Article

Below is a link to an article written on topdressing sand.  Findlay Country Club is highlighted in the article.

http://www.golfcourseindustry.com/gci0113-turf-maintenance-topdressing.aspx

Tree work

With the extremely cold temps, the ground has finally froze enough to get some large equipment out on the course.  We had a tree care company come in and do some work for us.  They fell the Spruce next to #2 green, pruned the large Oak and Elm trees by #16 green / #17 tee, and they ground the stumps of the trees that have been removed thus far.

Taking the Spruce down.

There was a very narrow window where the tree could fall, we had a company cut this one down for us.  90% of the tree removals we do in-house.

The view of #2 green this morning.  I think it looks great.

Stump grinding, once the snow melts we can begin cleaning these up.

Trimming some of our mature trees to allow more sunlight to penetrate through the canopy.  #16 green bank will be healthier and thicker now.  Again, 90% of the trimming we can do in-house, but there are a few mature trees that need to be trimmed up higher than we can reach and safely work on.  

The Elm by #17 tee before the trimming.

After the trimming.  #17 tee will be healthier due to the increase in sunlight.

We also trimmed up the Oak between the putting green and #12 green.  This will help bring in morning sunlight to the practice putting green.  This year I focused on trimming up the trees that needed it to promote healthy turf.  Next year I want to focus on trimming some of the large trees around the back of the clubhouse to provide better viewing of the landscape from the back patio.

Old pictures

I found some old pictures of what the shop looked like about 15-20 years ago:

And here is what it looks like today:

Shop renovation

Then past two weeks, part of our attention has been spent on renovating the workshop within our maintenance building.  We started this project before the rains hit 10 days ago, we knew it would be to wet to get anything done on the course, so we decided the timing was right.   We did a total transformation - taking everything out of the room, cleaning, painting and reorganizing items as we brought them back in.  Here is some idea of what it looked like before:

When I took these pictures, we had stuff laying all over because we were cleaning out our parts room.  Normally it doesn't look this cluttered, but it does give you an idea of the feel of the room.

Below is the process we took to get to the finished product:

Before we started.

Taking everything out of the room.

Taking the old insulation down from the ceiling.

Adding plywood and decent insulation to the ceiling.

Cleaning everything, Eric is cleaning the duct work.

Painting the ceiling with a sprayer.

Painting the walls.

We painted the equipment lift black and the floor was painted with an epoxy.

Finished product looks great.

We started using it today.

Minor flooding

At 11:00 am, I believe we have reached the peak of the water level on the golf course.  The Blanchard above the city has started to recede already.  We received 2.5" of rain over the weekend, along with the snow melt, and frozen ground - we had a lot of runoff.  Thankfully the flooding was not that bad.  There was no damage to the course and the water should be gone in a few days.

A view from the bridge by #8 green.  The water is a good 40 yards up the bank on to #8 fairway.

A view towards #18 fairway / creek.  Right now the water is covering all of the intermediate rough that was reseeded last year.

Flood warning

We are in a minor flood warning for this weekend.  Possibly the first one since I've been here.

Tree removal

This morning while we had hard frozen ground, we took down the large Spruce tree back left of #17 green.  This tree was approved to be removed this year to provide better growing conditions to the green.  This large Spruce shaded the back corner of the green, had roots the went into the green, always dropped debris onto the green and limited air flow around the green.  While it will definitely change the look of the hole, it will be for the better, just as you have seen in the past with #6 green and #12 green.

Before the removal this morning.

A few hours after.

The grounds staff does a great job getting the trees down and cleaning them up efficiently.

You may think that with the warmer weather the past few days that we would be able to accomplish a lot on the golf course.  The opposite is actually true.  With the melting and the thaw of the ground, the course has become very soft and muddy.  Any traffic that we put on the course results in ruts and muddy tracks.  Therefore, we do a few things outside when the ground has froze back up (like this morning) and in the afternoon we spend our time inside the shop getting things done.  Today we just started doing a major overhaul of our Equipment Technician's shop.  We are installing a new ceiling, adding insulation, painting everything and cleaning.  I'll post some pictures as we get things done.

Winter

Sorry for the delay in posting, you really have not been missing much.  Most of the Grounds crew used up their remaining vacation time (including me) and took off for the last week in December.  When I got back from vacation, I found my hard drive had crashed and I lost my computer.  I just recieved my new computer today.

Last week we spent our time inside because of the bitter cold.  We continued to work on equipment and we also insulated another room in our shop.  Today we were back outside taking down a few trees.