After more than 40 years of use, the Weyburn Golf Club's Rain Bird irrigation system on the front nine of their course will soon be seeing some major upgrades. In fact, the plan is to replace all of the current PVC pipes with a more durable HDPE pipe.

The project is slated for an August start and they expect it to take approximately 40 days for all of the work to be completed. Along with the new irrigation pipes, they will have 300 new sprinkler heads installed by J.T.’s Irrigation out of Saskatoon.

"This is long overdue as the current system was installed in the late 70s or early 80s," explained Jim Linnell, President of the Weyburn Golf Club. "So that's 40 years of pipe being in the ground that was only supposed to be in there for 10 years. Our repairs were becoming a massive undertaking and last year our crew spent 800 to 850 hours on repairing that irrigation system."

With the current price of oil being so high the high-density poly pipe (HDPE) required for the project that is made from petroleum has had an increase of about $22,000 for the club's new irrigation pipes.

They were just recently approved for a $750,000 loan from the Weyburn Credit Union however the club will need to pay that amount back with two payments of $20,000 each year. The club will also need to pay back their federal COVID-19 loan of $30,000.

For these reasons, they are hoping to see more support from the community to be able to afford the entirety of the massive project.

"We are looking for some assistance from anyone that would like to see the golf course continue," Linnell expressed. "We actually have an opportunity to put names on our new sprinkler heads as they come through. I believe we should have around 300 of those. So we are looking to have a plate on each one of those and if you'd like to get your name on one of those please call Dru at the Weyburn Golf Club."

He added that the club is encouraging more people to come and try out their golf course as this past year hadn't been quite busy for them and they would appreciate any support through regular business or sponsorship.

"We're looking at starting this project in the middle of August and when the crew is on-site we will probably be closing two holes at a time," stated Linnell. "So we won't be taking the entire nine out of play. You'll still be able to play around 16 holes at a time depending on where they are working. The crew that we will utilize for the contract work will be out of the city. We tried to get as much city assistance as we could for this however there was a limited amount of expertise in and around this area. With this new piping, we are looking for a 25 to 40-year lifespan. So we'll be investing into the future for a long time."

He did express that the lack of moisture in our area lately could make the project more difficult but said that the timing and funding just worked out for their current project timeframe.

The front nine systems will be a closed-loop as that is not currently the case and they are hoping to be able to update the irrigation system for the back nine in the next three to five years as well.

To keep up with the latest at the Weyburn Golf Club please follow them on Facebook or visit their official website.

See you on the green (photo by Denis Conroy).