Makin' Water

It's been nearly a month since my last post, and for good reason.  Good weather has put the maintenance staff in "catch up" mode as far as getting the golf course in shape.  Also, our well project is in full swing.  Over the last four weeks, a lot has happened and there have been many questions.

First off - What the hell happened to 11 green?  Essentially this is an experiment to see if we can regain portions of our greens that have been lost to decades of overly careful mowing practices. During spring flush growth, employees that may miss as little as a quarter of an inch when mowing the cleanup pass around the edge of the green.  Then the next employee, the next and the next make the same honest error in an effort not to "scalp" the edge of the collar.  Over time, the green shrinks inward.   Consulting with our master plan architect, we surmised that there were several areas the green needed to expand to get back to its original shape and size.  Number 11 has become very short on "cuppable" space and getting the green back to size will create more plentiful and interesting pin locations.  The usual way clubs correct this "shrinkage" is to do much like Inverness Club has done recently.  A costly "gassing" and re-grassing of the greens.  Also, some clubs grow large sod nurseries and re-grass with sod.  Both of these methods are costly, labor intensive, and disruptive to play.  We are attempting to simply "scalp" or my preferred term - "hack" the grass down to height, aerate and compact it, sand topdress it, and grow it back in from the grass that is there.  Looking at the old collar, it was all Poa annua and bentgrass.  I saw no reason why we couldn't try.  If this works, look for several areas next spring where we will expand the greens.  It will be ugly for a little while, but we hope to have it blending in better by mid-summer.

After we "scalped" it down to green height, the collar was core aerified and gone over with a plate compactor (sorry no picture) to help alleviate the scalp.

Very large holes and tight spacing to really loosen up the sub surface so the area can be smoothed.

While that was going on, the well drillers moved in.  Taking advantage of the closed range, we decided to get our portion of the project going - the road to nowhere.  Many have asked why the road is necessary.  Essentially, Toledo Edison requires that a service road be installed to allow for the installation and servicing of our new transformer that will be located next to our pump house between #9 and the driving range.  We tried every angle in hopes of getting around the road requirement, but to no avail.  At least they didn't make us pave it, which was their original specification.  Gravel will be just fine.  Seeing an opportunity to cut costs, we decided to tackle the road "in-house".  We also took advantage of the time to correct some serious drainage issues that would create major problems for the road.  We were lucky enough to find an old culvert that ran under the range.  Once we tied into that, we installed several basins and repaired an old drain line.  Long term, this will be a great foundation to improve our drainage on the range and save thousands of golf balls that get "squished" into the soggy turf and soil every year.

We first cut sod to clear for the road.  The sod would be used to repair the bottom of the range after the drainage was installed.

The "road to nowhere" begins.

A mini-excavator and our dump truck was all it took.  The spoils were used to fill and repair decades of flood damage at the bottom of the range.

Fortunately, we were right on top of bedrock which made the excavation easy and will provide a good base for the road.

This is what the bottom of the range looked like.  Flood damaged and exposed soil with no drainage.  There were these range-ball eating mud monsters all over the place.

12-inch basins were installed connected to a 6-inch mainline to catch water at the bottom of the range.  Spoils from the road were used to repair flood damage mud holes and re-grade for drainage.

Sod from the road is laid to complete the work.  

Mostly completed.  We need a little more sod and some seed to get things completely buttoned up.  Not bad for a weeks work though.

The topic on everyone's mind is "how much water?"   We are in week two of the drilling and hope to be completed by the end of the week. Thank you for your patience with the range closures as we try to complete this project without endangering our contractors or employees.  Look for "irons only" this week (unless anyone is naughty) and full open ASAP.  After drilling is complete the well will be tested for flow.  So far the results are promising.  Compared to well number one, number two is much more "spunky". Importantly, it is getting "different" water.  The drillers track the flow layer by layer and foot by foot.  Well number two is tracking differently than well number one.  On well number one, we didn't see significant yield until below 300 feet.  This new well showed tremendous promise as shallow as 160 feet.  We will continue to drill downward in an effort to "marry" the wells for maximum yield.

I am biting my tongue and knocking on wood fairly hard right now, but it looks as though we are well on our way to independence from the creek, the quarry and finally be able to get our dam, our pumps, and our dangerously installed electrical supply out of the floodplain and out of our worries forever!  I will talk more about this once the test results are in.

"This is a S***-load of water" - Jim Watson