The golf course architects were against the idea. They’d never done or seen anything like it. But real estate developer Dave Wilkey had at least one thing going for him: He hadn’t built a golf course before. Not knowing what he “couldn’t” do, he wanted to carve championship golf holes into a sheer rock rim towering 300 feet over the valley below.

Five of the golf holes at Utah’s Sand Hollow Resort were carved into a sheer rock rim. Shown here from left to right is the progressive construction of Hole 12.

The holes were to be part of a golf course at Sand Hollow Resort, a master-planned community in southwest Utah just outside St. George, one of the fastest growing cities in the United States. The resort is approximately 30 miles from scenic Zion National Park and features large red rock formations erupting from the sandy flats. Full build-out of the resort includes an equestrian facility, a resort waterpark, vacation villas and residential home sites. But it was the addition of 18 holes of championship golf and nine holes of recreational golf along the north side of the property that reaped the benefits of machine control technology.

Catching the Vision

Wilkey envisioned routing the course to integrate a series of five holes set carefully along the red sandstone ledges, providing a dramatic golf experience along the “edge” of the property. “I knew the rim holes would be something unique, so I pushed hard for them,” he says.

Initially, golf architect Andrew Staples advised against it. “As a responsible handler of the owner’s money, you aren’t drawn to something so radical,” he explains. “If you don’t have to dynamite rock, why do it? How could I recommend the owner spend as much on five golf holes as on the rest of the golf course?”

When noted golf architect John Fought was brought onboard, he had the same thought as Staples. Fought began his career as a golfer and was a two-time PGA Tour winner, 1979 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year and 1977 U.S. Amateur Champion. Since switching to architecture, Fought has designed some of the top golf courses in America; four of his designs have been included in Golfweek magazine’s list of Top 100 golf courses.

Even with everyone against him, Wilkey pressed on with his idea. He told Staples and Fought, “I want to put golf on the rim. Come out here and look at it.”

After reviewing the topographic map, and pacing the rock shelves and considering the slopes, the architects began to see that carving championship golf holes into the rock rim just might be possible. But it wouldn’t be easy. For one thing, no topsoil existed on the rock rim. At more than 3,000 feet in elevation, Sand Hollow is classic high desert, so the topsoil had been blown away by the occasional stiff desert wind or washed away by the desert downpours.

“The mass excavation on the rim holes was my number one concern,” Staples says. “I was really worried about keeping the construction schedule on time. It was just a big unknown to us. But if we could pull it off, this would be the most spectacular golf in the entire state of Utah.”

With the exception of small pockets of sand tucked in the edge of the rim, the entire length of the rim required excavating rock. Some of the rock could be chipped and ripped with an excavator but approximately 100,000 cubic yards of it had to be blasted. No one knew how tough it would be or how long it would take to blast that much rock, which raised serious concerns about the integrity of the construction schedule.

Although most modern golf courses rely on heavy earthmoving to create interest on the ground, Sand Hollow contained natural topography suited for a golf course. Less than 50,000 cubic yards were moved to create the 23 holes built in the sand dunes. For this portion of the course, minimal land disturbance was of utmost importance. Before beginning excavation, the entire course was cleared and then shaped with two Caterpillar 315 and two Caterpillar 345 excavators, which picked the native scrub one by one. This method ensured the preservation of all the natural contours and minimized the use of heavy equipment.

But pushing forward on the construction of the rim holes was another matter entirely. The Sand Hollow team developed a bid package and sent it out to potential contractors. “We know that golf course construction is a different animal,” Staples says. “We had questions whether the average golf course construction company would be able to handle the rock efficiently.”

Cutting Their Teeth on GPS

After the bids were evaluated, Sand Hollow selected Sun Contracting of Idaho Falls, Idaho, for the mass excavation on the rim holes. Sun didn’t have any experience with building the shapes necessary for a golf course, so the golf architects had to communicate often with Sun to ensure the rim holes were built as they were envisioned.

Before construction began, the entire team met to discuss the logistics of the project and the construction schedule. It was absolutely necessary to adhere to the tight schedule since grass had to be planted at the right time of year. Because Sun had never built a golf course, the architects were nervous that the first-time golf builders wouldn’t be able to adhere to the schedule. The normal process of construction seemed impossible on the rim holes. “We’re not dealing with home lots here,” Fought says. Even seemingly minor tasks such as pounding stakes seemed significant with nothing but pure rock to pound them into.

“Just you wait and see how fast we move,” Sun Contracting Project Manager Jared Russell told the architects. Russell had been thinking about using GPS technology for some time, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. He couldn’t imagine a better project for “stakeless” mass excavation than Sand Hollow. “It’s hard to stake this mass-ex stuff,” Russell says. “You lose stakes, have to deal with offsets and it’s a pain to keep track of construction limits.”

To help him get started with GPS, Russell called Chris Powell of Bonneville Blueprint Supply Inc. (BBS) in Idaho Falls. BBS is an authorized machine control dealer for Topcon Positioning Systems. After discussing the project, Powell recommended Topcon’s 3DXi Excavator Control System. Unlike laser excavator systems, it allows the operator to “see” the excavator’s exact position as well as the teeth of the bucket compared to the finished grade. It’s especially suited for deep cuts and blind excavations like those Russell and his team encountered on the rock rim. Powell also recommended that the contractor purchase Topcon’s HiPer Lite+ RTK rover for grade checking.

