Q&A: Tauge Rux, Superintendent at Colorado Golf Club

Tauge Rux

Superintendent - Colorado Golf Club

Location: Parker, CO
Years at CGC : 11 
Greens: Dominant X-Treme Bentgrass and Poa Annua
Tees, Fairways and Approaches: Bluegrass and Ryegrass 
Soil Profile: Sandy Loam to Heavy Clay 
Acreage: ~300 acres

Describe the site the course sits on and some of the flora and fauna found

Colorado Golf Club is located about 20 miles southeast of Denver. We sit just north of a ridge called the Palmer Divide, which gives us all sorts of unpredictable weather to deal with down here. We're kind of in the hills down here, but also there’s a prairie down on holes four, five, six, and seven. And then we've also got lots of ponderosa pines up here on the high end of the course. In terms of flora and fauna that we have here at Colorado Golf Club, like I stated earlier, we've got kind of the prairie grasses down below, and then the ponderosa pines up top. We've also got plenty of scrub oak and then also the rabbit brush, yuccas and cacti. And then we do a unique thing here where we don't really spray a ton of herbicides in our native grass, which does produce weeds, but it also produces a ton of wildflowers here. 

We're lucky that we are surrounded by a conservation easement. I think the only houses that we really have on property are off of hole number one. So we do get plenty of animals out here.You'll get mule deer, pronghorns and then we've got all sorts of smaller ones in terms of snakes, rabbits, hawks, eagles. We have had sightings of lynx out here. I have not seen them personally but that's been pretty cool to see this year as well.

What does it feel like to be out on this property and golf course?

I've been incredibly lucky. Early on in my career I was able to intern here, back in 2016, and then I never left. I absolutely love this golf course. I love this style of golf course. So getting to come here every day, it doesn't really feel like a job. You wake up, you get the sunrise. It's tough to beat the sunrise, but I think sunset here with the mountains and, and the front range is pretty incredible too.

What is the soil profile of Colorado Golf Club?

Down in the meadow, we do have pretty heavy clay, like I was saying earlier, down on four or five, six and seven, there's plenty of clay down there. As you come up the hill towards the clubhouse, you do get into a bit more sandy loam type, which presents its challenges every year. Last year and most years number five is our problem child fairway. This year, because of the drought and there being clay down there, it's held water actually. And everything else has been pretty dry up this way up towards the clubhouse. It's been an interesting time with the drought and water restrictions.

What is the turfgrass profile of Colorado Golf Club and how has it evolved? What are the goals from a playing characteristic that your turfgrass mixture can provide?

All fairways and approaches were originally seeded as bluegrass. They're still mostly bluegrass here in terms of fairways and approaches but we do overseed quite a bit with ryegrass. It's not a monostand by any means out here. I don't think it was ever meant to be. And then on greens we have Dominant X-treme bentgrass. And it's probably 30 to 40 percent poa annua in spots. But I think we do a really good job of managing that.

What's your team's goal for presenting the golf course? Where are you guys trying to produce for the golfers?

When we think about golf here on a daily basis, we are thinking of presentation and playability. If that means we've got brown spots on the golf course, that's fine. But by any means, we're thinking about playability more than anything, and a lot of that is dictated by Mother Nature.

This year at the beginning of June and most of July, this place was as bouncy as I'd ever seen it. But then you start to get into a wet pattern, and it's hard to get a golf course to firm up when you do start to get rain so there’s a balance you have to manage.

What are some of the challenges you and your team face?

I think every golf course deals with it to some extent right now, and it's finding good staff members to keep on year round or even the seasonal guys. We're lucky that we do have an H-2b program that is fairly successful here. Most of the guys that do come back on H-2b visas, they come back every year, and they've been coming here for 10-15 years and I think a couple guys have been here for almost 20 years, since the beginning. So we're very fortunate to have a core group of guys that are here constantly. And then in terms of water, with the drought that we've been experiencing in 2026, and the water restrictions, it's just been a really interesting year because you have areas like number five fairway, where usually a problem child. This year it's been one of our best fairways and it's just kind of an ever evolving game of figuring out what needs to get done.

What are your goals at Colorado Golf Club and how does the evolution of the course affect those goals?

I think our number one goal is to still be good stewards of the land here. Like I said, it's part of a conservation easement and protecting the surrounding areas is incredibly important. And then continuing to evolve and adapt with what it's going to continue to be water restrictions, most likely. That's something that we're going to continue to have to work on day to day, week to week, year by year.

Kind of as we continue to the future, we've obviously hosted the 2019 U.S. Mid-Am, co-hosted the U.S. Amateur, and then we are looking forward to the 2030 U.S. Junior Am. It's great to have those tournaments so you kind of have something to really set your eyes towards for the future as you continue to prepare for those events.

As for the evolution, there are a couple holes up in the hills where we do have a couple really strategic trees. And as we've gone through the last several years, we've been kind of fighting pine beetle damage so we're trying to protect the golf course as much as possible. So we have gone out and planted a couple select trees here and there to kind of preserve the architecture aspect of Colorado Golf Club. For instance, No. 13, we've got those trees kind of front left of the green right there as those start to either fade away or die. That's a big portion of that hole right there. Because if you blow it past on the fairway down to the left, you are kind of blocked out by those trees. And we want to preserve that as much as possible. So we have planted 4 or 5 trees in those areas like that.

What about your golf course makes you smile or makes you happy at the end of the work day? 

I think one of the best things about Colorado Golf Club is the wildlife out here. You never know what you're going to run across out here in the mornings. Or even just just being out here. You're away from Parker Road. You're away from the city of Denver. It's quiet out here in the morning. It's tough to beat, I think, in terms of golf here in the Denver area. There's a reason why I haven't left this place yet. It's because I truly do love the golf course and enjoy coming to work every day.

Thank you to our friends at the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America for their support of this series.

More From Our Superintendents Series

Jeff Hicks: Rustic Canyon Golf Course
Cory Griess: Prairie Dunes Country Club
Neil Hutchinson: The Evans at Canal Shores