Edward Ehrbar Company

HERITAGE LINKS
Specialized golf course work takes crews all over the country

Building or renovating a golf course can be challenging work that requires the right skills, the right equipment and, above all, experienced and talented personnel. For the past 10 years, Heritage Links, based out of Houston, Texas, has been the choice of many developers because of those qualifications.

Headed by President John O’Donnel, the company became a division of Lexicon, Inc. of Little Rock, Ark., in 1999. O’Donnel has led the company, which is certified by the Golf Course Builders Association of America, in building high-end golf courses throughout the country, as well as in Puerto Rico. Crews usually complete from four to six courses a year, although there have been a few 10-project years.

One recently completed job was the Liberty National Course near New York City, located adjacent to the Statue of Liberty. Costing $129 million, it is the most expensive course ever built in the United States and took more than five years to complete.

Challenging Pound Ridge Course

A current job has Heritage crews in Pound Ridge, N.Y., where they are renovating an older nine-hole course, making it into a completely new 18-hole course with a new clubhouse. Project Superintendent on the job is Damon Ledbetter and Project Manager is Grayson Cobb.

“It took seven years to get all the permits for this project because we had to clear 79 additional acres to build the new course,” said Ledbetter.

The new semi-private golf course will cover 173 acres when finished. Completing the job — which was started last June — will probably take 21 months, longer than most projects, according to Ledbetter, because of several environmental regulations.

“We have a five-acre disturbance rule at this site,” he said. “That means we can only have five acres of disturbed ground at one time without stabilizing it. That makes sequencing and planning very critical and slows down the process. Normally this might be a 16- to 18- month project.”

Meeting environmental regulations isn’t the only challenge on this job. “We had four 25- year weather events last year on that jobsite,” said Ledbetter. “We had 17 inches of rain in one week, seven inches in two days and four inches in one afternoon. So we had to take some extraordinary measures in case a 100-year storm came.”

Crews also ran into a lot of rock on the site. “We’re going to put in 11,000 linear feet of rock walls here that were never anticipated, just to get rid of all the rock,” added Ledbetter. “It’s all native rock that blends in very well and adds a beautiful touch around the wetlands.”

From Start To Finish

A typical golf course project for Heritage Links starts with grubbing and stumping of all cleared trees, taking off the topsoil, then mass grading and digging lakes. Sometimes, as with the Pound Ridge course, blasting is necessary, then rough shaping. When the architect approves the work at this point, Heritage crews install drainage, then place irrigation on top of it, line the ponds and install pump stations.

Next comes the detail work, the added features, and bridges, crossings and cart paths. “Finally, we’ll add soil amendments and fertilizer and start the grass,” said Ledbetter. “After that, we turn the course over to the owner.”

Relies On Equipment From Ehrbar

Building a golf course from start to finish involves many types of heavy equipment, much of which is usually rented, according to Ledbetter. But the company has started to expand its fleet of equipment by buying some of the small- to medium-size machines they use regularly, and trucking them to the jobsites.

When getting ready to work at the Pound Ridge site, Ledbetter turned to Bill Tucker, Sales Representative at Edward Ehrbar Inc., for a large number of machines. “For the most part, Komatsu and Ehrbar have filled all our needs,” he said. “Their service is great and they are able to provide the equipment I need, when I need it.”

Heritage Links has rented a PC308USLC-7 excavator, a PC200LC-7 excavator, a D65PX-5 dozer, a D41 dozer, a D39 dozer and a Komatsu HM350-1 articulated truck for the project and also purchased a Komatsu PC160LC-7 excavator with a knuckle bucket, all from Ehrbar.

“I’ve always liked Komatsu excavators and we needed one for the Pound Ridge project,” said Ledbetter. “And I’ve never been so pleased with an off-road truck as I am with the Komatsu HM350. It’s running circles around our other truck and the guys always request it.”

Keeping his operators comfortable while running the equipment is very important, said Ledbetter, and he said they all like working with the Komatsu equipment. “As a contractor, the operators are my biggest asset, and when they are comfortable and happy, they are more productive,” he noted.

Credits People

Ledbetter credits his crews and all the people connected with the project for staying on schedule and doing quality work. “We’ve had to do a lot of creative thinking on this job, and I’ve been really pleased with my guys,” he said. “Robert Garcia is my shaper and he has been critical in the dirt-moving process.

My assistant, Craig Corbett, is on his first construction project and has done a great job. Without those two guys, it would be tough. It’s been a challenge and will continue to be a challenge, but it’s going to be a fabulous course when we’re done.”

Looking ahead, Ledbetter sees possible expansion to more overseas work. “Most of the good ground to build golf courses is gone, so we’re finding the sites, especially in the U.S., tougher and tougher to build on,” he said. “And the international market is really on an upswing right now.

“We’re growing but we don’t want to get too big,” he added. “We’re actually selecting jobs we want to bid on rather than bidding everything. I think we’re comfortable where we’re at and we would rather take expansion slowly on our own terms than quickly on somebody else’s. I think that’s where we’re headed.”

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