By Susan Bard Hall
If Kerry Blatteau, golf course superintendent for the Oak Brook Hills Hotel & Resort in Oak Brook, IL, could take a stroke off his golf game every time he’s been asked those questions, he’d be playing golf professionally by now.
The dog is Jenna, a two-year-old Border Collie acquired by the suburban Chicago resort in June 1997. Jenna’s job was to “herd” the geese which populated the resort’s 18-hole championship golf course and even found their way onto the hotel grounds. Having been trained to herd sheep (she obtained her sheepskin from Seclusival Farm and Kennel in Shipman VA), it took but a few weeks for Jenna to learn that the geese were her sheep.
Officially named “Director of Fowl Management” for the 382-room resort, Jenna has single-handedly helped to significantly reduce the property’s geese population, Blatteau explained. Some 30 to 50 geese now stay on the ponds, out of the way of golfing and non-golfing guests alike. According to Blatteau, before Jenna’s arrival, upwards of 250 geese made their presence known.
“She runs around and, as soon as the geese see her, they head right for the ponds,” Blatteau said.
Randy Bolstad, director of golf for the resort, explained that the grounds crew always did an excellent job of containing the geese mess so that it didn’t damage the hotel’s public spaces and guest rooms.
Still, geese are destructive, and they tend to be indiscriminate about where they build their nests.
“Courses in the Chicago-area are plagued with geese, and golfers find themselves or their golf balls in a sticky situation,” Bolstad said. “This has been a growing problem for all suburban courses because geese damage the greens and fairways and they’re a danger to golfers during mating season.”
