Bunkers Needing Attention This Week

 Deja vu all over again!  Two straight days of 1"+ thunderstorms after a weekend of 2.5" rains and the staff has had their fill of repairing bunkers.  Most of the bunkers drained great and some sand had to be pushed back up on faces.  One of our proactive practices is taking this vibrating aerifier and going into the bunkers to loosen up the floors.  Heavy rain after heavy rain and our already firm sand becomes way too firm and this has been a great tool to allow us to get them back to great playing conditions relatively quickly following the storms.  

Pond Treatment Coming

 

The Curly Leaf pond weed has taken over the pond on #7.  Our pond contractor will have to come and make several treatments to get it under control.  This is going to take a few weeks to control since the pond is shallow and there is quite a bit of fish activity.  Also, once the weeds begin to die, they will take up a lot of oxygen in the pond, which can affect fish.  This is why you hire pond professionals to make these treatments.

Before and After #5

 

An Improvement That Most Likely Will Go Unnoticed

 

This cart path looks no different than any other out on the course.  However, this improvement is so much more than what you see in the picture.  In this location there were 4 asphalt paths going left to the range, right to the dump and a dead end piece in the rough.  All of these were eliminated and sodded over and this new crushed stone path now connects to the path on the hole.  A simple fix, but a lot of work for Pedro and a crew of 5 guys who finished it in about 6 hours.  Sod was taken from the range where we will convert an area of maintained sod to fine fescue, so the cost was minimal.

Planting New Trees

Our tree replacement program continues into 2022 as we have selectively replanted a few lost trees from the past few years.  Here this large London Plane will replace the twin oak that split last year between 16 and 17.  While the oak was in the middle of the rough it did protect from the wayward tee shot and this new tree will do the same, as it was planted within 10 feet of the oak.  We also added a large red oak to the right of #8 that will also protect the wayward shot on a short par 5.  Over the next few years I believe this trend will continue at Arcola as many of our older trees are beginning to decline and in some cases fail.

Improving 5 Tee Area

 

The 5th tee area is shoe horned between boundary fences.  The area above is along some neighboring houses.  You can see honeysuckle vines have choked out the spruces that act as screening, plus the burning bushes that were planted underneath the spruces are now growing sideways.  We originally were going to plant a few spruces in the gap, but decided to just rip out all the thinned out spruces and re plant the area.  A small job but a big improvement when done.

You can see the vines we pulled above that were just in this area and tangled inside some of the spruce trees.

Storage Area Improvement

 

With the recent addition of a new storage building and above ground fuel tanks, we had to pave the area to tie it all together.  Before, all the water pitched into the storage bins, creating saturated materials and no access to get to the materials.  After the recent paving and a lot of work on grading, the water now runs through this area and allows us to function normally for the first time.  This was a great improvement!