Rumors....

In 10 years here at the club I can honestly say that the rumor mill has never been more active.  I have been approached almost every day by members, guests and acquaintances concerned about things they have heard.  Finally, I want to put all the rumors to rest.  The rumors are in-fact true. After 7 years of hard work, planning and politicking, we are now filling the pool with our new irrigation wells.

Over 200 gallons a minute pouring into the pool from the new wells.  Crystal clean water too!   No iron, no sulfury smell just good clean stuff.  We did have it tested by our pool professionals to ensure no issues with metals, silt or chemicals, but it tested great.  And the flow through the 2" hose at 100 psi will fill much faster than the 1.5" city water feed at 50 psi.

We are still working some minor bugs and "odds and ends" to get the pump house finished (I would like to throw a loud ARGHHHHHH!!!! out to all of my frustrating contractors - cmon man!) but the end is in sight.  The new computer software is getting more finely tuned and adjusted to work with the new system and we have had a couple of successful overnight waterings so far.  I cannot tell you how thrilled I was to water the course with good clean water from a reliable, sustainable source for the first time in history.  Kudos to all of the members, committees and boards that supported this project - this water will serve you well for decades to come.  Our days of managing dams and creeks and pumping sludge (or nothing) powered by sketchy electrical infrastructure are behind us.

Monday we put in the high pressure blow off and heat exchanger drain line underground to grab the existing drain tile on the range.  

We had one more power wire to put in for the north-side satellite controllers that was on the old power lines.  Once the new line conditioner is installed by an electrician, we will be able to completely abandon our old pump station.

Okay, so maybe that wasn't the rumor that first popped into your head.  The other little rumor that has run through the club is also true.  May will be my last month at Highland Meadows.  First of all, I want all of you to know that it had absolutely nothing to do with job satisfaction.  I love this place and will forever be appreciative of the opportunity to serve you these past 10 years.  This club, despite some interesting and obvious "quirks" is a wonderful place to work. You have been so supportive of my efforts, whether I failed or succeeded you supported me and respected me.  In short, you let me grow.  I know in my heart I am leaving the club with better conditions and with a very clear path to the future.  The committees and boards are more engaged and more active than any other time in the club's history and you are poised for some seriously exciting improvements.  Despite some very loud opinions of select individuals, I believe that most of this membership is ready for positive change and you have leadership in place now that knows how to get things done.  I am a little jealous that my successor gets to walk into such a good situation to do some really fun work here.

The real reason I am leaving is entirely family related.  As most of you know, I am from the Pacific Northwest.  This past January, my wife's research operations were "downsized" by her company.  This initiated a job search and ultimately landed her a tremendous executive opportunity that we could not pass up.  It just so happened that opportunity will take us back to our home state of Washington.  We will be living in the greater Pullman, Washington area known as the Palouse.  My wife and I both graduated from college there and my wife graduated from high school there as well.  If you have never heard of the palouse, I encourage you to Click here for google images of the Palouse.  It is one of the most interesting and beautiful places in the lower-48 and we are so excited to be headed closer to both of our families.

I cannot thank you enough - especially my loyal blog readers - for the interest and engagement in what we do down here in the grounds department.  Interacting with and educating the membership is perhaps my favorite part of the job and I know that for some of you it enhanced your experience in the club.  Hopefully you learned a little more about what we do and why we do it.

I will keep you up to date for the next couple of weeks before I pass the torch to my successor.  As much as I hope to shake hands or hug just about every one of you, I know that likely will not happen and for that I apologize.  The future is bright at Highland Meadows and I will miss you all.  (Well maybe not quite all - you know who you are).

Good Luck - I wish nothing but the best for this "grand old place".

Opening Day Blues

Finally - Some warm damn weather.  It has been a long time coming, but I am seeing signs of life across the golf course.  We are still quite brown overall, but with some continued normal temperatures we should be able to start mowing off that brown fuzz.  Unfortunately, it's looking like one of those springs.  I've got what they call the "opening day blues" - my desire to get you all out on the course ASAP conflicts with the potential damage that could be done by opening the floodgates too early.  It's a delicate balance that I'm sure is eliciting some not-so-delicate comments from those itching to beat the pea around the course.  I would like to have the greens open by this weekend, but with a rainy forecast (up to 3/4" forecast thursday-friday) and the current condition of the course, I can't commit right now.

During this time of year, I am often asked "how much growth do you like to see before you open?"  To be honest, growth is not really the limiting factor in opening.  Firmness is far more important. Right now, the golf course is like walking around on your mattress. With such cold late winter-early spring temps, the underground frost held until just recently.  In fact, the pump installers were digging a post hole yesterday and there were still chunks of ice and frozen soil coming up around 12" deep.  Remnants of another long, stubborn winter.

