Happy Holidays! Blogging will resume in 2012

With the Holidays upon us, there hasn't been much of anything going on in the maintenance department that is blog-worthy.  Many of the year-round staff use most if not all of their vacation in December to be with family, and it is generally quiet or even vacant here at the shop.  The course weathered the flooding fairly well, and the rain has just continues to keep things a soggy mess.  We have had near all-time record rains for our area this year.

This will probably be my final post for 2011, as I too am headed west to see my family back in Seattle for a few days.  I would like to wish you all a fantastic holiday season and a happy new year.  This was a fabulous year for me and the staff, and we are looking forward to an even better 2012. 

Visit the blog in January for a 'Meet the Crew' segment and some of the winter tasks we have outlined for this year.

Merry Christmas!

The "Model" grass at HMGC

I'm merely posting this to toot my own horn as an amateur photographer.  By "photographer" I mean I take an unbelievable amount of pictures and like the blind squirrell, every now and again I find a keeper.  Well, by mere happenstance, an editor from Superintendent Magazine liked a picture I took of the turf on our #12 approach (I think) so much he put a zoomed in version on their cover for this months issue!  Below is the picture that I took, and below that is the link to superintendent magazine's website where you can see it on the cover.

http://www.superintendentmagazine.com/

Click above to check out your grass in print!  Page 4 of the digital issue has my credit in little tiny print. 

Slowly but surely, the water recedes.

After a record rain capping a record November for precipitation, the course remains flooded for the third straight day.  The creek has certainly crested, but all bridges are more or less impassable yet, and it will be at least a day or more before we can really see what's left behind.  Below are pictures from today.

If there is a positive note to take away from this flood event, I would say that all of our recent infrastructure upgrades to bridges, approaches, and stream banks are holding up great.  As you can see from the pictures below, many areas that were destroyed from the 2008 floods of similar proportion have survived in great shape.

Because of the conditions, the course will be CLOSED all weekend.  We will be open for winter play on temporary greens starting Tuesday, December 6th. 

A little 'stick' left behind on 12 tee.

Fortunately, the bench and ball washer stayed put on 12.

This is today's shot of 11 green, and you can see that the water is no longer on the green.

10 bridge somewhat above water.

The rock protection, new bridge timbers and concrete approach on 10 held up great!

2 bridge was completely under water yesterday.

The new concrete path installed on #2 experienced no erosion.  the 2008 floods completely wiped out the previous asphalt path.

The mats on #9 are a little messed up.

The new concrete approach and rock on 10 holding fast.

#2 concrete path.

The spruce tree base is eroded as usual, but the new raised creek bank held fast with the sod holding on for a change.

How high's the water momma?........

That old Johnny Cash song runs through my head every time we get heavy rains and high water.  Right now, the water is as almost as high as in 2008 4th of july weekend.  11 green is partially under water and all bridges are impassable as of noon on Thursday December 1st.  We have been unable to get to our maintenance building for 2 days now, and hope to get back to work by friday.  See below for some pics from wednesday and thursday that show that the water was still rising.

11 bunker on wednesday, you can still see the sand bags we put out.

10 bridge

1 green on wednesday.

12 tee ball washer and bench on wednesday

1 green

New bunker on 17 thursday morning

The maintenance road in front of the new service bridge.  Not taking my car across that!

Maintenance road thursday morning.

17 bridge.  The tee is in the background, sort of.

New service bridge at its max.

12 tee Thursday, where the ball washer and bench used to be

11 bunker.  Notice you cannot see the sand bags anymore.

water creeping onto 11 green.

10 bridge.

11 and 1 green in the background

11 trap again.

close up of 1 green.  Or at least as close as i'm getting!

Cart Abuse and Greens Closing

After a long holiday week, we are back at it here in the maintenance department.  I apologize for the length of time between posts, but with the holiday I figured people would be busy.  I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and managed to survive Black Friday (or completely avoid it if you are smart he he).  Black Friday was a great day for golf and we did almost 80 rounds here at the club.

Anyways, there is still much to do to the golf course before we are "put to bed" for the winter.  Unfortunately, the heavy rains have put a stop to all of it.  We are still hoping to topdress and fertilize the greens once before the ground freezes, but with conditions as soft as they are, we are unlikely to get that done anytime soon.  Up to 3 more inches of rain appear to be headed our way over the course of this week.

