Golf Course Maintenance Update

January proved to be a month with less than average rainfall. We were able to get out and mow the golf course much more than normal for this time of the year. Our average for January is around 5.50 inches. As of today, January 31, we are right around 3.75 inches for the month. We had a total of 14 days with recordable rain.

January was a busy month for the crew as we took on a couple of projects around the golf course. First, as you will see by the slides below, we are in the final stages of finishing the drainage on #5 fairway. This area will get some new sod over the ditch lines and will steadily continue to dry out as the drains start to take off excess water.

#5 Fairway

#5 Fairway looking back toward tee

#5 Fairway

As many of you know, especially our lady members, the number one ladies tee is a very small and unimpressive first tee. In an effort to correct this, the crew extended the tee to the right and back just a little bit. It is now a much bigger and a more impressive first tee for our lady members and guests. It will remain closed until we can get some new growth established as temperatures warm up this spring.

#1 Ladies tee

Another project  has been some additions to our irrigation system in the rough on hole #13. We are extending some sprinkler heads into some rough areas that tend to dry up in the summer and cause balls to bounce pretty hard toward the out of bounds area. This improvement will help to maintain some needed turf in these areas with the hopes of keeping balls from bouncing hard to the left and potentially out of bounds. It also will help this area aesthetically during our summer months.

#13 Rough irrigation

In addition to these projects our landscape crew has been busy sprucing up some planter beds around the golf course.

#4 Cart staging area

#7 Tee 

Let's cross our fingers and hope we have a dry February and spring will be here before we know it.

Golf Course Maintenance Update

Despite the cold and wet weather we've been having, the golf course maintenance crew has been busy finishing up some work on holes # 3 and #5. We've recently had stumps removed and completed some ground leveling. Our goal  is to continue to smooth out the ground and develop turf in both of these areas.

#5 Stump was removed and leveled off

Below are pictures of the area to the left of #3 tee. The area is getting prepped for seeding this spring. 

In addition to preparing these areas for seeding we have been busy edging the cart paths next to greens and tee complexes. This is very time consuming and difficult work, mostly done with a small edger and shovels. Once completed in these areas,we will be moving on to the fairway portions of the paths. 

Our next project will be putting in drainage in the middle of #5 fairway. We are targeting the landing zone at about the 150 yard marker and going up to about even with the fairway bunker on the left. This is expected to start next week Monday the 13th of January.

Golf Course Maintenance Update

Well our first freeze is finally over, but as you know it's early.  Winter, officially called the Winter Solstice, doesn't start until December 21st.  As of this writing we are not seeing much damage from the very cold temperatures we experienced for almost 10 days. Just some discoloration here and there. We'll know more as we come out of the thawing phase. We did develop a disease called Fairy Ring prior to the freeze on #18 green and the small chipping green. There are over 52 different kinds of Fairy Ring. This particular one is very noticeable in just the middle and towards the back of #18 green.While we don't anticipate any turf loss it makes for a rather odd look, which left unchecked could cause some problems. The Fairy Ring you may be familiar with is usually a large circular dark green ring with mushrooms growing from it. Generally this is caused from decaying organic matter.

Fairy Ring

This can be controlled by a fungicide, which we will be applying once the greens have thawed out. We're not sure why only #18 and the small putting chipping green were affected. Hopefully it is contained to just these greens as we have not seen any other greens with the disease.

Over the past several days the maintenance crew has been busy clearing out some areas on #5 of salal bushes. Areas to the right and left out about 200 yrds from the tee have received some needed removal to help pace of play. Generally in these areas, finding an errant tee shot could take a while. Additionally, we have removed the two large trees to the left of  #5 green. These two trees where causing some significant problems with sunlight to the green and also contributing to some turf decline in and around the front left of the green. With the added drainage in this area and some new sod on the way this area will be in much better shape to play from. We've sanded the area quite heavily so we've marked it as "ground under repair".

#5 drainage

#5 left of green

#5 tree removal 

We've also removed a significant amount of salal and under brush to the left of #5 green. This area will now  be a playable spot if a golf ball kicks left of the bunker.

Left of #5 green

As a result, we expect to see more sunlight to the green and it will also allow golfers to find their golf ball should it enter this area.

Golf Course Maintenance Update

Over the last several weeks the golf course maintenance crew has been busy on a couple of projects. You may have noticed in the rough on  #4 we have completed the improvements to the turf and drainage in this area. The old matted sod was taken out and new drainage and sod added. Once this area is open for play  the area should now be in good condition to play from.

#4 left rough at about 130 yards from the hole

Another area we are currently working on is the surround area on #7 green. We have taken out the sod in a couple of areas surrounding the green that was not draining. We will be addressing the drainage issues and replacing the sod in the next few weeks once we have some other areas ready for sod.

Back of #7 green

You may also have noticed the trees we've taken down behind the green on #7, some of which you can see in the photo above. This has really opened up the light to this area. In addition to the trees next to #3 tee we also had the trees immediately behind the green trimmed up. With these trees trimmed and the elimination of the trees next to the #3 tee we are now getting much more direct sunlight to the green.

#7 green before tree removal - notice the amount of shade effecting the sunlight to the green

#7 green from a different view before removal

#7 green after tree falling

Unfortunately as of this writing I haven't been able to take any photographs with direct sunlight as our days have been pretty gray and overcast. What little sun has been out it is now able to cover almost the entire green. We have a few more trees blocking the light that are located next to the restroom which we may consider taking out as well. You can see this from the photo above.

