Turf

Page 52 SUPER SPOTLIGHT "I don't know if the anchoring system just wasn't prepared for it," Hicks said. "There was some fatigue on some of the steel components. Prevailing winds normally come from the south. It put the wrong strain on the cabling system and snapped the two front cables." Hicks and his staff went to work to stabilize the world famous floating green on No. 14. "It was quite a project to put all that back together," Hicks said. Two forward and two aft cables allow the green to be moved to a different distance from the tee each day. "They were anchored to some oversized concrete blocks, and the connection chain broke, Hicks said. "So we had to create some new anchors for the 15,000-square-foot island. Otherwise we would have had to dredge out the old anchors and environmentally that was not the way to go." Repairs were quickly made. "We drove new pilings, and everything is now serviceable," Hicks said. "Our divers did a good job of putting everything back together. Even though the timing wasn't great, it's a much better system as a result. Sometimes you make lemonade out of lemons." In this case, the island green was saved. But Hicks also had to deal with damage caused by the same storm on other parts of the course. "We lost 28 Ponderosa pine trees," Hicks said. "That's not really on the project list for midsummer, but my staff did a great job of getting things back to normal in no time at all. That was a tough project." Superintendents truly don't know what new problems will arise the next day. Coeur d'Alene is home Hicks, 46, arrived at the resort in 2003 from Hillcrest Country Club in Boise, Idaho. Before that he worked at Desert Forest Carefree, Ariz., and at Castle Castle Rock, Colo. Eleven years later, Hicks at Coeur d'Alene. "The first three years were program that would get us our owners wanted to be," not have a good track record

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