ Vital Stats
Opened: 1999
Location: San Ramon, CA
Designer: Johnny Miller
Grounds: 6,965 Yards, Black Tees
Classification: Public
Website: www.thebridgesgolf.com

Tim’s Take on the Bridges:
Tim Youngberg, Superintendent

What are some of the major projects you’ve undertaken of late?
We’ve gotten rid of the poa population that has given us problems in the past, so now we’re 100 percent bent grass on the greens and 95 percent rye on the tees and fairways. Also we’ve recently changed to reclaimed water. What that means is that every time you flush your toilet [that water] is taken and cleaned to a point so it can be used for agriculture. A lot of golf courses are starting to use reclaimed water as well. Many courses in the area have been restricted with water use, but we haven’t. I think golf courses often have fingers pointed to them for wasting water, but in fact, we’re very environmentally friendly. Right now we are almost finshed with the certification process with Audubon Society.
 
What do you see as most important for this course in particular?
Being that the course is so difficult in terms of handicap and slope the greatest challenge is providing quality conditions. If people are playing a quality course with quality conditions it lessens the blow. None of the holes are parallel with each other, so if you go left or right by 10 or 20 yards that’s pretty much a lost ball. I’ve been here for 6 years, and I came from one of the highly respected and maintained courses called Muirfield Village in Dublin, OH. They have the Memorial Tournament every year, so 365 days a year they have the best maintenance. That course did not have a budget so now to try to live up to what I have been used to is a challenge. Still, I’d say we’re close to 75 percent of the way there. You can’t have the mindset of being at as high a level as Muifeld or Augusta--there’s 100 things I would like to do out here, but we don’t have a blank check so I have to do the best that I can.

What’s the best secret for keeping a decent score out there?
People who come out and play it repeatedly eventually learn to leave the driver in the car. Then it makes sense and becomes fun. You realize you don’t need to hit a driver on that par 4 or 5.

How has the economy affected your traffic?
 Honestly I don’t think we’ve seen as big of a hit as much of the other courses. We have seen changes in terms of the cost of materials, but we’ve probably done the best amount of rounds this year.