Busy Week!

 

A busy and productive week by the grounds staff.  Almost all projects are completed including the building of new bridges, ditches, mounds, new tee on 16, hydroseeding new native areas,  plus fairway aeration and topdressing.  This is a normal spring for most clubs, but this is 5 days at Arcola!

Timing is Everything!

 

The large maple that was damaged last summer in a thunderstorm is vital to protecting the dogleg on 18.  To find a significant replacement is costly.  We moved this decent London Plane from 17 to take its place.  This tree will not only grow quickly, we have time for it to get established before we remove the maple.  Luckily we moved it right before the heavy rain last night!  The cost of this is about 20% of what we originally thought.  We are also moving other trees in locations noted by Andy Staples to support the renovation work this fall.

Seasons Here!

 Despite the cold winter, a few warm days and its business as usual.  A few rolls this week to help smooth out greens from the winter frost heaving and now changing cups and raking bunkers.  While the weather still feels like March, we are in April mode.

Construction Update

 

Progress being made.  Coming down the stretch in that almost all major shaping is completed and now comes the finish work of sodding and buttoning up the winter projects.  The bunker has been removed on hole 12 (top) and the new white/blue tee for the future new 16th hole is just about ready for sod.  Once our crew fully returns later this month we will button things up quickly.

Its Gonna Get dICEy!

 

This is what most grass growers do not want to see in the winter months, the dark grey areas in the middle of white greens.  While this has been a colder than normal winter, with frequent small snow events and the grass is probably hardened off, the next few days are going to get interesting.  The pictures show when the snow starts to melt and run off and then freezes overnight.  The ground is frozen, so internal drainage is not working which makes surface drainage more important.  A week or so ago, my staff cleaned off the fronts of greens allowing the last snow to fully run off, but the most recent snow is sticking around, experiencing melting and freezing.  More snow is forecast for tonight followed by heavy rains and 50 degree temperatures on Sunday.  Monday we will be below freezing and that will be the case all week.  Lets hope the hardened off grass will not wake up with the temporary warm temperatures before it goes through a flash freeze on Monday.  You can imagine once we get sustained warm temperatures how messy the course is going to be when the ground begins to thaw and final snow melts!

Great Progress on 16 and 17

 

This has been the first real winter in years.  We have a lot on our plate to help prepare for the upcoming refresh later this season.  Despite snow and frozen soil, we have been making progress excavating the new drainage ditch on 17.  This will tie into the ditch on 16 as well.  Once we get to March and hopefully get some warmer weather, we will do all the final shaping and then sodding and seeding will occur right after.

Also part of the project was the construction of a new forward blue/white tee for the  future new 16th hole.  We felt it would be wise to build it while doing the ditch work on 17 since a lot of fill would be available.  For the most part the tee is roughed in, squared and aligned to the new fairway line.  Once staff returns, we will be able to get this completed quickly.

Pushing Through Cold Weather

 

The staff continues to battle cold and white conditions.  What better time to get the lift around the course without creating any tire tracks on our turf.  We are more than halfway through the course with our pruning and hoping to have most of the trees done in the next 7 working days.

While the ground is still pretty frozen, we have been able to begin construction on the newly routed drainage ditch on 17.  While we are at it, we are constructing the new white tee on 16, which will be the official white and blue tee once the hole is renovated later this year.  It is great to be able to get a lot of the heavy lifting done now, but all the finish work will take place in mid to late March and beyond.  It will be a busy spring for the staff!