Latest

I apologize for the lack of posts in the recent weeks, we have been quite busy around here.  Not with projects per-say but with day to day routine maintenance.  The reason we are so busy with this now is that half of our crew just went back to school.  Most of our seasonal help is now gone for the year, a few have come in to help for a few months, but for the most part - we are doing all our work with a crew of 8 vs. 17 during the summer.  The months of August and September are always hard for us because expectations are still high, course conditions must remain top notch, but our crew size has been cut in half.  

So what are we doing to get things done.  Well, we are not doing many "extras" or projects.  We have curtailed our work down to the "must be done" such as mowing and focusing on the details.  As we get further into fall, we will begin to curtail some of our regular maintenance and began to focus on a few projects.

We do have a busy fall planned with 3 decent projects on the books:
Mid September - all the cart paths around the clubhouse and the 1st area will be repaved
September/October - the 15th hole snack shack will get a face lift
September/October - 6 new gold tees will be built on holes 1, 4, 11, 15, 16 and 18

Greens and ball marks

It has been 9 days since aerification and the greens have filled in nicely.  To aid in getting the greens back in shape as soon as possible we added extra fertilizer and raised the mowing height.  Now that the greens have filled in, we will begin lowering the mowing heights to get speeds back to normal.  The goal is to have pristine greens for the Championship next weekend.  While speeds may be slow during the recovery, they are recovering quicker and will allow for better greens sooner.

Below is a picture of the proper way to fix a ball mark (assuming you fix yours, please do).

That last paragraph is key, the sooner you fix a ball mark the better. 

 

Some great pictures of this past weekend

 

 

 

 

 

Last nights rain

Last night we again got hammered with rain - 1.3" coming in a 1/2 hours time.  It seems this summer when they call for .25" with a chance of thunderstorms, we get hit with the heavy stuff.  This morning the course is a little soggy, but carts are still out.

Range tee last night

Chipping fairway

15 fairway

13 fairway

Most of our bunkers washed out with the heavy downpour

Luck would have it - we are currently demoing a new bunker rake for a potential future purchase.  This machine has a plow on the front that made it very effecient placing the sand back in place - cutting our labor on bunker repair to 1/3 for this morning.

 

Aerification update

The weather the past few days has hampered our progress on getting the greens back to normal.  All of the sand has been applied to the greens, but we have not been able to mow them yet because the sand has not had a chance to dry properly.  Yesterday we had rain and today we had a slight mist all morning.  When the sand is wet, we can't drag, roll or mow the greens - the sand sticks to everything and makes a mess.  We are waiting patiently for the sun to come out so that we can work on the greens, once that happens we will be rolling them smooth and start mowing them down.

Greens aerification

Today was aerification day - all the greens have been aerified and we have begun the process of filling the holes with sand.  We will be applying more sand tomorrow and Thursday until all the holes are completely filled.

Aerification will help grow longer roots, decrease compaction, increase oxygen levels in the soil and allow for better drainage.  Ultimately producing smoother, faster and healthier greens in the long run.

We also spent the day verticutting the fairways.  With the cooler temps lately, we took the opportunity to thin out the fairways.  Holes 13-18 will be finished tomorrow.

 

The grass to the left is after a pass with the verticutting unit, it stands up the turf allowing us to cut off the long runners, producing a tighter cut.

 

 

Emergency tree removal

Last week a member of my staff was picking up sticks between 1 and 18.  He noticed a large Walnut tree that had a crack running up the tree and it was making loud creaking noises with every wind gust.  We determined that the tree was hollow inside and posed a threat of coming down at any time.  This morning we took the tree down and what we saw confirmed our suspicions.

A large crack ran 20' up the tree.

After the wedge was cut, we saw there was only 5" of decent wood around the perimeter of the tree.

Falling right where we wanted it to.

Hollow core of the tree.

 

I have seen trees like this make it through a large wind storm then come down the next week on a calm sunny day.  It's unfortunate to lose a beautiful large tree, but safety comes first.

 

 

Member participation

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week we held the Marathon - United Way outing.  We had 500 golfers come through in a short time frame.  In anticipation of this, last week, Dick Hall asked if we could set up a Member Repair Night on Wednesday evening.  We set it up, and last night a few members came to help the grounds staff fix ball marks and fill divots. 

Dr. Nielsen and Dick Hall repairing ball marks.

 

 

Steve Rackley and Dr. Spragg filling divots in the fairway.

 

I want to thank Tom Drake, Richard Lis and Rod Fannin for also helping us out.  We were able to fix all the ball marks and fill all the divots in 2 hours.  Thanks to all those that also came but were unable to make it outside due to the rain.  I also heard from a number of you that would have liked to help but had prior commitments. We really appreciate all the help.

