The Lakemont golf course was built in two phases beginning in 1988. John LaFoy designed the layout with the front 9 holes played around Stone Mountain Lake. Incredible views of the World?EUR??,,????'???s largest Exposed Granite mountain along with the famous Confederate Memorial carving (center of picture) featuring Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson on horseback are visible as well.

2006 PGMS Green Star Grand Award winner, Stone Mountain Golf Club, designed and built in 1969, is located just outside of Atlanta, Ga. Featuring two championship courses?EUR??,,????'???Stonemont and Lakemont?EUR??,,????'???the grounds snake through a forest of Georgia pines, with a view of Stone Mountain, the World?EUR??,,????'???s largest Exposed Granite mountain.

Anthony Williams has been at Stone Mountain for 3 years and has been an employee of Stone Mountain?EUR??,,????'???s parent company, Marriott International Golf, for the past 22. (The official name of the course is Stone Mountain Golf Club by Marriott). The company owns properties in 60 nations, as well as 62 golf courses in 13 countries. With a degree in Ornamental Horticulture from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, GA, Williams is as decorated a Golf Course Superintendent as they come.

 

Landscape Superintendent Anthony Williams works with a budget of $1.2 million to maintain not one but two championship caliber 18-hole golf courses at Stone Mountain Golf Club.

In addition to the Grand Award from the PGMS, Golf Digest, along with the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America named Stone Mountain the 2006 winner of National Public and overall winner of Environmental Leaders in Golf. Interestingly, Williams?EUR??,,????'??? previous golf course won that same award in 2005.

Based on his environmental work, Williams also earned the J.W. Marriott Award of Excellence, which was given to only nine out of the 300,000 Marriott employees worldwide. If that were not enough, he has also won the Marriott Grounds Manager of the Year in both 2005 and 2006, which is selected from of all brands within the company. The award has yet to be announced for 2007, but surely Williams?EUR??,,????'??? name has a great chance of being on the list.

Faced with a state-wide drought, the team at Stone Mountain has had to step up the use of wetting agents as their goal shifted from having optimal turf health, simply to turf survival. Williams does not see the lack of water as a challenge, as much as he sees it as a goal to work toward. He and his staff are constantly trying to create a very environmentally efficient operation.

Landscaping Crew

Williams?EUR??,,????'??? staff consists of 18 full time employees, who average about 40 hours a week when the weather gets nice. During the summer season a majority of the staff gets to the course by 5:45 A.M. Since most of the work needs to be done early in the day, only a few stay into the late afternoon and end their day by 6 P.M.

Two crew members are managers and another two are full-time mechanics that take care of all the course?EUR??,,????'???s landscaping equipment. While only a team of two is directly responsible for all the pesticide spraying, five licensed pesticide applicators are on staff (including Williams). In addition to the two golf courses, the team supports a conference center, including two hotels. They manage the environmental programs throughout the facility, which goes far and beyond the daily challenge of a golf course.

Stone Mountain has 86,000 sq. ft. of ornamental gardens and 65,000 sq. ft. of wildlife gardens. The team maintains 3.46 acres flowerbeds, with high visibility areas getting changed out twice a year. ?EUR??,,????'??We don?EUR??,,????'???t do a big rotation because of the drought,?EUR??,,????'?? said Williams. Perennials make up about 85% of the plantings, so most of what we placed in 2006 is still going strong today.?EUR??,,????'??

Turf

While Georgia has been enduring a drought in recent years, the grass at Stone Mountain continues to grow and produce seed heads. ?EUR??,,????'??We?EUR??,,????'???ve got an extra golf course and it?EUR??,,????'???s quite a trick keeping up with both,?EUR??,,????'?? said Williams.

The greens are cut everyday to a height of .14 inches, the fairways are mowed at half an inch (3/8 of an inch for tournaments), and the roughs are kept at 2.5 inches. The Stonemont course is tended to Monday/ Wednesday/Friday, while the Lakemont course is mowed on Tuesday/ Thursday/ Saturday. ?EUR??,,????'??Though, all the best laid plans of mice and men have to be adjusted sometimes,?EUR??,,????'?? said Williams. ?EUR??,,????'??We often have to stay late to catch up.?EUR??,,????'??

