Current Flood Status

This our third flood in 9 months - April, July and December.  This one will just beat out April's flood as the higher of the three.  We are currently at 13.5 ft and I expect the water to go up another foot and a half yet.  The course received 3.2" of rain over the last 48 hours.

 

1,8,9,17,18 are under water.

We pulled the motors yesterday, I'm glad we did.

One more foot of water and the motors would have been ruined.

 

Flooding preperations

There is not much that we can do to prevent flooding, but there are a few things that we can do to prevent damage or loss.  Yesterday we pulled out all our green stakes and fish line from the river perimeter.  These stakes were there to deter geese from entering the property.  With the threat of flood, I would rather not let the stakes all float away.  Also today we have pulled the irrigation motors up from the river.  The National Weather Service has continued to increase it's prediction on the cresting height of the Blanchard in Findlay.  Yesterday it was 13.6ft, this morning it was 14.5ft and now the prediction is 15.5ft.  At 14.5ft, the water would rise enough to cause damage to the irrigation motors.  That is why we have raised them off of the river already.  Once this passes and dries out, we will begin clean up efforts.

Tree Removal

The frigid temperatures bring on its share of challenges, but it also allows us to take down trees without damaging the golf course because of the frozen ground.  The past few days have been productive for us, putting us ahead of schedule for the winter.  Yesterday we brought in help to remove some trees safely and efficiently.  We removed the 6 Cypress trees between 1 and 18 along with the dead Ash trees in the area.

Before the Cypress removal.

The morning after.  I find these types of trees undesirable on a golf course because they impede the views of the property.  We have some magnificent trees on the course but are unable to view and enjoy them because of the undesirable trees around them.  I asked the permission of the Board to remove these 6 Cypress and showcase the real beauty of this property.

 

The look changed dramatically once they were down.  You really get to enjoy the larger trees that were behind the cypress wall and never really noticed off the first tee.

 

Removing a very large Ash tree in the middle of 1 and 18.  It's unfortunate to see a beautiful tree like this go down.  But a landscape is ever changing, trees will come and go.  Old ones will die off and new ones will be planted.

 

I have to thank the Grounds Staff for their hard work.  They work in over 100 degree heat indexes in the summer and sub zero wind chills in the winter and are very productive.  It's part of the job and they enjoy getting things done.

 

 

Tree Planting

On Monday, 4 trees were planted.  As our older trees die off, I evaluate every year and decide where new trees should go in to secure a continous cycle of mature for many years to come.

Digging the hole for the root ball.

Planting a Maple near 6 tee / 7 fairway.

Maple near 2 green.

River Birch near 9 fairway.

Pin Oak near 5 fairway.

This tree was planted in Memory of Cecilia S. Sobczyk, mother of Mike and Kae Sobczyk.  Thank you to the donors: Scott Weasel, Chuck Weasel, David Ray and Mark Gazarek

 

 

Ohio Turfgrass Foundation Conference

Despite the lack of posts the last few weeks, the Grounds Department has been quite busy.  Besides the recent Thanksgiving Holiday, we have spent time on: mowing our surfaces for one last time, fertilizing all the turf before winter set in, making an application to our rough to prevent Crabgrass next season, applied a fungicide application to aid our turf in making it through the winter, completed the cleanup of all the leaves (big job), trimmed all of the shrubs in all of the landscaping on the property, cleaned out all our drains in the fairways and rough, planted 4 new trees on the property, delivered multiple loads of firewood to members, hung all the Christmas lights on the property and begun tearing apart equipment for winter maintenance.  We have recently begun our tree removal for the season, we will be putting a big dent in this project next week.

This past Tuesday - Thursday, I spent time in Columbus attending the Ohio Turfgrass Foundation's annual education conference and trade show.  As with all conferences, it great to get some insight on new research, brush up on the basics and touch base with old friends and new acquaintances.  Here is a list of the seminars that I was able to attend: Pigments and their impact on turf, Biostimulants, Wetting agents, Annual Bluegrass control, Turf fungicides, Preserving classic courses, Controlling Anthracnose, Managing Nematodes, Organic vs. Synthetic, Irrigation strategies, Controlling Annual Bluegrass Weevil, Foliar fertilization and the USGA symposium.

This conference is attended by hundreds of Superintendents from all over Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

 

 

Course closure

The golf course will be closed for the season starting Monday, November 18.  Looking at the long range forecast - we have one more good weekend for golf then the weather turns cold again.  With temps in the 30's and lows back down to the 20's, the soil will start to freeze.  With the inabililty of the turf to heal itself while it is dormant during the cold weather, we do what we can to keep golfers off of the greens.  Starting Monday, we will be placing temporary pins in the approaches on holes 1, 2, 7, 10, 11, 12 for anyone that may want to hit some balls on those balmy 45 degree days in the offseason.

Last year we had 60 degree days in December and we were able to stay open longer, this year we are not so fortounate.  Thanks to everyone for a great season, we will continue to work hard throughout the winter months to bring you the best possible golf course next spring.

Winter projects

With snow still present on the ground, we have transitioned from leaf mulching to landscape trimming for now.  One of our early winter projects will be to trim all the landscaped beds (shrubs).  You will notice a cleaner look to the landscaping next spring.  We will continue with leaf cleanup and our late fall maintenance once the snow has cleared.

 

Winter weather

We had about an inch of snow on the ground here this morning.  Looks like temps in the upper 50's for the weekend, we will be able to get back to mulching leaves in a few days.

It looks like the course will be closing a little early this year.  If this weather trend continues, I can see us closing the course in the next ten days.  Last year we were open until Dec. 14, I don't anticpate us lasting that long this year.

Halfway house

The 15th hole snack shack project was completed this week, it looks great.  This is going to be phase 1 of a multiple phase project.  Next year we hope to place a stone veneer on the outside of the building to match that of the 1st hole watering station.

This building will be painted inside and out next spring.

 

 

Tree Plantings

Today I went to our landscape supplier and hand picked out 4 trees that will be planted on the golf course this fall.  I like to view what the supplier has in inventory and pick the right tree for our property.  This year, we will be planting:

Northern Pin Oak
Heritage River Birch (single stem)
Crimson King Norway Maple
October Glory Red Maple - seen below

 

Most of these trees will be planted in "out of play" areas.  As our older trees die off, this next generation of trees will bring beauty to the property in years to come.

Modern Efficiency

Below is another article written by the USGA:

USGA Article

This article relates to our maintenance practices at FCC.  Before my tenure here, the greens were mowed with walk mowers from May - August 95% of the time.  Last year we used a triplex on the greens from May - August 85% of the time, using the walkmowers in certain situations.  This past season we used the triplex on the greens from May - August 99% of the time, only using the walk mowers a few days.

This was done for a few reasons (as the article states):
- same quality, the technology of triplexes has matched that of the walk mowers, golfers can't tell the difference.
- improved shop capabilities, in the past it may have been difficult to produce three cutting units that were cutting with the same quality at exactly the same height, today we have those capabilities.
- increased efficiency, walk mowing uses 11 man hours every morning, triplexing uses 3.
- Budget, our current Grounds budget is $10,000 less than the budget was in 2008.  We are constantly pushed to do more with less.

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.