Course Update

 

The rain has started and a lot more is in the forecast.  Tuesday morning the rain started to fall and after checking the rain gauge Wednesday morning we have received 1.75".  As you can see from the picture of #2 fairway the course is saturated.  It looks like rain is in the forecast for the entire day on Wednesday and a few more inches as well.

 

 

 

I know the greens are healing slow from aerification but I wanted to go ahead to remind everyone about how to fix ball marks on the greens.  Above is a very good video from the USGA on the proper way to keep our greens ball mark free hopefully during the 2014 season.



Course Update

 

 

Even though we could not keep to the schedule that we wanted to because of rain in the forecast we were still able to get the greens aerified.  We started aerifying the back 9 on Monday April 14th because the forecast for Tuesday was not looking good.  Like always we started with getting the greens verti-cutted.  You can see in the picture above the amount of material that we removed.  After that we blow off the debris and get ready for punching holes.

 

 

Here we are aerifying a green.  The USGA recommends removing about 20% organic material a year.  With this aerification we are doing about 6.5%.  Through other aerifications, verticutting and topdressing we will get close to this target percentage. 

 

 

 

At the end of last week we were able to get the new tee on 14 its first cut.  The sod has taken root and we have been topdressing the seems and low areas.  This tee will open up on Saturday April 26th.  The height will be still higher than our normal tees but with all the events coming up lets try it out.

 

 

The exterior improvements to the clubhouse started on Monday April 21st.  New siding and fencing is being installed around the entire building.



We finally have a bigger tee at #14

Smoothing out the sub grade

 

 

Installing the irrigation

 

 

Starting to fill the cavity with tee mix

 

 

Grading out the tee mix

 

 

Final grade on the tee mix

 

 

Sod arrives

 

Installing sod

 

Update on Course Projects

 

Since the grasses behind 13 tee are starting to get out of hand we decided to dig them up and go in another direction.  We enlarged the bed and got rid of the strip of grass next to the cartpath, hauled in about 6 loads of dirt and created a slight crown.  Next we are going to install 15 red twig dogwoods and then finish it off with a fresh layer of mulch.

 

 

 

 

Earlier in the week you may have noticed this outside the pump station.  Over the last few years we have getting some holes rusting through the metal plumbing lines.  The only way to solve this is to remove the bad metal piping and replace it.

 

 

 

Last Saturday the contractor completed welding up the new lines.  In the middle of the picture is where the old pressure tank was.  Since the pressure tank is not really needed we went ahead and eliminated it.  Now the pump station is ready for the 2014 season.  This past Monday the 24th the irrigation system was filled and pressurized.

 

 

 

One of the projects that was put on hold at the end of last year was the renvoation of the 14th tee and with the winter we had it was probably a good idea.  On Tuesday the 25th before the snow was to arrive we started to dig out the irrigation heads, yardage markers and stairs so we could be ready for the contractor to start on Wednesday.  Once again when we thought we were done with winter this happened .........................

 

 

 

More snow!!!

 

 

 

As you can see the snow did not stop us from getting this project moving.  On Wednesday we removed all the snow from the tee before the contractor stipped the sod to get to dirt.

 

 

 

Here is the first dirt being moved later in the day on Wednesday.

 

 

Here you can see the grade of the tee box coming together.  The contractor is using his laser box blade to create a level surface that will have a 1% slope from the back to the front and the left to the right to aid with drainage.  Once  this is complete he will start to dig out the cavity that will hold the tee mix and then we will install irrigation and then sod will be laid over the entire tee.  We will have one large tee when this is finished nearly 2.5 times the amount of teeing space we had before. 

 

 

 

 

When the snow melted and the rain moving in Friday the 28th we had to sift gears away from the tee on 14 and get our spring annuals planted at the clubhouse.



What a Week!

At this point I think everyone is done with winter and can't wait to see it go away.  Once again our area gets hit with more snow but the good news is the forecast for the weekend on Saturday looks promising.




It is hard to believe that the week started out with about 8 inches of snow falling on Monday.




Between the wind last week and the snow a section of our range net started to tear and rip away from the top guide wire because our netting is getting old and is dry rotting as every year goes by.  Just add another thing to the list to get fixed.



On Thursday we got the lift in and went to work repairing the netting before we got back opened.  We did replace 6 sections of netting back in 2008 but as you can see we need really all of the netting replaced.



Getting ready for our first member event of the year on Saturday March 22nd.  We have all the hazards marked and even though the grass is still not doing much the greens were rolled out, bunkers raked and we are still picking up debris.









Course Update!

 

The new tee markers have arrived.  We have already placed the

new logoed tee markers on the course and they look fantastic.

 

This is what a winter can do to your equipment.  Here you can see the 1/4 metal that broke in

half pushing all of the heavy wet snow that we have had this year.  Luckily it happened between

storms and we still were able to use our tractor that we got last season to help with clearing snow.

 

 

 

At the end of last month we were able to get our tree company out on the course between snow events and chip up all of the debris.  Most of the storm damaged trees were addressed as well but there is still a few left that need attention. Please remember that we have placed yellow caution tape around the trunks so please be careful around these trees.

 

Over the last 4 days I had a chance to attend Billy Casper's Regional Meeting at Seatrail Resort in Sunset Beach North Carolina.  It was a great time seeing allof the fellow Superintendents and General Managers at other facilities.We also were in the presence of Billy Casper himself.  Here he was with Regional Vice President of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast division Joel Gohlmann.



Not the way we wanted to start out in March!

 

 

 

This is not the way we wanted to start out in March.  It looks like we are forecasted to receive 8 to 12 inches of snow on Monday March 3.  Hopefully you were not like me and put away your snow blower at home.  If you were now is the time to get it back out and fueled up so you are ready to go.