On The Course August 30th

We are mowing greens this morning and the warm weather they are growing very well. With aerification next week we want to make sure our recovery time is enhanced by making sure our growth is sufficient. It was very hot yesterday and the crew was out hand watering areas of the course. We will continue to hand water greens, tees and fairways today with a predicted high temperature reaching 95 degrees. We will try to focus on the fine turf areas as well as run some roller base sprinklers in some rough areas. We have not seen any significant rain in the past week and the non irrigated portions of the golf course are showing the stressful signs.

We have  a 40 player event this morning along with the Ladies league at 8:30am. We will be working in behind the golfers spot watering areas of the course today. There was a stuck head on #16 fairway that ran for several hours last night leaving a portion of the fairway with standing water. We will get what we can drained off this morning before play. We should have a great weekend for golf with temperatures in low 80's and clear skies.

On The Course August 29th

If you thought the Club Championship Pin locations were tough here is a couple we found this morning!

 We are rolling greens today and will be hand watering fairway edges later today. We sprayed fairways yesterday morning with a wetting agent and some fertilizer. We needed to water the product off the leaf tissue and get it into the soil. The fairways were wet yesterday because of the late morning irrigation. We are going to see some pretty high temperatures over the next couple of days and will be hand watering areas that need attention.

We had a little late night activity at the Club last night as we were missing 7 flag sticks on the Executive Course and 1 from the Championship. Most of them have been located but we are still looking for a couple of them. The flag stick off of #15 green is in the Maple tree next to the green and we will need to get the ladder out for that one. School must be right around the corner!

On The Course August 28th

We relocated some irrigation lines on #5 approach

 We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. Troy will be finishing our greens spray application from yesterday and Brandon will be spraying fairways with fertilizer and wetting agent. There is a small system of rain moving in this morning but it is supposed to slide to the south of the Twin Cities. Right now it looks that we may get a little rain later this morning. Yesterday we worked on an irrigation problem on # 5 approach. The approach area had one large 690 irrigation head that hits the green as well as putting too much water in the approach. We split the 690 into 2 new Toro 850 series heads that will help cover the rough areas east and west of the approach better. We have done this to several other areas of the golf course and have been able to get better coverage and dry out some of these areas.

We have some warmer weather moving in today and for the rest of the week with temperatures predicted to be in the middle 90's. The sun is setting a little earlier in the evening so we are not going to see the extended heat that we have seen throughout this summer. We have several other small projects on the schedule for this week as well as getting the equipment ready for greens aerification next Tuesday. Tuesday, September 4th we will be aerifying greens, tees and some fairways on the Championship course. If the weather is ideal we will work into the Executive Course as soon as the Championship course is finished. We will be starting early on Tuesday and working well into the evening to get everything done. We usually will have to roll and brush greens several days after aerification as we will be topdressing fairly heavy.

Soil profile on #5 approach has a little sand on top of a bunch of clay

On The Course August 24th

We received some light rain last night adding up to just .15 inches.  Most of the larger rain cells moved just south of the course.  Today we are mowing and rolling greens and Jason and Brandon are setting the course for play.  We are also mowing tees this morning and tee and fairway intermediate rough areas.  There is some debris on the course this morning from the wind last night due to the storms but we will blow most of it off the fine turf areas and mulch it later today.

Poa checking out the drainage work

We were able to mostly rap up our drainage project on 15 approach yesterday.  There are just a few small areas left to tie in some bluegrass sod  which we will do later this morning.  The area has been roped off so we ask that carts stay out of this area until it firms up.  Its going to be in the mid 80's today so we will be checking greens this afternoon and handwatering as needed.  It should be a great day for golf!!!

 

On The Course August 23rd

Great evening for the Men's League Shootout

Dan Hartel and Riley Harlan won the Men's League Shootout

We are adding some drainage on #15 approach area

 We are mowing greens this morning and setting the course up for play. There are some spotty rain on the radar right now but should not amount to much throughout the day. We have started a drainage project on #15 approach that will help get water under the path and into the drainage system. Fairways and triplex approaches are being mowed today. If we do not receive very much rain today we will be spot watering the golf course .

