On The Course September 26th

Troy mowing the new Green Tee on #3

 We have had a great stretch of weather so far this week and the golf course is shaping up really nice. The course has bounced back from aerification very well and we should have a great fall. Corey was able to get about 125 tons of sand spread on fairways 14 through 18 yesterday. All of the fairways have been topdressed and we only have a couple of approaches left to do today. If the budget allows we will be topdressing fairways once more this season right before we shut down for the season. We will begin deep tining fairways the second week of October.

The new tees on #3 are coming along very well with some positive growth on the bentgrass tee top. We have mowed it for the first time this week and will keep it covered to push growth for the next couple of weeks before we let it harden off for winter. We made a little progress yesterday on #18 by removing the existing sod and we will start hauling fill material later this morning.

We have replaced a couple spruce trees in the bottom part of the parking lot that were blown over from the storm in June. We also added a screen planting along the north side of the tennis courts that will help screen and block some wind. We will be working on planting some more trees later this fall as time and weather allow. There are a couple of Spruce trees on #2 that need some to be replaced as well as adding some trees to the right of the cart path on #13. We will be marking some trees for removal this winter. We have a elm tree on #18 that is standing dead and needs to be removed. We have done some work on a couple of the perennial beds around the clubhouse this week and will be working on getting them mulched later this week or early next week.

Spruce tree screen planting behind the tennis courts

#6 fairway with a good layer of sand waiting to be brushed into the turf canopy

We are working on some perennial beds this fall to add some color and variety

On The Course September 19th

Troy and Pete working on the practice bunker

 It has been a pretty good week to get some work done despite the misty wet weather. We are going  to continue topdressing fairways when we have time and will be working through the back nine next week. The middle of September is a great time to get some perennial flower work done. We have pulled plants from a couple of the perennial beds to help improve the look and growth of the plants. The golfer turf bed has not performed very well over the past couple of years so we are amending the soil and will be replanting the bed next week. Every couple of seasons we try to rework a couple of the beds. We pulled the plants and will be dividing and replanting most of the material in the beds. We will be adding some different species and redesigning the layout of the bed.

Troy and the crew worked on fixing the face of the practice bunker that has had a lot of sand build up on the face. We cut the sod back and removed the sand material down until we found the original soil base. The entire bunker was edged and sand depth fixed. The face was sodded and most members will not even notice that we had done the work. Over time when practicing in the bunker the sand builds up quickly on the face making the turf struggle to grow.

The tee project on # 3 is growing in very nice. We had germination in 5 days and we might even be able to get a mower on the tee top this week. The tee will not be ready for this season but should be open close to the beginning of next spring. We have growth covers on the tee to keep the tee from cooling down during the evenings. This will help with growth to get the plants to mature quickly.

We are rolling greens this morning and working on the flower bed around the clubhouse. We have a chance of rain moving into the area later in the day. Bill is mowing intermediate rough and Sheldon is mowing rough areas through out the course.

Over the last 2 seasons 8-12 inches of sand has built up on the practice bunker face

We had germination in 5 days on the new tees on #3.

For the first time in a while the course received a good amount of rain overnight.  We ended up with .8 inches total and the nice thing was that it was a slow soaking rain which some areas of the course needed.  We will be cart path only today to keep the fairways from tracking and rutting up after last weeks aerification process.  Greens are being rolled this morning and greenside bunkers are being mechanically raked.  We are also cutting cups and doing tee service.  It should be a nice cool day for golf.

On The Course September 12th

Corey topdressing #1 fairway

 It has been another very busy week on the course with a couple of outside events. We are getting closer to finishing the fairway aerification. Corey started topdressing some fairways yesterday after Shaun was able to fix the shuttle linkage on the tractor. We are going a little heavier on the sand rate this time and will try to get all of the fairways done by early next week. We are brushing the sand into the turf canopy and they are looking very good. Today we will be working on 9, 3 and 7 fairways. Pete has the fertilizer spreader going on tees and we will be watering those in this morning.

The weather is changing as we are looking at a high temperature in the middle 70's for today. The greens have healed in very nicely from aerification and we are dropping the walk mowers today. They are getting a lot of clippings and the greens will be noticeably better today. We are also rolling the greens this morning and will be firming them up the next couple of days. We will be making more frequent posts over the next couple of weeks. The seed on the new tees on #3 has germinated and we will start some work on #18 Green Tee next week.

Gabriel pulling cores on #12 fairway

We can see the different soil types on #11 fairway with the cores that were pulled.

On The Course September 5th

Aerification on greens Tuesday, September 3rd

 We have had a busy week with aerification. We only had a couple hiccups in the process but I think overall it went very well. Monday night we were able to get 6 greens aerified and fertilized. Tuesday, the crew kept the pace going and were able to get the rest of the Championship greens aerified by 12:30pm. Corey and Sheldon were topdressing greens from 7 am until about 5pm. They moved over 100 tons of sand onto the greens and we were able to get almost all of the sand worked into the greens. We were not able to finish a few of the practice greens as the dew was forming making it too wet to drag. These greens were finished on Wednesday and the crew worked on getting the sand worked into the aerification holes and turf canopy. We were also able to aerify all of the tees and start on the fairways on Tuesday. We were able to finish 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 9 fairways on Wednesday and will be working on 5, 7 and 10 today.

Pete Maiers fertilizing greens

Corey Heasley topdressing #4 green

Brushing the sand into the aerification holes and turf canopy

Fernando and Gabriel rolling with Gustavo and Rubiel blowing sand