Carey Cup Championship

Looking back on 2019, one great memory is the Carey Cup matches that featured the best amateurs from the Met against the best amateurs from Ireland.  Three days of awesome golf by both teams and a dramatic come from behind victory by the Met to close out the Championship.  Arcola's own Trevor Randolph, playing in the final match secured the last point to seal the victory, holing a must make 12 footer on the last hole. 

XGD Nearing Completion

XGD drainage is being completed today on #6.  The process took about 11 days to do 4 greens.  This will mark the end of this project where greens 6,10,14 and 18 were addressed.  We now have 11 greens that have this system installed and will help firm up the greens quicker following significant rain events.  The key now is to continue to aerify, deep tine and drill and fill to help water get to the drain lines quicker.  This is a great tool to rejuvenate greens without rebuilding them.

XGD Underway

XGD Drainage has begun on the 18th green today.  A 2" pipe is installed on 6 foot spacing throughout the green to aid in drainage.  It takes 2-3 days from start to finish to complete 1 green.  This is a good tool to help with drainage without having to rebuild the green.  This fall we will be doing greens 6,10,14 and 18.  This will make 11 greens in total we will have this system installed.  It has really made a difference on the ones we did 4 years ago.

Verticutting Tees

We are using the Graden Sand Injector on the tees to remove thatch and get sand into the slits at the same time to help firm up the surfaces.  It is a time consuming project but beneficial in the long run.

Let it Rip!

Now that the club championships are over and the weather has cooled a bit, we are going in and verticutting the fairways.  We could not do this in August as the weather was too hot and our tractors were tied up on greens and aerifying fairways.  The fairways will be playable and will heal before the Carey Cup matches on October 21,22,23.

The Little Things That Make Me Happy

You may see a weed sitting there, but I see a Milkweed plant that has a monarch butterfly laying eggs on its leaves.  For the past few years we have been allowing milkweed to stay to encourage more monarchs and this is the second isolated plant today I have seen with a butterfly on it.  Also, I see about 5 broomsedge plants starting to mature which will add some nice contrast to this area in a few weeks.  75 degree days and 50 degree nights make me excited but things like this are what make it all worth it!

Improved View From the Clubhouse

While it was a busy aeration week for my staff, we found some time to remove the 20+ hemlocks to the left of 11 tees this past week to open up the view of the hole from the clubhouse.  The old 11th tees used to be located behind them and the old range used to hit towards the old 11th tees, so the trees now serve no purpose with our new range configuration.  We planted numerous spruces along the woods by 11 tees the past few years so they will act as the screening of the buildings nearby in the future when the hardwoods lose their foliage in the winter.

Morgan Hoffmann Foundation Pro Am

When the dust finally settled for the 2nd annual MH Pro Am, a great time was had by all.  Many thanks to all that came out and supported this great cause.  While the weather was perfect the day of the event, the weather leading up to it was not so great.  Heavy rains on Saturday evening created a massive cleanup on Sunday for my staff who once again rose to the occasion to get the course in great shape for Monday.  The lawn area where the tent was housed for 7 days will need some tlc and we decided to go in and aggressively seed it to get it ready for the next event Labor Day weekend.  The 14th tee, which was the happening place had furniture a DJ and the Casamigos girls and took a beating but after 3 or 4 days the tee was back to normal with some topdressing and fertilizing.  All and all a great day and we are proud of Morgan for undertaking this great cause.  I am also proud of my staff and the 10 volunteers who came in to make this all possible after terrible weather.

More Drainage!

Can you tell where water sits all the time on the 12th fairway?  This is the low area in the beginning of the fairway where water sits after every rain.  Not many options to drain it to, but you can see from constant wet feet the turf is thinning out, especially now that the heat is kicking in.  We installed a sump drain in the low area where Pedro is standing to alleviate this problem.  The area will slowly recover but we will be babying this and other areas along for the next few weeks.  After last nights rain there was no water sitting here this morning.

It Must Be Hot Out

This is the stepcut on #5 fairway.  The browning you see is Poa Trivialis, a cool season grass that cannot take any heat stress.  This was probably seeded here at Arcola years ago and has still managed to stick around.  I consider it a weed that is tough to get rid of.   Most summers it looks like this and we are hoping it is dead but it returns as healthy as ever once the weather changes.  Maybe this year may be different so we can finally get rid of this nuisance.  This is not only on this hole in abundance but also on 15 and 17 fairways and roughs.

Cool To See

The area to the left of the driveway may look unsightly but it is actually full of milkweed.  Not only does this plant have a great fragrance and a lot of flowers it is a perfect breeding sight for monarch butterflies.  The bottom picture is a cocoon we took from one of the plants that will morph into a butterfly in the coming weeks.   Where most of the time this weed would be killed now there is a push to preserve it and allow it to do its thing.

Playing Catch Up

Some of the crew came in Saturday afternoon to help mow areas that we had to skip on Friday due to the heavy rains.  Thanks to the boys for coming in to mow fairways, stepcuts and approaches.
Grass will start popping out of the ground now that temps are going to stay in the 80s for a while.  We have not had that growth flush yet this year, so it is coming.