With that, we will instead spend some quality time indoors putting a dent in our winter cart maintenance chores.  Every year, our cart fleet is brought in for winter service.  We will start with a good pressure washing followed with checking and cleaning the front end, brakes and brake pedals.  Afterwards, we will remove all batteries, clean out the battery box, clean the batteries and check the water levels.  Once this is complete, the carts will be put to bed for the year.

Along with this, I would like to comment on the condition of the carts.  I usually spend time talking about the abuse that misused carts can do to the turf, but must turn the tides a bit now.  Your money bought this fleet brand new this year, and with just the FIRST THREE CARTS we brought into the shop, there was significant body damage to the likely tune of a few hundred dollars!!!  I was amazed all season at the regular abuse of carts by our membership.  Bag holders, sand and seed boxes, body panels, and fenders were replaced on many carts this past season, and it seems that there are further damages leftover for the winter. Please take care of your carts while using them on the course!  We will get them fixed this winter, but we should be wary to cause unnecessary damage to our carts as it takes money away from more important things!

Speaking of more important things, the greens will be officially closed as of Monday, December 5th.

Allright, now that I have fininshed ranting, enjoy the rest of Cyber Monday!\



With the batteries removed, there is significant debris, garbage, and battery acid present in these boxes.



Using battery cleaner neutralizes any acid that has built up on the batteries to prevent corrosion and unwanted battery discharge.

After just one season, this battery hold-down rod is already corroded.  Maintenance like this is essential to keep these carts in the best working order possible.

It's always a big team effort to get through 50 carts with this degree of maintenance.

TISK TISK!!  A small hole such as this will require the entire body section to be replaced.

This cart obviously took a heavy hit as the side panels and main body section are no longer aligned.  This and the above picture were the first two in the shop selected at random!!!  There was one more that came in damaged, so the percentages seem to be high for damage this winter. 

"Airzilla"

Sadly, we are getting ever closer to the end of the season.  Just yesterday, we were able to beat the rain and successfully blow out the irrigation system.  As you may or may not know, every year we rent the biggest, nastiest, meanest and most powerful air compressor you can get your hands on, hook it up to our sprinkler system, and blow all of the water out of the pipes.  This will (hopefully) prevent any issues from winter freezing and thawing that may damage our underground pipes.

A look at "Airzilla".  Our 2-ton dump truck struggles to tow it, but it gets the job done in good time.

RIP Sammy Ciralsky. Your spirit will be missed.

Click Here to read Sam's Obituary in the Toledo Blade

Sam Ciralsky, a great person and an employee of Highland Meadows the past three seasons, died last night.  He was battling various health issues, but was an absolute inspiration to our crew.

Sam was a Toledo Golf-Turf mainstay.  He was the owner of Toledo Turf, which supplied parts, service, and golf turf equipment to the Toledo area.  In retirement, he sought me out to find part time work.  He mowed fairways and rough, and was an absolute pleasure to have in the shop.  Despite his sometimes poor health, he always smiled, and would often spend time in the lunchroom telling stories from the good old days. 

A few weeks ago, Sam was forced to leave his position to take care of some health issues, but always swore he would return.  Just two weeks after his surgery was the last time I spoke with him, and he made sure to remind me that he would be back in no time to help us put the course to bed.  Sam wasn't one to tell us all the details of his condition, he wanted things to be happy and fun all the time.

Sam will be missed.  His spirit was amazing.  He was an active family man, a hard worker, and he brightened all of our lives here at Highland Meadows.  Sammy, we will miss you.

The Donald

Well, I apologize for not blogging much over the last couple of weeks.  We have been suprisingly busy here in the maintenance department.  Fairways have been punched, the sun has been shining (until today) and while golf rounds are high, my staff is pretty low.  We have only a handful of guys left for the season, so you may spot me on a tractor now and again.

Also, one of my suppliers took me out of town for 3 days to visit a production facility, meet with other superintendents using their products, visit some top-notch golf courses, and network with peers from the Carolinas to Canada.  It was an interesting and educational trip.  I won't bore you with all the 'turf nerd' stuff from the trip, but one of the facilities we toured was Trump National Golf Club.  Overall, a spectacular facility built on the rolling estate of former automotive mogul John Delorean.  The club (using Delorean's old mansion and outbuildings) and golf course were amazing.  My favorite part of the trip had to be when we toured their maintenance facility, I found out that Donald Trump will put his name on everything, even spray equipment.  (See pic below)

Gotta love the Donald.  For better or worse, he keeps it interesting.

