Greens deep tine

Yesterday we aerified the greens with a deep tine machine - this machine made holes 3/4" wide and 9" deep into the greens.  This process will give us better drainage, better rooting and firmer greens in the long run.

 

 

We started the day by blowing all the debris off the greens.

 

We then mowed.

 

 

All the sprinklers were flagged, a sprinkler hit by an aerifier is a $200 fix.

 

Sand was added prior to aerifying.

 

Deep tine machine making 9" deep holes.

 

Once the sand has dried, we can drag it into the open holes creating a drainage channel.

 

Lastly the greens were rolled smooth.

 

We will be adding more sand to the greens today and continue rolling the greens throughout the week.

 

Come to the course tonight

Drop everything tonight to come play a few holes and drive around the golf course, it is in spectacular condition.  The recent frosts have really shut down the growth and helped create some smooth and fast playing surfaces (greens are at 11).  Combine that with the trees changing colors - it is just a beautiful piece of property right now.  It looks like Sunday will be another good afternoon to be out here.  On Monday morning we will be aerifying the greens, I am hoping for a little bit of a warm up to aide in the healing of the holes before winter.

The tee project is still ongoing, we spent today adding soil to and compacting 3 out of the 6 new tees.

 

 

Equipment

Here is another great article for your reading pleasure:

USGA Article

This weekend, while you are waiting for the frost delay to pass, spend some time thumbing through this overview on golf course maintenance equipment.  FCC has over $1,000,000 tied up in maintenance equipment, this article does a great job explaining why it is all needed. 

Last year the Board put together a plan to ensure funds are available on a yearly basis to replace worn equipment.  We also do everything we can in regards to preventive maintenance to increase the time frame between replacements and keep our equipment operating efficiently. 

At some point in the future, I would like to hold an open house allowing the membership to tour our facilities and get an overview of the equipment.  I think it would bring some knowledge to what goes on behind the scenes.

Frost and irrigation blow out

Today was the first frost of many to come.  It looks like the next 6 days will have some sort of frost delay based on the temps that are forecast.  Traffic on frozen turf causes damage to the cells within the plant, therefore we don't allow any traffic until the threat of frost is gone.  When we have a frost delay, the grounds crew can't drive on the grass either, this is why we have lengthy delays on certain days - we need time to prepare the course for the members before they tee off. 

Today was irrigation blow-out day.  Based on the forecast, we went a little earlier than most years and blew out our irrigation system to beat the freezing temps that are coming.  Because of where our pumps sit and the fact that they are exposed to the elements puts them in jeopardy of the freezing temps.  We don't want any of the exposed piping to freeze and cause problems. 

Every head is blown out until a mist is present.

This year we had three air compressors running throughout the course.  We were able to pick up the compressors at 7:00am, cycle through the entire property twice and have the compressors returned by 3:30pm.  It was a productive day.

 

Tomorrow we will be blowing out our fresh water lines - the 1st tee water station, 1/2 way house, pool house, tennis courts and our wash pad.

 

Below is a link to a great article that applies to our current situation:

USGA Article

You will realize why it takes a while to build 6 new tees, let alone 1 tee, the grounds staff can't drop everything to allow for construction, the tees are an "extra" and progress happens when we have everything else done.

The second part of the article raises some valid concerns.  We have the tools here to build a tee effectively, it will just take time.  We are making the proper precautions with irrigation coverage, drainage and size of the tee.  We are also putting on our "architect" hats and fitting the tees in where we feel they will fit with respect to the hole being played.

Tee project

We started our tee construction project this week.  6 new tees are being built on 1,4,11,15,16 and 18.  These tees will be used for an updated gold course giving us a yardage of roughly 5670.  It will become a happy medium between the current red and the current white.

With the area in mind where the tees were going to be located, we staked out the tees and placed marks on the stakes for finished grade levels.

Soil was then added

The soil is "roughed in" and ready to be compacted.  We will spend sometime next week compacting the soil to reduce future settling and adding more soil to bring the tees up to grade.  I suspect we will be able to lay sod on the tees in a few weeks.  The tees will sit over winter and ready to be played on in the spring.

 

Remodel job

Work has begun on the 15th hole snack shack remodel project.  Tom Myers is doing the work, he will be rebuilding the roof and screened in portion of the building.  When he is finished, the building will be painted to provide a more professional appearance.  Our plan is to install stone veneer on the outside of the building sometime in the near future to resemble the appearance of the 1st tee water station.

Preparing to tear down the front of the building.  The new screened in area will have a taller ceiling, matching that if the inner room.

We will be cutting off a portion of the roof overhang to allow for fascia and soffit.

The color of the building will be more of a tan vs. the current green.

 

 

 

Last week we modified one of our spray rigs to water the seed that we planted along the cart paths.  This has been working great and has sped up the recovery process on the paths.

 

Weekend weather

This past weekend brought the course 3.75" of rain.  The course did well with the brunt of the rain over Friday night - we were able to allow carts on Saturday morning.  But with the continued light rain on Saturday and Sunday, the soil became saturated and it is now very wet.  From what I count on the calender, this is the 5th time that this has happened this year - major rain events bringing 2"+ in one shot.  I don't recall this happening at all last year, I don't think we had to fix our bunkers once, now it is a monthly occurrence. 

This is a 1' high pile of grass clippings over a drain in the fairway.  This tells me there was a lot of rain that came really fast.

Monday morning we had a few puddles lingering in the fairways.

Our bunkers washed out again.

We spent time cleaning them out before we could fix them.

The crew did a great job getting them back in shape.

 

 

Early mornings

It doesn't get better than this, it was a beautiful morning.

Update

Rain - last Friday/Saturday the course received 2.75 inches of rain

Cart Paths - the paving contractor finished up today, we will spend the next few weeks backfilling the paths with soil and seeding these areas.

All of the paths will get backfilled with soil.

Aerification - We aerified all the tees yesterday, the tees and fairways will not be aerified again until next year.  We will be aerifying the greens once more this fall on October 28.

New tees - starting in October we will begin constructing 6 new gold tees.  Soil will be added to grade, then we will be sodding the surfaces.

Bridge - today we added shingles to the flat bridge over the Blanchard.  I got two comments this past week that golfers were starting to slip on the bridge.

 

Finally something to write about

We finally have a little more going on that just normal maintenance - something I can post about.  Today we verticut and topdressed all the greens.  This will aid in keeping things firm and smooth through the fall. 

We will do this 2 more times before we aerify again on October 28.

Today also began the week of paving our cart paths around the back of the clubhouse.  The paving crew start by prepping and cleaning all the paths.  They also tore out the asphalt pad by the proshop, this will be paved tomorrow morning.

The Grounds staff finished edging the paths that are going to be paved. 

If the weather holds, this project will take all week.  If we get some wet weather like they are forecasting, we may have to finish up next week.

Committed employees

One of my employees on staff here is Wayne Bartchlett.  He has been working for the the Grounds department for over 40 years and still going strong.  He is always the first one here and will do whatever you ask of him.  He will typically mow greens on the weekends often starting at 5:00am while the others start at 6:00.

I caught a picture of him last week, he was mowing #13 green, the last green he had to mow - it was only 7:00 am.

Beaver activity

A few weeks ago, I noticed a tree alongside the river that had some interesting markings on it.  After looking closer I discovered we have a beaver in the area.

I saw a beaver swimming upstream earlier this year, it must still be around.

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.