IPM Strategies

You have seen this last year, but once again we are trying to see what our fairways can tolerate when under pressure from pests and fungus.  Last year remember the 12th fairway above had much more annual bluegrass weevil damage and we were able to get it to recover over a few weeks.  This year it seems the insects were much further into the fairway this generation than the past.  To treat 33 acres of tees and fairways would cost about $9500.  We spent $500 spot spraying a total of 2 acres of tees and fairways where we thought feeding was above damage thresholds.  Above you see most of the damage on 12 is at the beginning of the fairway and on the cleanup pass where hardly anyone plays from.  You can also see the top picture where the bentgrass is already filling in the thinned out areas.  The easy thing would have been to spray everything but we learned last year that we can get by and try and get the grass to outgrow the damage.  This year the damage was far less and I attribute it to having more bentgrass on this fairway from allowing the poa to be eaten last year.  We also had a minimal impact on the environment and our budget by allowing this to happen.

Getting Ready For the Invitational

While we will be busy mowing the golf course and doing all the little detail work to make it sparkle for the Invitational this coming week, head mechanic Joe Pannuto and Andrikson DeLa Rosa are going to be busy making sure all our equipment is mowing properly.  Each and every day they have to make sure that over 40 reels are sharp and cutting properly along with rotory mowers as well.  It is a full time job just making sure equipment everything is set accurately and then throw in the daily repairs that pop up and they are constantly busy.  These are the unsung heroes on our staff that most members never see.

Last Tree Being Removed

If you remember Memorial Day weekend was book ended with 2 storms and we lost a total of 5 trees, phone service, power to the pump house and to the street lights.  This tree here on 12 was the only one we could not clean since it was hung up in other trees.  Downes Tree came in last night to remove it for us.   Lets hope this is it for storms and rain for a long time. 

New Fairway Roller and New Headache!

We took delivery of our new fairway roller this past week.  We bought this unit to remove dew on fairways on days we do not mow and to help firm them up on days we do not mow.  Unfortunately, the first day we used it, a hydraulic line was not connected properly and spewed oil on our 6th fairway and 7th approach.  We will see brown lines on these fairways due to the heat of the oil for the next few weeks.  In the meantime, we will continue to verticut the bad areas and use some dye to hide it.  We will think twice about purchasing anything from this company again in the future.

New Fairway Roller

We just received our new fairway roller this morning and we are trying it out.  This is a great supplement on days we do not mow fairways.  The rollers help remove dew which in turn reduces disease opportunities and helps firm up the surfaces.  This will be especially beneficial on weekend mornings when we are busy.  It will take one person 4 hours to do all the fairways but it may be well worth the investment. 

Assistant Superintendents

Picture from right to left are Senior Assistant Patrick O'Brien and new Assistant Superintendents Matthew Carmichael and Steve Gauli.  Patrick is going on his 4th season with us and has been a pivotal part of our staff.  Matt comes from Newton CC and Wild Turkey and is a recent graduate of the Rutgers Golf Management program.  Steve is coming from Ballyowen GC and he too is a recent graduate of the Rutgers program.  The key for me is to prepare these young men to become successful Superintendents in the future and to teach them how to present a golf course in championship conditions on a daily basis.  They are learning what it takes to prepare a course each day and how to handle adversity when it arises.  These guys are the keys to the success of Arcola each and every day.

Take Lightning Seriously!

On Thursday this 80 ft oak on our 12th hole took a direct strike about 10 minutes after the Thor Guard went off.  Unlike most lightning strikes where the tree is hit and survives for a few months after, this one literally was blown into pieces.  Please heed the warning when the alarm goes off, another hole or putt is not worth it.  The landscape of the hole looks different now without this tree on the right so we will be looking at solutions to improve the hole in the future.

Bunker Rehab on 18

The green side bunkers on 18 getting a little rehab this week.  The edges were too steep before and not stable enough to withstand foot and mower traffic so we added burlap bags to help allow the sod to get a better hold during the summer months.  The key now is to keep golfers from stepping on them until the sod gets rooted in.  A nice improvement that took a lot of prep work.

Fixing Drainage in 13 Fairway Bunker

We are addressing the fairway bunker on 13 today with a new outflow pipe.  When we rebuilt the bunker back in 2014 we tied into the existing outflow pipe.  The bunker has been poorly draining the past few years and now we tied the drainage into our new fairway drainage we did several years ago.  This will surely help with playability and with labor as we will not have to pump it out anymore.

Not as Bad as I Thought

Been meaning to do this for a few years but we finally started deep tining fairways.  We started on our wettest ones first.  I figured we would destroy the deep tiner so we purchased a third one this year to convert this one into a fairway one only.  Spacing was just right with no disruption to fairways.  We did the wettest areas on the 5th and 6th holes today.  Thursday we will do 3 and 16.  Eventually we will be doing substantial drainage on 5 and 16 in the fall and we will be doing 3 laterals tomorrow on #6.  We will see if this will make a difference.

