This Day in History (2002): Golf course going green

From the November 27, 2002 edition of The Arabian Sun

If you've driven by the Rolling Hills Country Club on Rolling Hills Boulevard in Dhahran recently, then you've seen plenty of activity -- trucks unloading heaps of sand, water shooting from high-powered sprinklers and newly planted palm trees.

A slow change is taking place, and it's an exciting prospect for Aramco golfers.

Check out the proposed look of Dhahran's three nine-hole courses, and you'll see that they are starting to green.

Founded in 1949, the country club's original golf course was built off the Dhahran-al-Khobar road. After the country club moved to its current location in the Dhahran community, the South and West courses were built in 1973, incorporating the area's rocky terrain.

The East course opened in 1979, giving golfers a choice of three challenging courses.

None of this would be possible without the availability of water. The July 2001 expansion of the Dhahran Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant increased the capacity from 3.5 million to 10 million gallons per day, providing the additional treatment capacity needed to supply reclaimed water to the golf course.

Caption for top photo: Work on one of Dhahran's community golf courses is shown as grass takes hold. Here, one grassed-in area gets some final touches.

Also on this day:

2020 — Days after reports of its discovery, the Utah monolith is removed by recreationists

1999 — Helen Clark becomes the first elected female Prime Minister in New Zealand

1978 — San Francisco mayor George Moscone and city supervisor Harvey Milk are assassinated by former supervisor Dan White

1971 — The Soviet space program's Mars 2 orbiter releases a descent module, but it crashes, becoming the first man-made object to reach the Red Planet.

1965 — The Pentagon tells U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson that to succeed in the Vietnam War, the number of troops sent there must increase from 120,000 to 400,000

1924 — The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is held for the first time in New York

1901— The U.S. Army War college is established

1896 — Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss is first performed