The Laz family's Flowing Lake Golf Course has a long and hilly history

Originally published Saturday, November 27, 1999

By JON HAHN  
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE SNOHOMISH -- Playing golf in wet conditions is nothing new in the Puget Sound region, but playing the Flowing Lake Golf Course requires a periscope.

That special little feature probably doesn't surprise folks who know the course was built by Bob Laz and his sons, Stanley and Gary. They built the 18-hole course on their former Christmas tree farm, on land so hilly that a periscope is required at one tee to check for out-of-sight golfers down the fairway.

And several other tees are flanked by stairways to nowhere, which allow players an elevated perspective on other golfers down-range on this challenging par-66 course.

Perhaps the most challenging thing about it is that anyone would be crazy enough to build a golf course out here, 14 miles east of Everett and an hour's drive from Seattle. But first you have to know that Bob Laz was the guy who planted the 20,000 or so Christmas trees . . . before realizing no one wanted to drive this far to cut down a tree at his Wonderland Tree Farm.

And that was after Bob and his late twin, George, had turned a 165-acre stump ranch on the shore of Flowing Lake into the Wonderland Park Resort . . . which was too far out to attract enough patrons.

Bob and George Laz were inseparable for more than 70 years, "although we were always beating the crap out of one another," Bob recalls. When Bob wrote a book about their hard-scratch efforts, George Laz recalled: "Uncle Stanley always said: 'There had to be two of them because one couldn't be so dumb!' We proved he was right by tackling and building the resort. Now, Bob, you proved I was smarter because I didn't spend the most of 32 years writing a book about how dumb we were!"

Now that the golf course is doing what the resort and tree farm couldn't -- we all know golfers are crazy enough to drive many miles in all kinds of weather so they can drive a little white ball a couple of hundred yards -- you'd think that 86-year-old Bob Laz could take it easy, maybe play a couple rounds of golf each week and consider raising koi in the water hazards or get into day trading.

"Mostly, since the first of the year, I've been writing a book about building a golf course," said the not-quite-retired machinist and co-founder of Laz Tool & Fabricators Co. in Monroe.

Bob wasn't deterred by the fact that his first book, "The Epic of Wonderland Park," sold only about 1,000 copies. He figures "not many people were interested in building a resort, and I wrote it, anyway. But there are millions of golfers, and there should be enough who want to know how to build a golf course."

Or, how not to build one. Discounting for a moment the protracted legal battles forced by neighbors fearing golf course traffic, etc., there is the sheer logistical effort of carving a golf course out of rocky soil and second-growth timber.

"We graduated to using electric blasting caps to blow the stumps," Laz said with a grin. The budget for building the resort more than 50 years ago was so tight that they used short-burning fuses, which required very fast and nimble scrambling out of holes once fuses were lit."

"Sis" Laz, Bob's wife of 58 years, "has put up with a lotta (bleep)," said the man who married his childhood sweetheart in Chicago. Sis used to play golf, but health problems have prevented her from playing Flowing Lake.

And their youngest son, Gary, 51, now the course manager, said that building the course wasn't exactly a dream come true. Fact is, after he quit his machinist job to help his father with the tree farm, "we had arguments -- some real good ones!"

"When I was working the tree farm, every once in a while I'd be walking along and think to myself: 'This would make a great golf hole.' Well, there we were, trying to sell trees in the pouring rain in December, and people weren't coming out and things weren't going so good and (Dad) and I got into it pretty heavy and he said something like: 'Well, what can you suggest that's better?' And I said: 'Well, maybe we oughta make a damn golf course!'

"And he really floored me. Instead of what I expected, he said: 'Maybe that's a good idea. . . . When do you want to start?' "

It was a rocky road, literally, and hiring local labor to separate the rocks from the land was going nowhere. There were, of course, those father-and-son arguments about how best to do any job. And even with Gary and Stanley operating leased heavy equipment, Bob needed laborers to cull and move rocks.

Migrant workers hired through a contractor were getting stiffed on wages and benefits, so Bob fired the contractor and paid the half-dozen men directly, and threw in free housing on property he still owned at Flowing Lake.

"I learned how to speak Mexican while I was raking rocks alongside these guys, and they were all great guys. On Fridays, after work, we'd drink together. And on Saturdays, they'd take me to a Mexican place they knew. Finally, after 2-1/2 years, when we were finished, I gave them each a $1,000 bonus."

Laz had two surgeries for throat cancer during the building of the resort and tree farm that left him sounding a bit rough around the edges -- something his critics say goes all the way to the bone. But Bob Laz hasn't exactly toned down in his ninth decade. "I'm gonna put it all in the book, including those neighbors," he said, referring to opponents of the golf course. Only one former course opponent has played the course, Bob said. "I told the others to stay away."