Golf Course Architecture - Issue 62: October 2020

75 Photo: The Club at Lac la Belle trying to prepare the course to hold the tournament. But because they had our product, they never had to touch the paths. They never had to worry about the access points for players and the guest experience was never a concern. Even if the area is subject to heavy traffic, the surface will stand the test of time. If an area is damaged, or for instance, an irrigation line needs to be dug, the material can be easily scarified, removed, replaced and recompacted. If crews want to freshen the surface from an aesthetic point of view, it is a very simple update. We even have clients that have removed the material from certain areas and reinstalled it for use in maintenance areas or ancillary paths. There’s a very low waste factor with it. For our work at Lac La Belle, we began by sending them a trial of the wax polymer pathway mix in July 2020. Almost immediately, they called back and ordered five loads of material (approximately 115 tons, covering 11,500 square feet) for installation. The club has since ordered an additional 700 tons, giving them total coverage of over 80,000 square feet of walkways. “Installation has been easy,” said Cavezza. “I have a three- to-four-man crew that has been doing the install. We’re adding two inches of Kafka’s material over our four-to-six- inch base, then using a plate compactor and an old green roller.” The course has been around in some form for 120 years, which is incredibly historic in Wisconsin. “Our work has been to revitalise it and prepare it for another 100 years,” said Cavezza. Wisconsin has become a destination golf state with visitors coming from all over to play Whistling Straits, Erin Hills and Sand Valley. I think Lac La Belle is another one of those great stories that is going to draw golfers from all over the country . GCA Tiffany Koss is director of sales and marketing at Kafka Granite The Club at Lac La Belle will have installed over 80,000 square feet of Kafka’s patented wax polymer pathway mix when the project is complete “The product is designed to be self-installed with minimal maintenance, saving the ground crews valuable hours”