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!