Bunker Sand Replenishment

 

The crew spent a good week adding sand and adjusting depths to the greenside bunkers.  For fairway bunkers, we went in and topdressed the surfaces of them and used a sand pro to work the sand in.  The fairway bunkers we want to play firm and avoid any plugged ball issues which is why we keep sand at minimal depths.  

Much Needed Paving Happening

 

Paving taking place around the club in the next week or two.  While most of the clubhouse area was paved a few years ago, we did not address my shop areas and a few needed service roads on the course.  This will be done over the next week or two depending on the weather.

Sodding by 10 Green

 

This picture says it all on 10 green.  The rough was sodded back in 2011 and you can see the morning sun is already behind the trees on 11 tees.  This rough will get no sunlight for most of today.  Add into it the tight space and the rough was starting to thin out the past year or so.  Best bet is to install a tall fescue sod that is more shade tolerant and try and limit equipment traffic behind the green.  Removing trees along 11 tee to improve sunlight is not an option as we need that buffer from the property along the fence.  Eventually this green should be relocated more left of its current location to alleviate all the issues we face in this area.

Greens Aeration Completed

 

A successful spring aeration on the greens.  Greens were deep tined in December, followed by Ninja tine aeration in early March to generate poa plugs for our bentgrass greens.  Following that, we drill and filled, followed by 5/8" solid tine aeration and then a verticutting application with our new Sandfiller machine.  This sets us up for the busy season ahead and will help in firming up the greens.   We purchased the Sandfiller in 2021 to help save on labor and it has already paid dividends.  If we were to verticut using walk behind machines, it would have taken us almost 2 days and almost our entire staff to complete.  With this machine we were done in 9 hours and used about 5-6 guys.  We will incorporate this into our program moving forward.

Spring Bunker Maintenance Beginning

 The process of detailing bunkers begins today and included in this are creating new edges where needed, checking sand depths and fluffing the floors to alleviate compaction.  Once edges are completed over the next week, we will then supplement bunker sand in all bunkers for the season ahead.

Boundary Plantings

 

We are doing a sample planting of some Eastern Red Cedar plugs along the property line on the 5th hole.  These native plants require no maintenance and will fill in nicely along the fence line over the next few years.  If successful, we will identify other areas around the course we would like to use native plants to screen.

Tree Moving

 

A timely moving of a red oak from #1 to #18.  Cool weather and right before the rain, East Coast was able to move the oak without a hint that they were here.  Now that we were able to safely plant the oak, the declining ash behind it can be removed without changing much strategy on the hole.  This ash is inundated with Emerald Ash Borers and will be dead within the next 12 months.  The tree will be cabled for 2022 until it can root in and cables will be removed right before the US Am event here in August.