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Edgewood gearing up for celebrity golf in Lake Tahoe

J.P. Kelsey
jpkelsey@tahoedailytribune.com
Edgewood Tahoe recently installed grand stands on holes one and 10 in preparation for the July 11 through 16 ACC celebrity golf tournament.
J.P. Kelsey/ Tahoe Daily Tribune |

Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course transforms into a bustling playground each summer for the American Century Championship (ACC) celebrity golf tournament. And this year, the 28th anniversary of the ACC tournament, is no different.

Everything from logistics to course modifications and maintenance make each tournament a special experience for spectators and golfers, alike.

Bryan Davis, Edgewood’s marketing director, said there is a steady stream of work that goes into the event and things have been shaping up over the past couple of weeks.



“We’ve been lucky enough to have the same tournament director for years, who is returning,” Davis said. “And we have the same involvement with the visitors authority on the volunteer side, so a lot of the pieces of the tournament and the set up of the course is coming together. We already have the grandstands set up on holes one and 10, and some of the sky boxes on 17 and nine are going up. That part is already progressing nicely.“

Davis said that once things start shaping up, it gets everyone pumped and ready to get going with the tournament.



“Everything’s on schedule,” Davis said. “The golfers that are out there playing now get excited because the course is getting set up and they’ve seen it on TV.”

According to Davis, Edgewood will be open for play through July 10, the day before the July 11 through 16 tournament commences.

“We’ll be closed for the week after that and the restaurants will be closed too,” Davis said. “You have to be ticketed to access the property.”

Aside from just the planning, there’s also a lot of work that goes into keeping the course maintained and in pristine condition throughout the tournament. According to Brad Wunderlich, Edgewood’s course superintendent, the winter weather had been impacting the course up until recently.

“With this winter, we had some drainage issues that we hadn’t seen before,” he said. “We’ve had to install a ton of drainage in low-lying areas, creek channels, and ponds. We’ve remedied all those spots, so everything is playable now.”

There was also an issue with dead grass as a result of flooding on the course, but Wunderlich said that has been mostly corrected over the spring.

“We did quite a bit of seeding over the spring so everything has pretty much grown back in for the most part,” he said. “We still have a few thin areas, but I expect those to be filled in when the tournament starts.”

Wunderlich said that there will be more structures and tents going up over the next couple weeks, and that, coupled with routine maintenance, will have his crew working around the clock.

“At least half the holes have some sort of structure for viewing or private tents,” he said. “They started setting up this year on June 12th, so it takes about a month to get everything set up,” Wunderlich said. “And then it takes about a month to get everything completely broken down; then we have to deal with the repercussions of having the tents up and the traffic.”

Wunderlich said post-tournament maintenance can include anything from putting down patches of sod in areas of dead grass to reseeding and hand watering in areas where sprinklers have been turned off.

Wunderlich said that the week leading up to the tournament is probably the busiest for his crew, as they focus on putting the final touches to the course.

“We do about 16-hour days, starting July 3,” Wunderlich said. “I have about 25 seasonal employee teams and seven full time. We really start to dial things in during the week before the tournament.”

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