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.