What A Difference 8 Months Makes

Same fairway top without drainage and the bottom with the recent drainage project that is still ongoing.  There are so many little depressions that it is almost impossible to get all the low spots but 95% of the fairway is improved with a few more minor laterals to go.  Once we address 5 and 16 our worst fairways will be behind us.

New Nursery Taking Shape

The barn hole fairway was eliminated and turned into a poa greens nursery last October 24th.  We used the plugs from our greens aeration to create it.  It has made great progress in a short period of time.  We will treat the fairway and the green all the same and the decision now is do we fill in the old bunkers or rebuild them.  This will be a great source of sod if we do any green expansions or we decide to build a new green.

Getting Fescue Ready for Season

We finally have time to address the fescue this spring.  We are going in to aggressively rake them out, clean up the debris we accumulate and then they will be sprayed with herbicides and mowed one last time before the season gets going.  We need to do this for a few years to help keep them thin and playable so this will help but not be a one and done practice.

Big Improvement

The cart path located by the 17th green that is used to access the driving range was upgraded this spring.  The path was widened significantly to allow 2 carts to easily pass each other and had drainage added to get surface water off of it.  Please stay on the cart path as now there is ample room so we do not have to continue to fix the edges throughout the season.

New Pesticide Signage

We installed new pesticide information signs on the 1st and 10th tees.  These are much nicer than the standard signs that we used to have and will give you all the information you need to know on what we are spraying and when the next upcoming sprays will take place.

Drainage 17 Fairway Nearing Completion

Drainage on 17 fairway is moving at a rapid pace.  We did the first 100 yards of the fairway in the fall and we are just about finished with the 120 yard section out from the green which was our worst part of the hole.  After the rain on Saturday we saw how quickly the drainage is working already.  Lets hope squeegeeing will never be needed again on this hole.  The crew has done a great job to move this project along quickly and limit disruption to the membership.

Last Big Item on 18

Paving took place today by the 18th tees and this marks the final big item for us to do to finish the 18th hole project.  Once the asphalt sets up, we will go in and soil and seed the path edges and we can call this project complete. 

17 Fairway Drainage Underway Again

In the fall of 2018 we started installing drainage in the front portion of the 17th fairway.  Construction projects in the late fall took precedent over finishing the fairway so now that we are getting caught up on our bigger projects, we are at it again covering about 100 yards out from the green.  It will take us several days this week to get this section done but we are moving at a good pace.  Looks like rain is coming Friday and Saturday so we can monitor how good of a job we are doing.

Drainage Completed

The front of the range tee was regraded and drained this spring to eliminate the pond we used to have following rain events.  Here is the front of the tee after 1" of rain last week.

Bunker Improvement Completed

In a previous post I explained how we are combining the two fairway bunker on #8 into 1 to address surface drainage issues and improve how the bunkers play.  We finished it this past week and it is much improved with fairway drainage that will intercept runoff before it washes out the bunker.

Recycling Asphalt and Concrete

After years of projects around the clubhouse and the course where we removed cart paths and concrete, we are having a contractor come in and crush the stockpile into material we can use in the future for cart path bases and other roads.  For what we would have spent on dumpsters to remove the material from Arcola, we now have materials to use for the next few years.

Drainage on Range

We are finally addressing the area in front of the range tee that after last year, we realized we needed to put drainage in.  The area most of the year was a small pond and hampered efforts to pick up balls and mow.  This should help the area as we raised and leveled it and now installed some pipe.
The area should be sodded by Monday or Tuesday of next week.

Getting Closer to Finishing

Today is a big day to prep for sod and get areas buttoned up around the new tee complex on 18.  Our first load of sod is coming tomorrow so you will start to see it all coming together.

First Mow of the Season

Only have minimal growth right now but todays mowing will clean up the greens a bit and possibly stimulate some growth and green up.  We aerify the greens on April 1 so we will probably do 1 more mowing on them before.

Finally!!!!

What has seemed like an eternity, we are finally able to get back on the new tees on 18 to commence work.  We broke ground on these back in late November and immediately after got a snow storm.  That was followed by either precipitation or frozen conditions right up to a week and a half ago.  You need good soil conditions to get tees to be constructed properly and in a matter of 12 hours, two of the tees are almost ready for drainage.  We should have mix and irrigation in by the end of next week and sod the following week. 

Still Moving Trees

The 2 last remaining hollies have been moved from the 17th green area.  We moved them today while it is still somewhat frozen and once the snow melts it is going to be difficult to do anything out on the course due to the saturated conditions we will experience.

Plug Looking Pretty Good

The poa on this plug looked a bit funky back in January so we brought it inside.  For the exception of keeping the edge hydrated, looks like it made a full recovery and should be fine.  A difficult 2018 has carried right into the winter of 2019 so spring is critical to getting the grass conditioned for 2019.