Equipment

With two courses to maintain, the effective use and care of equipment is a primary concern for Williams and his team. Toro and Jacobsen are the primary suppliers for Stone Mountain?EUR??,,????'???s 35-mower stable, which includes implement pieces and attachments such as deck trimmers and blowers. Six Jacobsen Triplex mowers keep the greens in shape, while a number of Jacobsen and Toro 5-deck mowers handle the rough.

All equipment maintenance is done in-house, with a budget of $65,000 set aside to make sure the engines run smoothly and the mowers give a clean and pure cut. ?EUR??,,????'??Every mower needs to be sharp,?EUR??,,????'?? said Williams. ?EUR??,,????'??We make an extra effort to rotate machines every other day, and the greens mowers are sharpened every day. Our head mechanic has been with the company all of my 22 years at Marriott, so I am very confident in his work.?EUR??,,????'??

Williams works with park officials to develop tree replacement policy. The grounds, surrounded on all sides by freeway and urban landscapes, are often the ?EUR??,,????'??last vestige for a lot of the plants,?EUR??,,????'?? said Williams. ?EUR??,,????'??Many gardens (like the one shown here) have been converted to habitat space where everything has been built to provide nesting materials.?EUR??,,????'??

Irrigation

Stone Mountain utilizes a Rainbird irrigation system with Nimbus II central control software. While every spray head has a bypass and can be manually operated if necessary, they are all linked via satellite to the central system.

Stone Mountain Lake, with its 423 surface acres, is the singular source of all the water used in the golf course and conference center. ?EUR??,,????'??All of our lakes are fed by wet springs and surface water runoff,?EUR??,,????'?? said Williams. ?EUR??,,????'??They only dropped a few inches with all the drought.?EUR??,,????'?? However, he and his crew were not allowed to use one drop of it due to statewide restrictions. ?EUR??,,????'??Water is our biggest challenge, our driving concern.We?EUR??,,????'???ve had to step up the use of wetting agents and our goal shifted from having optimal health for all of our turf, to survival,?EUR??,,????'?? said Williams. ?EUR??,,????'??But when we had no water, we became a lot more efficient. ?EUR??,,????'??Nothing at the facility was unaffected by the water restrictions, which caused Williams and his team to work smarter, not harder.

The 4.4 acres of greens, made up of creeping bentgrass, at Stone Mountain are mowed daily to a height of .14 inches by a stable of six Jacobsen Triplex greens mowers. ?EUR??,,????'??We make an extra effort to rotate machines (for sharpening and cleaning) every other day. The greens mowers are sharpened every day,?EUR??,,????'?? said Williams.

Community Outreach

Not content with simply running two golf courses, Williams and his team have gotten involved with Warren Technical School, a facility for at-risk youth in Atlanta. The collaboration created a program where the golf course is the classroom, with courses in greenskeeping, turf maintenance and tree care. It has given a second chance to kids that were written off by many.

?EUR??,,????'??It gives theses kids another option in life,?EUR??,,????'?? said Williams. ?EUR??,,????'??Many of them never had a positive influence, and while not everyone works out?EUR??,,????'???some do?EUR??,,????'???which is the point of the program.?EUR??,,????'??

Facility Breakdown:

• The total golf course property consists of 340 acres. ?EUR??,,????'??We just used GPS to find out exactly how much turf we have,?EUR??,,????'?? said Williams.
• 126 acres of turf
• 79.9 acres of rough (mix common Bermuda and 419 Bermuda)
• 37.4 acres of fairways (419 Bermuda)
• 4.9 acres of tee boxes (mix of 419 Bermuda and zoysia)
• 4.4 acres of greens (creeping bentgrass)
• 2.5 acres of common grass areas (mix of 419 Bermuda and tall fescue)
• 8.65 surface acres of ponds within property