Before and After of the 3rd Hole

New Tees on 12 Under Construction

The blue, white, green and red tees are all being shifted to the right on the 12th hole so the hole will now play as a double dogleg.  This is the view from the current black tee and all other tees will be playing from the same line.  We will be able to build these tees while keeping the old ones in play, limiting disruption to the membership.  The dirt from the old tees will be used for the construction of new fairway bunkers in the future and the tee sod will be used for fairway expansions.  We are hoping to have the tees completed by mid to late July.

Stressed Fairway Turf From Excessive Rain This Spring

This is a picture of the 12th fairway where water accumulates during rain events.  It is low lying and very pocketed and from the constant rain this spring, especially June, the turf in this area is stressed from the constant puddling, removal of water and poor location.  The turf will eventually bounce back but we will have to baby it along with some venting and spoon feeding nutrients.  Even though there is drainage in the location, it takes a while for the water to get into the drains, especially during constant rains.

New Bunkers Being Worked On

The new bunkers that were constructed over the past year are getting some work done to them to help alleviate the plugged ball situation.  We are adding a clay like material that is used on tennis courts to the faces to help keep them firm.  This is just a trial and we are experimenting with how much we add to the bunkers so it may not be a complete success at first.  Also, we are instructing the maintenance staff to make sure to check depths of sand on faces each week to make sure we leave only a minimal amount to also help deter the fried eggs from occurring.

Drainage Progressing on 6 Fairway

6 laterals will be completed by Tuesday and we are hoping to have the entire fairway done by the end of next week.  We basically excavate a 12" wide trench across the entire fairway and capture all low areas on the way across.  We then add 3/4" stone to about 3-4" above the pipe and then back fill with a dirty sand mix.  Before, we used to use a 7-2-1 material to back fill but it got pricey as a truckload would only cover about 2-3 laterals.  Now that we are renovating our bunkers over the next 2-3 years, we excavate the old sand with a little subsoil and mix them together to get a dirty mix to use to back fill.  It saves us a ton of money, has some water holding capabilities and drains very well, probably better than the 7-2-1.   I figure I will save at least $10,000 on the 6th hole alone.

The Benefits of the New Ditch on the 6th Hole

Wow, what a difference a couple of years and a ditch make!  The top picture is the 6th hole back in 2010 following a 2" rain storm.  Notice there is no ditch to the right of the picture.  The bottom picture is the same hole last week following a 3" rain storm.  Notice the small puddles to the left of the picture that remained.  With the construction of the new ditch last fall, we now capture all the runoff from our neighboring properties that used to flood our course.  Now with the ditch, we have the capability to add drainage to the fairway now that we have somewhere to drain it to.  We started the drainage last week and got 2 laterals completed with all the rain and we have another 20 more laterals to go.

Internal Drainage Needed on Several Greens

While we have been aggressively topdressing, dryjecting and deep tining the greens to help improve drainage, there are several on the golf course that are in need of internal drainage.  This will help in removing mostly surface water during heavy rains and will have the greens playable much quicker, especially during extreme wet weather patterns like we are experiencing now.  Basically a 2" pipe is installed every 6' throughout the green and backfilled with a sand based material.  While this is a great tool to help dry the greens, it will not help them firm up at first.  Between the laterals will still remain somewhat wet, but with aggressive deep tining, dryjecting and drilling, over time you will see a noticeable improvement.  With the wet weather, we have been fortunate that it has been cool, but that may not be the case come July and August when we will be at the mercy of Mother Nature if we cannot dry the greens fast enough.  The process takes about 2-3 days per green from start to finish and they are playable when completed.  The greens we should consider are 2,5,7,14 and 17 and eventually do every green so we have consistency throughout the course.

Let Them Breathe

After another 1"+ last night, and now 4" in the last 4 days, we did an emergency venting of the greens with 3/8" solid tines and topdressing to allow the greens to breathe and allow gases to get out of the root zone.  With all the rain in the last 3 weeks, over 10" now and us double cutting and rolling a lot for green speeds, this is an important practice to alleviate compaction in the root zone.  By doing this practice, we will now make our summer patch prevent spray on greens this week, a week earlier than planned due to the amount of moisture and stress the greens have encountered the past 3-4 weeks.

Spot Spraying Insects

Last Friday, we noticed we had some annual bluegrass weevils eating the poa on our fairway edges so that evening we spot sprayed a few locations.  It is a good thing to allow the poa to be eaten so the bentgrass can take over, but if we let them eat in June we will be fighting them all summer.  We usually allow them to eat in August when we have the optimum weather to seed and encourage bentgrass to take over.

Rain Putting a Damper on the Invitational

Looks like a washout today for the opening rounds of the Invitational.  Maintenance crews got out and started mowing and rolling greens this morning but heavy rains has put a damper on our maintenance and we have packed in all course set up for the day.  What a difference a day makes, we cut the greens 3 times and rolled yesterday to get the greens to 13 on the stimpmeter and by the time the weekend is over we will be lucky to have the greens rolling 9.5.  We will do our best tomorrow to get the course playable and hopefully be able to salvage 18 out of the 45 holes.