10 Fairway

The tee end of 10 fairway has always been a challenge to manage.  Foot traffic, water-logged soils, and lack of room for equipment to turn created a problem area.  To solve this, we devised a plan to remove part of the fairway and extend the rough.  This allows more space for the fairway mowers and sprayers to turn around at the end of the fairway, creating less wear and tear.  Also, the area was re-graded to allow water to run-off.  New rough sod was laid and the existing bentgrass sod was taken to11 fairway to repair the area around the rock wall, which was damaged from cart traffic. 

#10 Fairway before.  The area was worn from equipment, foot traffic, and water logged soils.

#10 Fairway After. The rough was extended creating more area between the fairway and rock wall.

#11 Fairway before.

#11 Fairway after. The area which was damaged from cart traffic has been sodded.

     

Member/Member Tourney

 Finally, a dry, member/ member tournament! Well almost. We escaped the heavy rains predicted on Friday afternoon with members finishing their final few holes in a light drizzle. Then the skies opened up. Strong winds and 1.5" of rain fell Friday night prompting our crew to arrive earlier Saturday morning. The storm left leaves , branches strewn about and washed out bunkers. They stepped up their game and finished before the 9:00 am shotgun start. Sunny skies remained all day and the Tourney went off without a hitch.

1.5" of rain caused the sand in the bunkers to wash out. 

Standing water in bunkers were a result of the heavy rain we received Friday night. This water was pumped out before being raked.

After a hard mornings work, the sun shined brightly and the tournament was a huge success.

13 WATERFALL

The decision was made to reintroduce the water feature on hole 13. This definitely enhances the club's entrance way.  Once the preliminary plans were posed, we went to task to complete the waterfall. After a few setbacks the falls were turned on last Wednesday to great relief and jubilation!!  Here are few pics which chronicle the installation.

Day lighting the 6" pipe and reshaping the stream

Installing the liner

Laying the sod

Designing and building the pump sled.

The pump and sled ready to dive. This will aid in service removal.

COMPLETION!

 

I have been asked a few times recently, why did you go out and beat up the greens after they finally healed from aerification? The Graden process we performed on the greens earlier this year sliced a channel about 1 to 1 1/2 inches down. This does a great job removing the dense top layer, but we must also open channels deeper into the soil profile. The Verti-Drain machine accomplishes this using a 3/8" X 10" solid tine to reach down 7-9 inches. These spaces allow for air and water to penetrate and gives a place for the roots to grow. The deeper the roots can dive the better chance for survival during the hot summer months.

Drilling for water

Today we began the well drilling process on #3. Our hydrologist believes that sufficient water can be found somewhere between 300 and 500 feet down. Today they reached a point of 320 feet and the bottom drill snapped in half, halting the operation. Tomorrow, they will bring out a heavy duty magnet to try and pull that piece out and continue drilling. After they find sufficient water, we will hook up a pump to test water. Once the water quality and quantity is verified, the well stability needs to be checked and we are in business for summer!

The tees will be placed on the forward tee for the remainder of the process. Thank you for your patience as we dig for a much needed resource.

Tree Maintenance

I hope you’ve all enjoyed the warm weather and been able to get out and play the course. If you have, you may have noticed that the maintenance staff has done some tree work. Trees complicate things on a golf course for several reasons and in this post, I will summarize the areas and explain the reasoning for tree removal.

Sunlight

One of the main reasons for tree removal is that it can create difficulties when it comes to maintaining turf. More specifically, they block a lot of sunlight. Hence, we removed a substantial amount of them from the left hand side of #7 green. Allowing the plant to receive morning sun, especially during the spring and fall months is essential for photosynthesis. After all, this is when the plant is cultivating its root system for the summer and winter months ahead.

Damaged

A more obvious reason for tree removal is when they have experienced moderate to severe damage from insects or disease. We inspected nearly every tree on the course over the span of last season and believe we have adequately addressed this problem. One tree you may notice missing is a Green Ash on the right hand side of #15 green, which was rotted in the middle as well as heavily infested with Emerald Ash Borer. Another example was two white oaks, which we removed from the front of the Ladies’ tee on #9. These trees were slowly dying from the top down and presented a considerable hazard to the membership.

Aesthetics

We removed a limited amount of trees for this reason. Before the Club opened, we were unable to finish clearing out the small tree lines that lie adjacent to many holes on the course. This has been an ongoing project for the Club since 2005. An example is between #6 & #11 fairways where there were multiple small and medium sized trees. While the removal of these trees offer a cleaner look to the course, it will also allow golfers to take full back swings when hitting out of the area. Another benefit in their removal is that it will promote a healthier environment for the specimen trees in those areas.

Maintenance Efficiency

Pretty much from April to November, my staff is blowing debris and leaves off of the course. This not only is this very time-consuming and sometimes intrusive to the Membership, but it also negatively affects the turf in multiple ways. Furthermore, it takes a toll on our equipment. Therefore, some trees were removed which are continual nuisances throughout the year (Sassafras, Ash & Black Cherry).

Overall, I believe that the selective tree removal performed this past winter will provide great benefits to the course and, in turn, the membership. I fully expect to see enhanced turf conditions, lower operating costs and straighter shots coming out of the tree lines this upcoming season. 

This is Sunseeker, an app I found after we had removed the trees on number 7. The light blue line is the sun angle on the shortest day of the year, the red line in the corner is the angle on the longest day of the year, and yellow is today. You can see by the angle and time frame that the trees removed left of the large walnut trees give us a couple extra hours of sun in spring and fall. The walnut trees are next in line and will give us even more sunlight in the shoulder seasons and in turn healthier turf.

This image is off the back of 9 tee where we cut back the tree line to give the turf more sunlight in the summer. We gained about an extra hour of morning sun and the tree removed to the left of the tee gained us about an hour in the afternoon. This should allow the turf to dry out a bit more and survive through prolonged wet, hot periods.

Early Spring

The course is emerging well from winter (if you want to call it that). The fertility that was intended as a dormant feed to help the plant through winter and emerge healthier in the spring is ready to push. We have a couple nice days to finish out this week and it looks like after a brief cold spell, we have some decent weather heading our way. I had Michael set up a mower for us to try on Kramer's green and it looked perfect! With the greens having no frost layer, we will give them a cut at the end of next week and open them up for play. By us cutting the turf, it will stimulate growth and the plant will be able to handle the traffic with ease. We look forward to seeing you out there and cutting some grass!!