Another area of concern I've noticed recently has been the ball marks on all of the greens. Typically this time of the year the turfgrass has gone somewhat dormant so the recovery of ball marks are slowed way down. In many cases they don't recover until spring. It is vitally important during this time of the year to take the extra time to fix your ball marks correctly. In the photos below you will see some ball marks that were not fixed very well and one that with a little extra work is completely fine.

Poorly repaired ball mark 

No repair

Properly repaired

With your help in taking the extra time to fix ball marks correctly we can minimize the unsightliness and help improve the surface quality of the green. Poorly repaired or no repair ball marks can have an effect on ball roll.What works best when trying to repair the mark is to gently work in from all sides with a repair tool or tee, if that's all you have, until you have the area filled in with surrounding material then lightly pat down with your putter. If done correctly, as you can see by the divot above, you can hardly tell a divot was present. 

Maintenance Update

While September was the wettest since, oh..... probably ever, the golf course stood up to Mother Nature pretty well. We have seen however, the development of some new soggy areas in and around some greens. For example, #7 green has some areas to the right and back of the green in the surround areas and we also have an area next to the cart path at the #15 green and a small area to the rear of #17 green. Our plan is to cut the sod out in these areas, place in some drainage and re-sod. This has worked well in some other areas around the golf course. In addition to some of the green surrounds, we developed a drainage problem on #4 rough to the left of the 150 yard marker. You may remember we did some drainage work in this area last year. Our main goal was to replace the mainline pipe that was catching water by the green and from a bog on #5. This provided a clear path to the lake, which eliminated the water in the swale. Unfortunately the area towards the lake, a popular area if you slightly pull or hook your tee shot, had a lot of thatch and was in a low point along the line. In order to correct this area, we are pulling the sod and adding additional drainage and will re-sod.  

Area behind #7 Green

Area between #7 Green and cart path

#4 Rough looking back towards the tee

Another angle looking towards #7 tee

We are also considering some tree removal on # 7 and #3 tee. There is a patch of trees that during the winter months is blocking any kind of direct sunlight we may get in the afternoon hours. Because the sun is at such a low angle in the sky these trees are in affect acting as a light blocker and as you know living plants especially turfgrass need light to survive in a healthy state. #7 has been a very poor performer during the winter months due to the affects of this diminished sunlight.We've already seen the benefits of removing select trees around greens. One example is on #3 green where trees were removed towards the back of the green. #7 is virtually blocked by sun the entire day during the winter months. Removing some of these trees will help in this effort and will benefit the tees on #3 as well.

#7 Green looking towards the #3 black tee

In addition to these trees, the large trees directly behind the green are creating some shade issues too. Our plan here is to limb up the trees a ways to help eliminate the problem.

#7 Trees behind the green that can be trimmed

Maintenance Update

It's been a busy summer in the maintenance department as July and the first of August brought us all of the Member Guest Tournaments together within a few weeks of each other.

We are very appreciative of the many favorable comments regarding the golf course during all of the tournaments. The crew worked very hard to bring you the best conditions possible. As with any golf course, we will always have areas to improve on and we work hard to identify them and make changes for the better. We appreciate any and all feed back, it really does help in this process, thank you.

A view up #10 from #18 green prior to the Men's  MGI

Bunker Update
We have been working hard to get the bunker edges and sand distribution in the bunkers in good condition. Some have received some new sand, but most just need the sand moved around a bit. We will continue to address problem areas as we continue to improve our raking and mowing techniques.
The following photo was taken on #10 fairway bunker. You can see how the grass edges are coming in nicely.

Irrigation Improvements
As many of you may have noticed we recently had another irrigation blow out on #15 in the front bunker. After many attempts to correct the problem,we decided it would be best to eliminate the lateral line from the bunker and move it around in front of the bunker. We think that because this area is one of the lowest areas of the golf course we may be experiencing what is known as hammering. As pressure fluctuates in a system it can create a hammering effect that can cause undue pressure in specific areas, which in turn can cause pipes and fittings to fail, especially with aging systems such as ours where pipe is 25 years old.

#15 Irrigation repair

I'm happy to report that so far so good on this repair. At least if it fails now we won't have the bunker flooded out.
We've also recently repaired some sprinkler heads on #4 and #6. As the irrigation system ages, we have been experiencing some underground wiring issues that has prevented many sprinkler heads from working on the automatic system at night. When this happens the sprinklers have to be turned on by hand from a selector located at the head itself. This can become quite time consuming for the irrigation staff which has to spend time away from other areas that may need attention. We've tried using wire location equipment with mixed results and often times we end up chasing wire all over the place wasting time. We only spent approximately an hour and half to complete each fix. On this day we were able to fix five heads.  We haven't given up on wire location equipment as we have tested some good ones and will be looking at securing something in the near future. It's not the complete answer, but will help with these kinds of problems and other wiring issues we face from time to time. As time allows we hope to repair five or six more heads with similar problems. Normally we wouldn't attempt something like this during the middle of the summer, but with the recent rains it has allowed us a window of time to get it done without disrupting our normal schedule of maintenance.

The following photos show what is involved in correcting the problem. We basically are tapping into a working sprinkler head nearby that can handle another head on the same station during the watering cycle.

Getting ready to sod cut from one head to another

With sod removed Irrigation Tech Jeff Ellison is digging the trench at about 8 inches in depth so that when we aerify this area the tines will not damage the wires.

Assistant Supt Jason Kelly and Irrigation Tech Frank Pablo make the necessary connections and place the new wire in the trench

Once  the trench is filled the sod is replaced

In a few days this area will be as good as new.