Opening on March 29

We will be opening the golf course for the year on Friday, March 29.  With highs in the 40's the greens will be able to remain unfrozen and start accepting traffic.  The greens aerification that was scheduled for this upcoming Monday will be performed on Wednesday, March 27 due to the freezing temps we are seeing now.  By Wednesday the greens should be thawed out again and allow us to aerify without damaging the green.  By Friday the pins will be in and the year will begin!

Course opening and upcoming aerification

Last year we opened the golf course to play on March 14th due to unseasonably warm weather.  This year will be back to normal with current temperatures at or slightly below average.  Next week we are still looking at highs in the 40's with lows in the 30's.  On Monday, March 25 we are scheduled to aerify the greens.  I would suspect that we will open sometime soon after aerifying the greens unless the forecast makes a turn for the better soon.

When we aerify greens 10 days from now, we will not be pulling cores from the greens as we sometimes do.  Below is a picture of what we typically have done on the greens:

Instead we will be using a solid tine, using the same process that we implemented last October.  Below is a picture of what we will be doing in 10 days:

We will be putting the sand on the green first, going over the green with the aerifier and then dragging the sand into the holes.  There are a few reason why we are doing this:

1. Our soil tests indicate we need more sand incorporated into our root zone.  When we pull cores and clean the green off, the holes fill up with debris making it hard to incorporate good sand into the hole.

2. When we pull plugs, the greens gets very spongy for some time, even with large amounts of rolling.

The main benefit of pulling a plug is to remove the undesirable stuff - thatch, organic matter.  There are other ways that we can keep thatch down - topdressing, moderate fertilizing, growth regulators; and our organic matter % should continue to improve based on the amount of sand we will be putting down.

Therefore we are going to solid tine the greens with large (3/4") tines, incorporate lots of sand into the holes, and keep the greens smoother and firmer through the process.  I have talked to our Soil Consultant on this and he agrees this is a good approach.  There are also a few other courses in the Toledo area that are going to the route of not pulling cores, one course in Mansfield has been doing this for years and the results are great.  We did this last fall and I thought it worked great.  We will continue to monitor our soil tests and make changes as necessary   As always we want to make sure we are doing what is best for the long term health of the greens.

Range tee divots

Below is a link that explains the proper way to use a range tee.  There are three different ways to take divots out of the range tee, with one technique being the preferred option.  Please take a look at the video and do your best to leave some range tee space for the next person.

Preferred Divot Pattern

This video came from Superintendent Dan Meersman at Philadelphia Cricket Club.

Below is a picture taken from our range tee this past year.  You can imagine the time it takes for the grass to fill in this area.

We don't have a massive range tee that some golf course can have.  We also have a large numbers of golfers that frequent the range.  This puts a lot of stress on the tee for a quick recovery before the next wave of divots.  Therefore, I have two requests 1. Use a divot pattern as outlined in the video and 2. Police your fellow members.  If you notice someone making a quarry in the range tee, politely explain the Superintendent prefers a different divot pattern.  I'll do my best to get the grass to fill in and I'm sure you will as well.

Preparing for spring

Yesterday, before all this snow, we started raking the golf course and picking up all the sticks.  We finished 10,11,12,13 and 5.  We try to get the entire course cleaned up before we have to mow the rough, this year we should have no problem getting this accomplished.  Typically this spring clean-up takes a few weeks.  After all the raking is done, we will turn our attention to getting the bunkers back in shape for the year.

On Monday we removed the large dead Ash tree that was between 18 ladies tee and the river.  This will most likely be the last of the tree removals for this winter.

Irrigation pumps installed

Today we installed our new irritation pumps.  Last fall we removed them to be serviced/replaced.  This requires a large crane to lift the 1 ton pumps over a very wide span.  Everything went well, the pumps are ready for warmer weather.

Two new pumps brought in from Toledo.

Getting set up.  This is the only location we can access the irrigation pumps that are down on the river.

Raising the 2,000 lb pump.

Bringing the pump over the trees.  It is a 115' reach with 2,000 lbs, about at the limit.

Lowering the pump into the wet well.

Getting the first pump set in place.

Second pump coming down.

Bringing the motors back down to the pumps - 1,000 lbs each.

Finished product, ready to go for the spring.

Winter work

Last week we took down a few more trees, trimmed up all the trees between 4/15, and split more firewood.

Today we continued to split firewood.  Most of this firewood is from the dying ash we are removing.

 

10 days ago we trimmed up all the trees between 4/15 but was unable to pick up all the branches due to the snow.

 

Last week we took down the dying Spruce behind 15 green, it was hit by lightening a few years ago.  We also remove a dead Ash on 11 and 6 dead Ash between 1/18.

 

Equipment repairs

In our fleet of equipment we have 3 large utility carts.  These are larger carts that haul soil, sod and sticks.  This past fall, all 3 were down at the same time.  One was repaired fairly easily, one was sold off and the other was just fixed this past week.  The cart we recently repaired had a blown head on the engine.  We got pricing for a new engine on this cart, estimates came in at $8,000.  After taking the engine apart, we were able to diagnose the exact cause of our problems and was able to locate a used engine head in Texas.  We replaced the head and was able to fix the engine for $850.

The old engine head.

Installing the new head.

This is the cart with the engine problems.  It is our newest utility cart in our fleet.  If all goes to plan, we will be replacing one of the older carts this year.

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.