Squish Squish

It seems the fall has decided to mimic the spring in terms of weather.  Continued wet stretches of weather have all but crippled efforts to get our usual fall work done without damaging the golf course.  Conditions have forced us thus far to postpone fairway aerification, mowing, and other cleanup tasks.  We are always cautious this time of year since any damage will likely persist until spring.

While you are getting in your last few rounds of golf for the year, please bear with us while we are hindered by these conditions.  Combined with a smaller staff and mornings shortened by frost, it can be difficult to get everything done to the course that we would like to make for perfect playing conditions.  Bunkers cannot be fully raked daily, and we are only able to mow fairways, tees, and greens when conditions allow.

Let's just all hope for some better weather so we can all get out and enjoy the course.

A little fall tree work

Fall tree work began today.  Thanks again to our little insect friend the Emerald Ash Borer, there were a few dead ash trees remaining on the golf course that needed to come down.  I cannot stress enough how important it is to get these things on the ground as they pose a serious threat to the golfers, neighbors, and golf course structures.  The trees we took down today were all dead except for one seriously decayed sassafrass tree that obstructed our ability to remove the dead tree.  These trees had been dead for at least 2 seasons, and they were all in key areas from a safety standpoint.  Fortunately, none of them were trees that impacted the play of the course in any way.

Trees were removed on 2, 3, 15, 6, and along our maintenance drive near #8.  The trees on #2 and #3 were along the fenceline and leaned towards our neighbors.  I needn't remind you that dead trees are a legal liability which the club would be accountable for should they fall and destroy a structure or worse yet hurt somebody.  The dead tree on the left of 15 was leaning towards the green, and the tree between #6 and 16 tees was very large and had already dropped a dead limb right onto the cart path ealier this season which made for an obvious safety concern.  Overall, the trees will not be missed as integral golf course features.  We are finally on the downhill side of our ash removal.  Most of the dead ash trees that remain reside in our perimeter wooded areas.

After this batch is cleaned up, we will make our usual tour of the golf course and remove a handfull of dead pines as well.  The most obvious will be #9 and #16, which have been obvious eyesores for the majority of the season.

The tree on 3 leaning towards the fence line.

The telltale bark discoloration from the ash borer.

The base of the tree rotted and covered with ash borer 'trails'

The crazy tree company hanging from the boom.

The tree on #6 was tricky and took the full length of the boom to access it.  Several limbs had to be removed from neighboring trees since it was grown up through several of them.

Reaching the dead tree on #6 tee.

Evidence of insect destruction.

Tree company way up on #3

17 approach - revisited.

I'm told that there used to be a nice, mowed approach to #17 that was removed for some strange reason.  Well now it's back the way it was intended, and the result from both a playability and aesthetic perspective is awesome in my opinion.  Get out to the course and have a look, or see the pics below for the new "old" look.

The approach is fairly steep and the sod is loose, so for the time being, please DO NOT walk on the approach until it has had time to heal and knit in.  I have clearly marked all the areas as 'ground under repair' and it will need to be played as such until the sod is safe to walk on.  Please use the bunker rakes or your golf club to get your ball from these areas.

Also, please avoid walking in the new bunkers if at all possible until the sod has time to solidify.  We are pretty close to ready, but it will be late next week before I consider letting the area get traffic.

While all that sod work was going on, the crew is still busying itself with the normal fall routine.  The last of the bare areas in the rough are being 'slit-seeded'.  Also try to avoid these areas as much as possible to give the seed the best chance to take this fall.

Leaves are also starting to ramp up their annual plunge, and the majority of crew activity will likely be centered around leaf cleanup and general tree work for the next few weeks.



#17 approach in the process of being sodded with bentgrass from our nursery.  A nice throat to run up a second shot (or catch a slightly short tee shot and run it down to the bottom!)

Hard to see in my cruddy pic, but the new approach invites you to the green while the bunkers loom deadly.  Best effect is to come out and see it in person.

Our sweeper-vac taking care of the leaves. 

If you see these areas on the course, do your best to avoid them.