Mr. Scroggins with a lag put on #18

On The Course August 21st

We have aerified, topdressed, fertilized and seeded the range tee on Monday

 We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. Fairways and tees are being mowed. We have watered the course a little more last night to keep up with what the predicted evapotranspiration rates are going to be over the next couple of days. We will be hand watering some areas of the course today. Ladies league on the front nine this morning and Men's league shootout this evening. We are having a Grounds Meeting at 2pm this afternoon and will be discussing fall aerification. We will be aerifying the greens the Tuesday after Labor Day. We will be using a larger tine than we did this spring to help with surface drainage and to get more sand into the soil profile. Over the next couple of weeks we will be solid tining several of the fairways and will be core aerifying several fairways after Labor Day.

Billy Soule with a nice shot out of the bunker on #14

Club Championship Pictures

Thanks to Troy and the crew for all the hard work preparing the golf course for the Club Championship

 Here are a few pictures from the Club Championship this past weekend. The crew worked hard all week preparing the course for the tournament and we had perfect weather to get the course a little firmer and faster.

Mr Turnquist made a 2 on #9 holing it from the fairway, NICE SHOT!

Mr Galgano with a bunker shot on #14

2012 Club Champion Andrew Brandt

Steve Berg lining a putt on #18 green

Brandt Family

Berg Family



How far is it?

On The Course August 19th

A very nice morning on the course

 We have received enough rain last night to puddle in the parking lots but the course remains fairly firm. We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. Fairways, collars and approaches are being mowed today. We have brought in most of the staff this weekend to prepare the course for the Club Championship. The final round of the Championship will begin this morning and Troy and I will be setting the course for play. If you see the grounds staff on the course over the next week thank them for the hard work they have put in this season.

Ted Root with an approach shot to #9 green

 Next week we will begin working on some small projects throughout the golf course. We will be looking at fixing some drainage problems as well as adjusting some irrigation coverage. We are having a Grounds Committee meeting on Tuesday at 2:00pm.

On The Course August 18th

Andy Berg with a shot into #9 Green

 Here are a couple of pictures from Saturday of the Club Championship. We have had a great stretch of weather and are looking forward to a great finish to the Club Championship with several players in contention.



We have moved the forward tee markers onto the new tee for the weekend.

#2 Green Saturday Morning Club Championship

Guillermo mowing #18 collar on Club Championship Saturday

On The Course August 17th

Jason and Bryxton trimming some over hanging branches

 Club Championship Weekend

We are currently sitting at 47 degrees!

We are mowing and rolling greens this morning in preparation for the Club Championship. Fairways, Tees, Collars and Approaches are being mowed. Troy and Jason are setting the course up for the tournament and we should have a perfect weekend. Brandon is hand watering a couple of fairway edges and bunker banks. The crew has been working on fairway and tee divots and with the amount of play that we have been seeing there are a lot of them.

We have seen a little grub activity in a few areas of the course and Brandon was able to handgun some of these spots yesterday. The grubs didn't look very happy this morning. We will be working on aerification and fall projects starting next week. We are looking at doing some drainage work on a couple of areas as well as get some rough areas aerified and seeded.

A little grub activity on a couple of bunker faces

On The Course August 16th

Jose mowing #18 green this morning.

Yesterday we received about 0.5" of rain right in the middle of our morning greens preparation. We were not able to get all of the greens rolled yesterday. We needed to try to finish spraying greens yesterday before the event and were able to get all but 13-17. We will be finishing spraying greens this morning after we are done mowing and rolling greens. The wind blew all night long and has dried the course out very nicely. The high temperatures over the next couple of days should be in the low 70's and tonight it could drop below 50's.

