Well, it looks like the weather has begun to drag itself out of Winter and we are starting to see more encouraging forecasts on the horizon. That was a pretty nasty stretch and believe me when I say here on the Grounds Maintenance Department it certainly had no fans. Thank you to everyone for your patience and understanding as we tired to protect our course as much as we could during that rather nasty period.
Anyway, enough looking back at what was, let me give you a little bit of information about what we have planned for the next couple of Months as we drag this course from it's Winter slumber and get it ready for this season.
We have quite a bit on the agenda so as I have done before I will list them out and let you know a little about what we have planned.
Aeration
This necessary evil is currently scheduled to take place on April 2nd (full course closure) and April 3rd (Back 9 closure, The Front 9 will be open for business). Due to the freezing weather our timetable here on Grounds has been condensed somewhat as we too haven't been able complete some of the tasks we would have liked. With that said you may have noticed that we have already made a sneaky start on Aeration and have cored our Tees. These are being over seeded and top dressed then brushed,with the forecast it is our hope to see them perk up again very soon.
As for the 2nd and 3rd of April here is a brief run down of our plans. You will be happy to know that our current plan for the Greens is relatively nonabrasive.
We will be performing a "deep-tine" these are solid spikes about 0.5 of an inch thick that penetrate up to 10 inches in to the green. Using this technique not only provides vents to help the plant exchange gases but also helps to relieve compaction and aid in drainage. As well as this there are some small select areas on some of the Greens we have chosen to pull cores but we feel these areas are so localized we don't think they will hinder your game.
We will be pulling cores on all of our approaches and fairways in the usual manner along with top dressing and brushing course wide.
Aeration is a huge undertaking with many Team Member putting in 1 or more 12 hour shifts to aid in it's completion. If the pros didn't drastically out weigh the cons from a turf health perspective you can rest assured we would not do it. It is our hope to be cleaned up and well on our way to recovery as soon as possible.
Irrigation and H20
Prior to Aeration we will be priming our Irrigation system and stock piling water in our pond network. Currently Dave Smith our Irrigation Technician is installing our Satellites around the course which we bring in over the Winter to keep them protected from the elements. These Satellites are dotted around the course in those silver metal boxes and they relay messages that our irrigation computer sends out to their corresponding areas. Once this is complete we will be turning on our pump station and filling the pipes course wide, this is a long process and there are always some unforeseen issues this being said the entire operation should be completed in a day or two after the initial start up of the pump station.
Also, you may have noticed we have removed some of the cat tails from the ponds on 15 and 17, these ponds are part of our irrigation network and the cat tail situation and gone unchecked for a few years making our holding capacity in these pond servery reduced. Over the next few weeks we will be damning up the outlets in our ponds (where possible) to stock pile water for what is expected to be another record breaking Summer. So please don't be alarmed of the water levels in some of the ponds look unusually high. As the season starts to heat up we will release that water in to our holding pond on 13/14 so that it can be pumped out on to the course via the irrigation system.
A Few Other Projects
I am aware I have prattled on for a little while now so I will briefly cover a few more projects we hope to be completed in the next couple of months.
- Tee Leveling - like we have on the Practice Facility we plan on stripping and leveling the following tee decks 1 White Tee, 8 Black Tee, 9 Forward and White Tee, 15 White Tee. For the most part tee markers will be moved to adjacent tees while these renovations happen.
- 11 Walking Path - We will be building a new walking path from the bottom of the hill by the pond all the way up the left of the hole to connect to the walk off area on the other end.
- 1 Green cart path - We will be renovating and moving the cart path adjacent to 1 green. The trees have made the cart path almost impassable and we feel enough is enough. The cart path will move several feet to the right through that area and we open to scrape through the gravel area on the left of the path and to grow grass there. This should make that area a lot more friendly to those way ward shots.
Well, thank you for taking the time to read this update and I hope you have enjoyed getting a little more insight in to our lives down here on Grounds. As always we will see you out on the course and I will provide another blog in the coming weeks.
