Stewardship

After a few beautiful 70 degree days in FEBRUARY, we are sitting here in the middle of March looking out at 8+" of snow and ice. As all of us wait with baited breath to get this season underway I felt this was a perfect time to discuss a topic that to this day still is an issue. BALLMARKS! I want all of our members, guests and staff to realize whether we are playing Augusta, Merion, Rivercrest, or the local public course that it is our responsibility to take time and repair marks left by our play. It's part of the game that many times is overlooked and  leaves the course in worse shape for the players behind.
I started playing this great game at 9 years old and the first lesson I had with the local pro was him discussing course etiquette. He instilled in me to leave the course in better shape than I left it. Fix your ballmarks, rake the bunkers smooth, and replace your divots.
After 35 years I'm still amazed when I tour the course every morning and walk on these greens there are ballmarks completely untouched. Always try to fix your mark as well as find another to fix while you are waiting for your friends to putt.


   


These photos above were taken on Saturday, October 15th from 4 green.


Now, we also need to fix the mark correctly. Fixing the mark incorrectly will leave an ugly scar on the green for weeks or longer.  I have posted two videos below on the proper way to fix a ballmark.

5 Tee Revamp

I'd like to thank Doug Mottin and his staff from Mottin Golf Course Renovations for the excellent work reshaping the black/blue tee on #5. The original tee on black/blue tee was not large enough to handle the traffic and we were forced to use sections on the back of the 12th tee for hitting. Another issue was the rough area in between the two tees was using up valuable space and needed to be corrected.
The back tee was a paltry 1200 sq. feet and after reshaping is now 2700 sq feet!! This new tee will give us many more tee placements to distribute the wear.

The back tee- half the width of the forward tee. 20+ft. of rough wasting space.

The machines arrive and digging begins. The mini-ex carves a soft taper off the back of 12 Tee.

Load after load hauled away and stock piled at our shop for future projects.

The floor almost completed to a 8" depth. This was then laser leveled for a small amount taper for drainage.

After drain lines were dug and pipes installed, approx. 80 tons of tee mix was added and leveled.

The surface was plate tamped(compacted) then spun with our bunker machine. Sod Arrives!

Penn -trio sod installed on the tee along with turf type tall fescue rough sod for the border.

FINISHED PRODUCT!

 The whole process went smoothly and seamlessly. Thank you to Doug, Kris, Brett and the crew for a fantastic job!

GREENS!

It's that time of year again! The weather looks fantastic and we will be opening the greens this Friday.
So get out there and stretch those winter legs and enjoy the warm sun.


SPECIAL NOTES:

We are working on a large project to expand the black blue tee on number 5 and there will be large material haulers running back and forth between our maintenance shop and 5.

It is still early in the season and if the weather decides to plunge back into winter time temperatures (the groundhog did see his shadow!) we may,  from time to time change back to temporary pins to protect the greens from damage.


DON'T FORGET TO REPAIR THOSE BALLMARKS!

Temp Greens

We will be changing over to temp greens this Monday, Dec. 12th. 

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Late Fall Aerification

We have just completed deep solid tining of the fairways in preparation for the upcoming gypsum application. This will mechanically loosen the soil as well as open channels for the gypsum, water, and oxygen to enter the rootzone.
Tees will be hollow cored starting this week and then heavily top-dressed to help eliminate thatch buildup. We will keep the course open and work around play. The plugs will be removed between tee rocks while we continue clean-up to reduce any disruption of golf. Once we start I will post pictures of the process and update our progress.
In early December we will spiking the greens in order for oxygen and rainfall to enter the profile. This will help to reduce standing water from freezing and causing damage to the surface of the greens. Topdressing will also be applied before winter sets in to help protect the plants and reduce thatch.

Gypsum Application

This Wednesday we will be applying gypsum to our fairways. We will be spreading 1000lbs an acre with large AG trucks which throw the product up to 60 feet. This amendment is calcium based and will help to flush the high levels of bicarbonates in our soil. When high levels of bicarbonates are introduced into the soil they tend to combine with sodium and begin to seal off the surface. During this past summer when natural rainfall was scarce, continuous irrigation began to cause a lock up of soil particles making it more and more difficult to get needed water into the rootzone. This caused many dry spots throughout the property and the more we watered the worse it became. This problem also contributed to the fairyring which were not effectively watered causing the necrotic ring spots. This application will be done each year to help "loosen" up the soil allowing water and oxygen to reach deeper into the profile.