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.

Aerification and the traps continue to progress

I apologize for not posting sooner.  It has been a wave of activity here in the maintenance department.  Between 15 tee, 17 traps, and aerification, the crew is pooped.  We crammed a lot of projects and maintenance into a three week period.  Fortunately, Mother Nature has helped with some favorable weather!

Aerification was completed Monday and Tuesday of this week.  We used almost the exact same protocol as the last two times.  We did not "pull a core" as is traditional, instead using a serious of deep- and conventional-solid tines to puncture lots of holes, some as deep as 10".  We then topped them all off with a generous helping of sand, brooms, and elbow grease.

I won't bore you with the details as I did last October, but feel free to ask me any questions.  I realize it is both unfortunate AND fortunate that we aerified on such a nice week of weather.  Even though the greens are messed up now, this great weather will help them heal much sooner.

17 traps are also progressing.  We have edged them out and are in the process of compacting and preparing the floor of the traps to receive sand.  We will allow the sod to have a chance to "knit in" a little more, and hope to have the hole completely open before the end of October.  In the meantime, please be very careful when retrieving balls as the subsoil and sod are still quite unstable. 

Thanks for your patience!

At this point the green has already been verticut, deep-tined (see small holes on far left of photo), and covered with sand.  This machine is using 3/4" solid tines about 4" deep to pound the sand into the profile. 

A tow-behind brush does most of the work to get the sand into the holes.

It doesn't quite get all of the holes filled perfectly.

A little hand work is necessary to get absolutely every hole filled.

We then roll the greens until they cry for mercy.  It takes 3-4 good rollings to get the surface back in relatively acceptable playing condition.

Meanwhile, we are still edging out and prepping the traps for sand.

With such a mix of materials (ie rock, clay, topsoil, sand) it will be essential to pack the floors of the trap to ensure we get as little debris/soil as possible getting up into the sand.

We will go over this several times to get the trap just right.