Pretty Pennies Spent on Piñon Hills Facelift

Crumbling cart path, dodgy irrigation, rotting bunkers and ponds are no longer an issue at Pinon Hills Golf Course in Farmington. The $9 million renovations are complete as the world renowned golf course begins its healing phase in triple digit heat. You're watching the Local News Network brought to you by 3 Rivers Brewery and Boon's Family Thai BBQ. I'm Hayley Opsal. The golf course closed in January of 2022 primarily to install a wall-to-wall replacement of the irrigation system. Cutting through ancient sandstone provided to be a harsh challenge, as would sidestepping some 30 year old gas lines crisscrossing beneath the ground. The renovation project went from an estimated 150 days to nearly a year at completion.

Anytime you do a project this big you're going to find surprises. And what we found out here is even though we knew there was a lot of sandstone and a lot of old abandoned gas lines. Every time the contractor came upon one of those it took more time and more hoops to jump through to get to the next spot with the getting through the sandstone or potholing around those old lines.

The one thing that didn't change at Pinon Hills Golf course was Pete Dye's award-winning design. The architect utilized the wonderful slope of the desert features and formations that nature presented him with when the course was built in 1989. The second phase of the project included a clubhouse facelift along with the amenities.

Everything's been completely redone inside. New ceilings, new carpet, new paint, a lot of new fixtures have gone in. The restrooms have completely been retiled, new toilet fixtures completely redone again, and the grill has got getting new carpet, new ceilings, and a new grill and some new kitchen equipment as well. So it's been a major renovation for this building. This building's been here since the beginning 33 years ago, I believe, and has not had a facelift. So it was time.

The eight foot wide colored concrete path led luxuriously to hole 13, where the crystal clear pond with a fountain in place was once a bog like water hazard

Before we shut down, this was so overgrown you could only see about half of it. With cattails and silt over the years and everything it had just become really nasty. And so they completely redug this out, put a new liner in it, and then as you can see, we have a a fountain in it. And so there's three new fountains now and one of 'em is right here. So the other one's on one and the other one is on our irrigation pond actually.

Pinon Hills reopened in early May. Coming out of renovation, some of the grass areas seeded last fall haven't fully grown in yet due to extreme temperatures this summer. Jones predicts that all the rough spots on the 300 acre course will be smoothed out by the fall. With all the reinvestments including brand new Yamaha golf carts with state-of-the-art GPS, the hope is to host more regional and even national tournaments that the course missed in the past.

We have such a gym in this course, and we're just happy to be able to continue to provide a great golf course and a great amenity to our community. So our team here has done a really good job of just seeing this project through so we're excited to be on the other side and again, provide something to our community that's second to none.

The Pinon Hills Classic will be held on August 19th and 20th. It's flighted by handicapped for men and women. Prizes will be awarded for each flight. The entry fee of $150 includes Saturday lunch and range balls each day. For more information on this and other stories go to farmingtonlocal.news. Thank you for watching this edition of The Local News Network. I'm Hayley Opsal.