What's great is that this idea came from the membership, it's nice to see pride from the members in the golf course they call home - enough so that they want to get out and help any way they can.

Recent rains and reseeding

On Saturday morning, the golf course took on another 2.5" of rain.  Yesterday morning, we got .3" and more rain is in the forecast for this afternoon.  I have been searching for the record rainfall in a 30 day period in Findlay - if you find it, let me know, I think we may be close to record amounts of rain.  For the month of July we are currently at 8.8" with 9 days to go in the month.  In the last 28 days we have received 11.3" of rain.  That is a lot of rain in one months time.

I want to thank my crew for hanging in there the past 3 weeks.  It has been tough with long hours at times.  They have done a great job getting the course back into shape after all these rains.

Bunkers on Saturday morning.  We had 3 guys work until 6pm Saturday night to get the water off the fairways.  They then showed up early Sunday morning to get the course ready and came back Sunday afternoon to mow fairways to prepare for the Monday outing.

Last Friday, we started reseeding the areas we lost turf due to the rain.

The smaller areas in the fairways we are seeding by hand.

Last week was spent on tree clean up from the storm.  The Hickory on 18 was the last one we cleaned up.  We had to wait until it was dry enough to drive our equipment down next to the green.

 

Storm Clean-up

We are in the process of cleaning up last nights storm.  We got another 1.5" and lots of wind.

10 approach

Hickory down by 18 green

1 Fairway

5 Fairway

16 Fairway

Spruce down by 16 Fairway

Maple down by 17 Fairway

Debris on 2 tee

Ducks on 8 Fairway

2 days ago, I rented a 3" pump.  I had a hunch we might need it.  It is coming in handy right now - good thing we got it when we did, it would be hard to locate one now.

I want to thank Chad and his staff, currently we have 7 of his guys out here helping us with the clean-up efforts.  We are getting a lot done in a short amount of time.

 

 

Minimizing the damage

From a distance, the golf course looks good out there - nice and green.  As you drive around, you start to notice how wet it really is.  Today, most of our activities were about minimizing the damage done by the recent weather.

We had guys squeegeeing off fairways all day, keeping the puddle off the fairways.  If water sits too long on hot days like this, the turf will die.

We aerified all the greens, opening up air channels to help the roots get much needed air.

We started spiking fairways, again - getting air to the roots.

When it rains like it did last night, and as puddles form, grass clipping congregate around the puddles.  As the puddle recedes, it leaves a pile of clippings.  If left on the fairway too long, this will also kill grass.  We went to each fairway to clean up these piles.

We made a timely fungicide application to the greens to help combat the the things we don't want to see around here.  With this hot and humid weather, an outbreak can easily occur.

Believe it or not, we actually mowed some of the wettest fairways today.  Some of these fairways have not been mowed since Friday.  All the fairways were supposed to be mowed Monday morning, but with the rain, we were only able to mow the drier ones.  If more rain comes tonight, we might not be able to mow the rest of them until Saturday.  By that time the fairways will be 3" long.  We are doing the lesser of 2 evils and mowing them today.  It is no doubt leaving a mess, but it is nothing that can't get washed away.

 

After a rain like this, I would like nothing more than to send my guys home and keep all traffic off the course.  But with the heat and humidity we have no choice than to make a few mud tracks and minimize the damage.

Another post about rain

We've now had consistent, and by that I mean daily, rain since June 25.  This weekend another 1" fell on the course and last night we got 2".  This brings our total to 7" in the last 14 days - that is 2 months worth of water.  The puddling around the course has not been that bad until last night.  This was due to the frequent but relatively small amounts of rain we got.  Although there have not been puddles, this has made the ground saturated because of the fact that it has all soaked in.

Today the course is closed.  We are going to spike the greens again to let them breath.  We will also be removing the water from the fairways and fixing all the bunkers from last nights storm.

There is a chance for rain the next few days.  If we don't get more rain, we will be open tomorrow but carts will not be allowed.  We will re-evaluate for Thursday.

8 fairway

Squeegeeing off 5 fairway

Current water level on 18

 

 

The rain keeps coming

Last night we took on another .7" at the golf course, giving us very saturated and wet conditions.  We've now had 4" of rain in the last 10 days.

We had to squeegee fairways and greens this morning.  The water on #8 fairway had to be pumped off. 

We spent 20 man hours cleaning up the debris from the fireworks.  All of the fallout landed on 8 and 9.  We had it back to normal before the first groups made it through.

 

OSU Message, Fox

Below is a link to a YouTube video message by OSU.  It reinforces my decision to spike the greens yesterday and again today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=AcYNDNJzXIQ


I captured some great photos of one of our foxes:

Taking a nap in #1 greenside bunker

He had squirrel for lunch

He buried half of it for a later snack