“I went down to St. George once to install the 3DXi on the excavator,” Powell says. “Sun came once to Idaho Falls to learn the HiPer Lite. That was it. After that, it was basically just phone calls.”

Carving the Holes

Sun’s task for the rim holes was to excavate 272,000 cubic yards of material. In order to have sufficient conditions to grow turf for the golf course and allow for underground golf course irrigation, an additional 4 feet below finished grade needed to be excavated on 22.2 acres and then backfilled with imported sand. Of the 272,000 cubic yards of material, 56,000 cubic yards was to be used as fill on the twelfth golf hole and the remaining 161,000 cubic yards (after compaction and loss) was hauled to another part of the site to be used on other parts of the project. Sun’s fleet for the project included two Cat 345 excavators, two Cat 315 excavators, a Cat D10, a Cat D6 and four off-highway hauling trucks.

Russell loved the productivity his crew achieved on the Sand Hollow project. “We worked so much faster. Didn’t have to make offsets, chase stakes or worry about the trackhoe guy running over stakes,” he says.

Of course, technology does not come without frustration. At first, Sun tried to load the Digital Terrain Model (DTM) for the entire project onto both the excavator and the rover. But it didn’t work very well. The site DTM was such a huge file that, although the 3DXi system could handle it, the rover couldn’t keep up.

With Powell’s assistance, Russell used AutoCAD to carve out the contours for each hole and then imported each hole’s design into Topcon Tools software to generate individual DTMs. Using this method, the excavator and grade checker simply loaded up the golf hole they were working on.

Sun Contracting’s task for the rim holes was to excavate 272,000 cubic yards of material.

As the blasting began, they realized that the sandstone rock was broken up into manageable pieces. It was decided that the first 2 feet of backfill would be pulverized rock and the top 2 feet would be imported sand. This was good news for Sand Hollow because it saved the resort money. Normally, this would have meant another level of construction staking. However, with Sun’s newly installed GPS machine control in its excavator providing a “stakeless” system, there was minimal impact on their team’s effort. Russell says he wouldn’t have done the project any other way: “The biggest thing is that it gives you sight [with respect to the grading plans] so you are never working blind.”

As golf course architect, Staples says a lot of leading-edge GPS technology was used at Sand Hollow throughout the design, construction and post-construction phases. Golf course architects analyze the slopes of the property before laying out the golf course in order to minimize the amount of material to be moved. On this project, natural shelves were utilized to create the rim golf holes, which kept earthwork to a minimum. “This was a great example of how GPS technology significantly helped our project,” Staples says.

Sun’s work commenced in mid-December 2006. What was scheduled to take 16 weeks only took 12 weeks--a full 25% ahead of schedule. Work moved so quickly that the rim holes sat idle for weeks before other golf contractors were able to spend time on them and perform finish work. Sun also stayed within the project budget.

A Spectacular Finish

Enlarge this picture As shown in this aerial photograph with the golf course features overlaid, Holes 11-15 (on the left) were carved into a sheer rock rim towering 300 feet over the valley below.

Once Sun was finished, everyone knew the extra work for the rim holes was worth it. To Staples, the five-hole swing through the rock rim is the most spectacular string of golf holes in Utah and perhaps the country. The championship 18-hole course is scheduled to open this fall, and Sand Hollow Resort promises to be one of the top new courses in America.

The five golf holes on the rock rim fit seamlessly into the surroundings like they have always existed. The rock rim construction was handled in such a way that one would not imagine there was ever a 25-foot cut on Hole #14 or the 30-foot fill on Hole #12. Nor would one imagine that haul roads ever existed on the rock rim that transported hundreds of tons of rock. “People talk about golf courses having a signature hole,” Sand Hollow Resort’s president and owner, Thomas Seneca, says. “Turns out we have five!”

Sidebar: Designing for Champions

The golf construction challenges on the rock rim of the Sand Hollow Resort were formidable, but the design was spectacular for Holes #11-15.

Hole #11 (par 3, 190 yards) takes the player from the flat, sandy dunes and plays out to the edge of the rim where the green seemingly falls off the end of the earth. From the #11 green, it’s a winding cart path ride down to the #12 pro tee, which is an 80-foot drop in elevation over a distance of about 400 feet. High curbs guide the golf carts through the hairpin turns among the steep rock topography.

Hole #12 (par 4, 445 yards) tees off downward through a natural canyon to a rock ledge where the fairway begins and then plays uphill to the green. At the beginning of the fairway, 30 feet of fill was needed to make the transition from the fairway to the green manageable.

Hole #13 (par 4, 320 yards) sits naturally alongside a raised ledge with grades that matched the proposed golf contours. However, the entire hole was rock and needed to be blasted. Essentially, a 4-foot-deep, 2.8-acre “bathtub” needed to be excavated and backfilled with pulverized rock and imported sand.

Tees on both #12 and #13 are on the edge of the rock cliff and have stunning views of the valley some 300 feet below with scenic snow-capped mountains on the horizon.

Hole #14 (par 5, 531 yards) had to navigate the final crest of the rim. A deep cut of 25 feet was needed to achieve playable grade in the fairway. Significant blasting was required all along the No. 14 fairway.

Hole #15 (par 3, 230 yards) sits among red rocks with the golf hole notched into spectacular rock features. It plays over a huge sandstone cavern to a green perched on a small, rocky ledge with a 300-foot drop on the far side.