The golf course maintenance team has been busy catching up on mowing the past couple of weeks. The rain we had set us back a bit. Fortunately we had a good week of weather and we were able to get caught back up. Our irrigation crew has been very active also, fixing and replacing bad or damaged heads and valves from the winter months. More recently we have been focusing on our bunkers. Over time the bunker sand shifts, generally towards the back and to the low end. Much of this is due to rain events. Our goal is to redistribute the sand back up to the high end and in some cases up the face to the edge of the grass.
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| #18 green side bunker |
With some modifications to one of our mowers called a fly mow, we will maintain a higher cut along the edges to soften the look. The mower actually floats on a cushion of air. It does a good job on very steep hills and mounded shoulders on bunkers. Lift kits help us get to the desired height of cut and will keep the edges looking good.
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| Fly mower |
The photograph below shows the back edge of a bunker on #18 after some sand redistribution.
The photos below are of #1 green side bunker where we are pushing sand back up to eliminate the large flat face on the greens side.
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| #1 Right green-side bunker | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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| #1 Right green-side bunker |
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Below is the finished product. More sand is now back where it belongs. Much of the sand that was in the back of the bunker has now been redistributed to the upper face and weak areas.
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| #1 Right green side bunker |
As you can see here on #3 sand is being taken from the back edge where there is plenty of sand and redistributed around the bunker.
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| #3 Front green-side bunker |
Notice the large face, again a product of sand collapsing from a very steep face.
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| #3 Front green-side bunker |
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| #3 Front green-side bunker |
Once again a finished product with less of a face. Additionally, there is less sand in the back and more in the bottom and front where it was lacking.
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| #3 Front Green-side bunker |
More and more bunkers will be done in the days and weeks ahead until we have them completed.
Another functioned performed recently has been what we call a "wall to wall" fertilization. We applied a special blend of fertilizer to the entire golf course. This is a follow-up to an application we put down several weeks ago. This time we increased our nitrogen amount to help get us almost through the summer months. It takes up to 18,000 lbs of fertilizer to accomplish this task. Supplemental spray applications will be done also.
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| Assistant Supt. Jason Kelly spreading fertilizer on #1 fairway |