We are mowing fairways, collars and approaches this morning. Troy will be changing pin locations today and will also be marking pin locations for the Club Championship. We will be in full mow mode over the next three days mowing most of the fine turf areas each morning before the Club Championship. We will have the crew in at 430am to get the course prepped each day and are looking forward to a great Club Championship. We are going to be getting ready for Greens aerification that will occur right after Labor Day. We will be starting solid tining and deep tining some fairways in the next couple of weeks to help with surface drainage. With the temperatures cooling off and some of our larger events past us we will begin working on some small drainage and irrigation projects. We have a pretty good list of small areas that we would like to work on that should not disrupt play very much. The new growth on the evergreen trees have hardened off enough where we can start moving some spruce and pine trees. We have replaced a tree around the pool area already this week and have plans for several more tree planting throughout the golf course.

Can Tony Ahl repeat as Club Champion?

On The Course August 14th

We are mowing and rolling greens this morning and will be topdressing greens later today.  We have a busy week with several shotgun events and the Club Championship this weekend. The weather has cooled down considerably and we are going to have a chance of some rain later today and tomorrow. Fairways, collars and approaches are being mowed today. Yesterday we were able to spray fairways and tees before the outside event.

Tom Hoverson was out yesterday and replace one of the Spruce Trees at the pool that had died over the summer. The new growth on the evergreen trees has hardened off and they are ready to be transplanted. We will be working on some plans over the next couple of weeks to get some more trees replaced on the golf course. We will be working on the left side of #2 fairway and behind #11 green.

I was able to attend the PGA Championship this past Saturday and had wonderful time. The Ocean Course is amazing and you really cannot see all the features that Pete Dye put into the golf course. There are a lot of little swales and dune areas that you do not see on TV that are pretty incredible. The pin location on #9 on Saturday was tucked back left is was almost a one stroke penalty in itself.
Don't worry I did not come out of there with any course set up ideas for the Club Championship. I was able to watch the Tournament Officials pick the pin location for Sunday on #17 and took a few notes home with me.

#18 The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island

On The Course August 9th

We are rolling greens this morning with a heavy fog and a chance of light rain later this morning. Collars and approaches are being walk mowed today and we are hand raking bunkers. We did not receive any significant rain yesterday and will be hand watering several areas of the course today. We are working on getting a couple of fairway stress spots to recover. The weather looks to be cool enough to try to dry the fairways out a little bit and get them to firm up. Jason will be setting the course up for play this morning.

On The Course August 7th

Cristian venting greens on Monday

 Greens are being mowed and rolled today. Yesterday we were able to get several of the greens vented and rolled. We also sprayed greens with our fertilizer package to give them a little perk this week. The weather has cooled off significantly and we will be trying to firm up the golf course. We have a slight chance of rain for tomorrow and very nice weather looking ahead to the weekend.

The crew was able to work on weeding and edging some bunkers yesterday and we will continue that tomorrow as the rest of today is a mowing day. Brandon and Jason are setting the course up for play today. We have had a couple of electrical problems with one of our triplex mowers and Shaun has cleaned out the valve bank solenoids. We will be running around on that mower today to make sure it is functioning properly. Jason fixed a couple irrigation problems on #15 fairway yesterday so please avoid the wet areas on the right side of the fairway.

Venting greens allows air to get into the soil profile. We have vented 13, 14, 16 and 17 greens

We had Sid Stivland out on the course doing a bird survey yesterday. Above is a picture I took of a Kingbird on #16.

Championship Pictures



Billy Soule 2012 Men's Senior Club Champion

 What a perfect day for golf! Congratulations to all the participants in the 2012 Women's and Senior Men's Club Championship. Here are just a few pictures from the tournament today.

Lana Bixby 2012 Women's Club Champion

Lana Bixby with a great lag put on #18!



Dave Carlson for birdie on #17

Billy Soule for birdie on #17

Dr. Stoltenberg won the Super Senior Flight.