Logo - Black

Northern Exposure: Playing golf in Kodiak, Alaska

The U.S. Coast Guard base in Kodiak, Alaska, has a lot of responsibility, a lot of wind and a golf course with some startlingly natural hazards

Northern Exposure: Playing golf in Kodiak, Alaska

The U.S. Coast Guard base in Kodiak, Alaska, has a lot of responsibility, a lot of wind and a golf course with some startlingly natural hazards

Share this article

W

ords and images: Reade Tilley. Three of us were from Florida—and not just from Florida, we were from the same part of Florida. We knew summers on the same beaches, took dates to the same restaurants.

We probably drove too fast on the same roads when we were kids. Several thousand feet above the Gulf of Alaska in a Coast Guard helicopter off Kodiak Island, this seemed significant somehow, that three of the five of us on board were from the same part of the world. A much warmer part of the world, several thousand miles away.

centered image
Hanging out with the Coast Guard’s Wilson over Bear Valley GC

But Alaska can be funny that way, offering up things you don’t necessarily expect. Like, for example, an otter on the golf course.

The golf course is a nine-hole public course called Bear Valley and it’s on Kodiak Island, approximately three miles from the largest operating U.S. Coast Guard base, Integrated Support Command Kodiak. I got to see it on the ground and from the air, the latter via a ride in a USCG helicopter. In a word—a word I rarely use because so few things are—the golf course is unique. Unique for the weather, unique for its location and unique because of the otter, which is only one example of the wildlife you might see on the fairways.

Wildlife aside, the real story of the golf course is the people who use it. Unlike so many courses, a significant number of the golfers at Bear Valley on any given day are some of the bravest men and women alive. Committed to protecting our borders, our interests and our people in the cold north, the USCG personnel stationed at Kodiak risk their lives every day. Any time they get on Bear Valley is certainly well-earned, and hopefully well enjoyed.

The Course

The course is on USCG land, and it used to be run by USCG personnel. Some years ago the Coast Guard got out of the golf course management business, but Bear Valley is still a big part of recreational life on base.

“I release a lot of frustrations on that little golf course,” says CAPT Andy Berghorn, Air Station Kodiak’s commander. “I must have played 30 rounds last year.”

With the responsibility of looking after the lives of fishermen and women in the Bering Sea, enforcing the law and maintaining navigational aids throughout the extreme north, it’s no wonder several people on base expressed similar sentiments of the course’s stress-relieving attributes, but Berghorn’s frequency of play was the most impressive—all the more so because Bear Valley isn’t always playable, at least not by Florida standards.

“I’ve been out there on days where it’s horizontal rain and 30- to 40-knot winds and you’re in your rain slicker and everybody’s playing like it’s a beautiful day,” says Berghorn. “You have to take what nature gives you here, otherwise you’d never play.”

centered image
Snow in Spring, animals almost always; Bear Valley GC

When you consider that it rains an average of 193 days per year and that the temperature is below freezing on 133 days (and above 90 only seven days), you realize Berghorn isn’t kidding.

centered image
LCDR Steve Jutras in front of his C-310

Still, there are advantages to the weather: “I get to work on my wind game,” says LCDR Steve Jutras, C-130 pilot and former rescue swimmer. “The wind always comes into play.”

As a point of illustration, Jutras tells me about the course’s two par 5s, which run in opposite directions across the main water hazard, a creek that cuts through the course.

“You can try to knock it across, which is easily done with a tailwind,” he explains. “I’ve hit a driver and sometimes I’m 50 yards this side of the creek; sometimes I’m 50 yards on the other side of the creek. It’s just the wind.”

centered image
The "Colander Cup"

Jutras seems to handle it ok; he and several teammates won a trophy that I dubbed the “Colander Cup,” due to its eccentric construction. A base of what appears to be two dogfood dishes glued together supports a colander full of range golf balls, all stuck together with some kind of airplane-related epoxy. A bright orange range ball serves as the ornament on top, and winners’ names are immortalized in Sharpie on a “Hello, my name is” sticker affixed to the base. Clearly a coveted award, it triumphantly gleams down from a shelf over Jutras’ desk, daring anyone to challenge him and his team on a course they obviously know well.

“The best part about [the course] is the slight doglegs, so you get to work the ball both left and right. And there are no sand traps! There’s no way they’d be able to keep up with that in the rain and wind.”

The wind effects everything, including the shape of the course itself. “Sometimes we lose a big tree,” says Art Bors, Bear Valley’s manager. “And some of them are important strategically, inside the corner of a dogleg. When the big trees go down it makes it a little easier.”

Of course, “easier” is a relative term on a course that still had snow on it in May.

“If you can keep it in the fairway you’re a good golfer,” says Berghorn. “If you hit it in the woods, you never know what you’re going to meet out there. Between the deer and the mountain goats… Well, it’s a unique place.”

I saw goats and plenty of rabbits for myself, both while I was standing on the course and while I was flying over it. Others report seeing deer, foxes, vermin, even the odd bear. And, of course, there was the otter, which Bors told me he saw.

To be fair, he did qualify the sightings: “We’re making the thing sound like a zoo, and it’s really not. It just happens occasionally.”

In other words, don’t come here on safari; come here to golf.

Art or the friendly Lisa Reuter will sort you out with rental clubs and a tee time. If you feel you need a refresher on instruction—or if you just want a good challenge—ask for Brett Larsen.

Palmer Stories

As many of his fans know, Arnold Palmer served in the U.S. Coast Guard, and even built one of his first golf courses at the training base in Cape May, New Jersey, with a wheelbarrow and a shovel. He recently told Kingdom that he’d certainly consider working on a course with the USCG again, and there are a few people around the base who would welcome his coming. Turns out a few of them already have their own Palmer stories to tell.
Here’s a sampling:

Art Bors, manager of Bear Valley Golf Club on Kodiak Island, once played in a tournament at Laurel Valley Golf Club in Pennsylvania, in which Mr. Palmer took part. “That’s me,” says Art, pointing to a picture of himself with Arnie and a few others. “You can tell Arnold Palmer that was the highlight of my golfing career. It had as much to do with meeting him as it did with playing in the tournament.”

LCDR Steve Jutras, C-130 Pilot and former USCG rescue swimmer met Mr. Palmer while attending flight school in Milton, Florida.
“He was there at The Moors Golf Club, a seniors tournament. It was during one of the practice sessions and everybody was waiting for autographs. I was waiting out in the parking lot, he came out in his Cadillac… Some other folks gathered around him. They were all talking about golf, and I said ‘Hey Mr. Palmer, how do you like that new Citation X?’ [Referring to Palmer’s Cessna Citation X jet.]

Mr. Palmer turned around, his eyes lit up and he said, ‘I LOVE IT!’

I told him I was in the Coast Guard going through flight school. He goes, ‘Oh yeah? I was in the Coast Guard.’ I thought he was kidding, but after the tournament I went home and looked it up and sure enough… He gave me the autograph, made small chat and was on his way. I still have the autograph. After the tournament on Sunday, he overflew the golf course and did the old wing dip. I said, ‘I know who that is.’

Be sure and tell him that if he ever needs a backup pilot…”

gallery

Masters that changed golf

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Volutpat lectus leo in eu sagittis

1/5
New Project
New Project
1/5
New Project
New Project

Share this article

Share this article

Other Topics