The Marshall's' Page

During the summer of 2004, I was given the privilege of serving the members and guests of the Waterton Lakes Golf Course in the capacity of Marshall .  The job was identified as being one of "assisting the patrons in having a good day."  This sounded like a job description that I would be able to live with and so here we are. The animals that occupy the course and call the area home provide ineeresting challenges as they go about their business on the golf course.  The safety of the golfers and the well being of the wildlife living in the National Park sometimes present seemingly opposing goals. 

I would like to use this page to share a few of the views and movies that I have collected with you.  Please feel free to have a look at the videos and pictures that I will post here.  I intend to change the content here quite frequently to make it more interesting for you.  Another function for this page will be to help you with the expectations we have for you on the course. 

    
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Just click on the moose to see the video
Close the video window to return here.

Putting the Animals to Work The grounds staff at the Waterton Lakes Golf course need to overcome a variety of problems that are not common to golf courses elsewhere.  We are in a national park and so the wildlife (including plants) fall under a more stringent set of rules for dealing with them.  The grounds team needs to prepare the greens, cut fairways and rough areas and maintain the buildings just like any other course, but they also need to repair marks made by the deer and elk on the greens and evenly distribute the "fertilizer" supplied by the wildlife at times.  With the recent problems most businesses have had with attracting and hiring staff, we have had to resort to imaginative measures by using the local animals in a variety of capacities.  For example, the bear below is selecting a spot to place the flag on the seventh green.  Next shot shows her inspecting the way the flag is hanging while the final picture shows the apprentice cub checking that the flag stick is properly anchored in the cup.
The mother bear acts as a journeyman groundskeeper while she shows the cubs how to complete the work needed to be done on the course and, as the shots below show, the apprentices are eager to complete the assigned work.
Moving the sprinklers.	Learning to adjust the guy lines.	Making sure the lines are tight.
The next shot shows one of the cubs putting out the markers for the tee boxes.  The final pictures link to a video of the bears making sure that any hole in one is legal.  We call this group the "Hole in One Inspectors".  This video has been the most visited video we have posted to date.
Setting up the Tee Markers.	Click here for Fast Internet	Click here for Dial-Up Internet
The videos below show one of the "staff" cutting grass near the 13th green while the other shows a second low payed staff member going to pick up some equipment to work on the fifth fairway.  Click on the links or pictures to activate your movie viewer.
Fast Internet Link          Dial-Up Link        Cutting grass on the 13th fairway.		Fast Internet Link    Dial-Up Link   Getting equipment from the shed.
This is a shot I took while supervising members of our "natural" grounds crew staff cutting and fertilizing the lawn at the staff house in preparation for the new human workers to move in.  They do an amazing job of preparing the lawns for summer.