Emerald Valley earns its first ace.

Byline: INSIDE THE OUTDOORS By Mike Stahlberg The Register-Guard

Emerald Valley Golf Club owner Jim Pliska didn't have to wait long to begin receiving accolades on his operation of the course he purchased a mere 34 months ago.

The Oregon Golf Association has named Emerald Valley - which was threadbare after years of neglect when Pliska bought it in June 2002 - its Golf Course of the Year for 2004.

Emerald Valley was honored not only for the physical improvements made on the ground, which are significant, but for the way it stepped to the plate in support of amateur golf in Oregon.

Pliska's course hosted the OGA Junior Match Play Championship and U.S. Amateur qualifying during 2004. This year, the course begins a three-year run as the site of the OGA Stroke Play Championship and hosts another 36-hole U.S. Amateur qualifier, as well as the "Monday qualifier" for the local Nationwide Tour event.

Not many daily fee courses are willing to routinely turn over huge chunks of tee times for tournaments, as such events invariably result in reduced income. But Pliska, a member of the 1979 University of Oregon golf team who is now a Gresham businessman, loves competitive golf. He's qualified for the U.S. Amateur three times and has won the Oregon Stroke Play title.

The OGA also gave recognition to the man Pliska hired to run Emerald Valley, general manager Todd O'Neal. He was cited for his commitment to junior golf.

Emerald Valley will become even more attractive this year.

The grand opening for its new driving range, which includes six target greens, will be May 7. The facility is huge, the main tee area covering more than an acre. That, O'Neal says, will allow Emerald Valley to provide golfers with year-round access to grass practice tees.

Due to be completed by May 1 is a new irrigation system - an uncanny bit of fortuitous timing, given the prospect of drought this year.

Failures of the course's original irrigation system, which often went unrepaired, were a primary cause for Emerald Valley's deterioration. Also new this spring are tee boxes on holes 6, 8 and 9, and three or four bunkers.

Area golfers have been recognizing the changes Pliska has brought about their own way - with their green fees.

Play at Emerald Valley was up 16.5 percent during 2004, O'Neal says, while Pacific Northwest golf in general was down about 2.5 percent.

"It's a pretty amazing turnaround," O'Neal said.

Meanwhile, in other Oregon golf course news:

The unveiling McKenzie River Golf Club's new look is scheduled for May 1.

On that date, a temporary new pro shop/clubhouse and driving range will open adjacent to what is now the eighth tee. The 14-stall driving range is 280 yards long and will feature "state of the art" Astroturf mats, according to course owner Rod Omlid.

"We'll have the best matting system around," Omlid said. "With these you can put a real tee down into the Astroturf."

The opening of the new facilities will trigger the renumbering of McKenzie River's holes, with No. 8 becoming No. 1, the elevated ninth becoming No. 2, and so on.

The current No. 1 hole will be lengthened as the turf on the present practice putting greens behind the tee box is moved down near the new clubhouse.

The new opening hole will be a straightaway par 4 playing at 299 to 319 yards during the first year of the changeover. By this time next year, Omlid said, "we'll make that hole even better and longer by turning it into a dogleg right."

Omlid said green fees at the nine-hole course will remain unchanged.

A June 1 opening has been set for Bandon Trails, the inland third course currently nearing completion at Bandon Dunes golf complex on the southern Oregon Coast. The course, designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, is characterized by inland, rolling dune land and exposed sand with beach grasses and ocean vistas.

Mike Stahlberg can be reached at [e-mail].