Boise’s historic River Club is being rebuilt by architect Brian Curley, and its new bunkers will be lined using the ZLine system.
BOISE, Idaho – Boise’s River Club was originally known as the Plantation Country Club and founded in 1917 – it is the oldest golf course in southern Idaho. Like a lot of older clubs, it is rather hemmed in, by the eponymous Boise River on one side, and by State Street on the other.
Its site, at 120 acres, was already rather tight for a golf course in this day and age, so when the course changed hands in 2018, and its new owner proposed selling off some of the frontage on State Street for development to fund a project to improve the club’s facilities, it was obvious that a very creative design solution would be needed for the golf course.
The club has already upgraded its swimming pool offering, and built pickleball and bocce ball courts. Architect Brian Curley was engaged to reconstruct the golf course, and his solution involved shortening the course, so the previous middle tee yardage would be the new back tee length, and par would fall from 69/70 to 68, but the holes themselves would be redesigned to make them more interesting.
Curley’s project is now in construction – in fact, owing to a mild, largely snow-free winter in Boise, it is ahead of schedule. And the course’s new bunkers will be lined using the ZLine system, which course superintendent Nate Cahill says was chosen principally for its ability to resist contamination of bunker sand.
“Being right alongside the Boise River, we have river rock in our soil, and it finds its way into our bunkers,” he explains. “The selection of ZLine was mostly about preventing that, though its ability to move water away quickly when we get rain events was also an issue.
“Also, some other bunker liners have a fairly narrow installation window in terms of weather conditions – we can install ZLine in any weather. ZLine came out and trained the team in how to fit the product in about a day and a half, and about threequarters of our new bunkers have already been lined. It is a very straightforward product to install, which makes our life a lot easier – there is plenty going on, so not having to worry about the bunker liner is a good thing.”