![\"\"](\"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/robertfagan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/33\/2010\/10\/18th-Barranca-Before-Goats.jpg\")
<\/a>Pasatiempo's 18th hole canyon "Pre-Goats."<\/p><\/div>\n
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People working on the steep canyon slopes is a dangerous and cumbersome operation at best, but an easy day in the park for goats. Instead of deploying the traditional maintenance techniques of heavy equipment, noisy chain saws, and chippers, which are irritants to all, Pasatiempo is using this bearded brigade to quietly and effectively clear its steep canyon slopes on its back nine. \u00a0\u00a0What\u2019s more, our four-legged friends will be able to completely eradicate some species of vines in the canyons, thereby reducing the need to spray harmful chemicals that can irritate golfers and maintenance crews alike.<\/p>\n
Always considered one of the best courses in America that admits limited public play, Pasatiempo has thoughtfully embraced a restoration process that has restored the look and feel of the layout to its original Alister MacKenzie lines.\u00a0 In the past few years, the Club brought in one of today\u2019s premier golf course architects, the team of Tom Doak and Jim Urbina, who cleared out at least one thousand trees and restored the bunkering to its original shaping.\u00a0\u00a0They have\u00a0succeeded in opening up the attractive vistas on the site making a great course play and look even better – and closer to the ideas set forth by its architect Alister MacKenzie.<\/p>\n
Pasatiempo Superintendent Paul Chojnacky is continuing this restoration effort. “I’ve been looking at old photographs (from the 1920s and 1930s) of the property over the past two-and-a-half, almost three years that I’ve been here, and the ruggedness of this area, especially on the back nine, was pretty extreme … The goal is to get back to that,” said Chojnacky.<\/p>\n
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Here was the other issue.\u00a0\u00a0 Previously, the maintenance crew would go down into the canyons to clear out pampas grass and invasive species, but they could only cut so far into the formidable terrain. \u00a0\u00a0Whatever material they could clear out would have to be hauled up out of the canyon and put into big brush piles, and another company would then have to be hired to cut it into chips. \u00a0Said Chojnacky, \u201cNo matter how hard the crews worked, everything would just grow back each spring, “so it almost looked like we hadn’t done any work there at all. It was a rather frustrating schedule.” After pondering the situation, he discovered Brush Goats 4 Hire and contracted the company.<\/p>\n
But what about the cost and time issue?\u00a0 Chojnacky had done his homework.\u00a0 He estimates that the cost of the goats to clear an acre is $1,250, but the cost of having a crew do the same work, even disregarding the environmental cost, inconvenience to golfers, and dangers posed is $10,000 per acre.\u00a0 The goats will take approximately ten weeks to clean four separate areas on Pasatiempo\u2019s back nine whereas human crews would pose a four-year project.\u00a0 This type of \u201cthinking outside the box\u201d wins on all fronts.<\/p>\n
Brush Goats 4 Hire is the husband-and-wife operation that belongs to Ian Newsam and Lorraine Argo, a 3-year-old company based out of Buellton, California. \u00a0In addition to the roughly 170 goats, they also brought along two Anatolian shepherd dogs — code named Killer 1 and Killer 2 — to guard their charges from the predations of mountain lions and coyotes.\u00a0 According to Newsam, the goats eat between 5 and 10 percent of their body weight each day, and are presently contained in an approximately two-acre area lined by a solar-powered electric fence, whose 10,000 volts also serve as a deterrent to any predators.<\/p>\n
So how is the cloven-hoofed cavalry doing?\u00a0 In the short time the goats have been grazing, they’ve cut down so much of the overgrowth that the individual peaks on the hills now can be seen as they once stood in historical pictures.\u00a0 According to Chojnacky, \u201cYou can already see in less than a week what they’ve done, and it would take us months to remove all that material and then having to haul it off. Plus, we’d have to go down there and spray chemicals, and we don’t want to have to do that, either.”<\/p>\n
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