The consequence of the late thaw is that more moisture is trapped in the upper soil profile.  With less than robust plants and a soft soil surface, it's a recipe for problems.  Cart traffic on fairways and foot traffic on greens with such soft surfaces will create uneven putting surfaces and cause increased soil compaction - things that can be avoided if we wait just a little longer for things to firm up.

Today, we will start rolling and maybe even mowing the greens for the first time this year in hopes of opening soon.  Rolling should help firm up surfaces and hopefully smooth out any heaving issues over the winter.  With a good result, I am cautiously optimistic we will be in a position to open if the rain holds off.  Rain on top of the current soft conditions would likely make the place borderline unplayable.

In the meantime, our skeleton crew is busy cleaning, blowing, so as soon as the time is right we will be happy to open those floodgates.

See Thaw battle......

I hope you will pardon my month and a half hiatus from blogging.  I just couldn't bring myself to talk about the water project, painting ball washers, and the goings on at the shop anymore.  While I do enjoy writing the occasional snarky opinion piece in the winter, the traffic from the membership on my blog was down so I figured you were sick of me too.  However, with the snow and ice finally melted, we are all beginning to twitch with anticipation for the golf season to begin.

I have thoroughly surveilled the course post-thaw and I can say that overall it is in good shape.  Not too much debris, a few trees blown over, but everything is mostly where we left it in the fall.  That being said, we are nowhere near where we need to be in order to open the proverbial floodgates.  There is still frost in the ground approximately 4-7 inches deep which is trapping moisture in the upper soil layer making the ground extremely soft.  Also, the turf is still mostly dormant and upcoming nighttime temps in the 20's will result in a shallow re-freeze of the ground.  I suspect we are at least a week or more from putting a mower on the golf course.  Once we get a good mowing or two, we will think about opening.  I would like to shoot for the week of the 30th, but it's up to Mother Nature.  We need more heat and continued dry weather.

One unusual sight this spring was a little winter damage on #16 green.  The valley in the rear of the green seems to have taken a little hit from ice coverage and extended water-logging.  I have never seen this green struggle like this before, but I believe it will grow out.  I will keep you posted as the spring continues if we need to do some seeding or need to close the green.  The plan for now is a cocktail of fertilizers and some heat to grow out of it.  It will be a slow recovery but I think it will ultimately be ok.  This is a great example of how low areas that hold water and ice longer are always at risk of health issues, especially when the predominant species of turf is Poa annua.  Also, we encountered an unusually high amount of deer damage especially on #6 green.

This is the back of #16 green.  It will be a slow recovery for the green, but if you look up close at these brown areas, I see a lot of green turf.  

This is a wider shot of 16 green.  You can see the water and some ice still standing.  This is the only green on the course still visibly holding water as of Monday the 16th.

In between some of the browned out area are these strange lines of green.  Curious as to what may cause that.

Number 6 was hit by a deer dance party.  Should grow out nicely, but unusually high amounts of winter traffic damage this year.

A look from a little farther back shows the amount of hoofprints.  Sorry about the crap photo.

A little gorgeous snow mold here and there as well.  All in fairways and rough and not enough to worry about.  What do you expect after another snow covered winter?

I have brought some crew back and we are starting to tackle tree work that was neglected in the fall due to the project on 14.  The 4-person crew will do tree work when possible as well as normal spring cleaning around the course.  Two trees on #15 remind us why species matters.  Sassafras to the left of #15 were leaning quite low and upon further inspection, rot was detected.  With such trashy (but lovely smelling) softwood trees, it is crucial to keep an eye on them especially when they lean and especially when multi-trunked and tending to trap moisture.  We had no idea how bad it was until we cut them down today.  These were good trees to remove for other reasons as well - they dropped a lot of debris into the bunkers and really offered no value to the left side of #15 other than shade and thin turf.  Good riddance.

And yes, we did find a golf ball stuck up in one of the trees.

Not much left holding up a fairly large tree.

Once the weather breaks, we have much to do to finish the projects on 14 and the driving range.  More on that once the water project gets buttoned up which I will cover in an upcoming post.  Hopefully, I will see you on the golf course soon!

Food for thought this coming spring

I was reading through the results of our recent member survey today and a couple of the open-ended comments reminded me of one of the annual problems we deal with each and every year.  Most notably in the springtime, our greens appear patchy and are often a little bumpy and slow especially in the afternoon hours.  Morning golfers will get great putting conditions while I have to listen to the afternoon guys tell me how rotten the greens were.  Below is a link to a USGA article explaining this in their "Fore the Golfer" section.  I will summarize the article in the next paragraph and then I think I fancy a bit of a "rant".

What is important to remember is that our older greens consist of not only two types of turf - bentgrass and Poa annua - but also many different biotypes within those species.  As greens age, environmental pressures, stresses and natural processes segregate into many different strains across a putting surface.  All of these strains behave differently throughout the seasons and even the time of day to result in inconsistent conditions that can negatively affect ball roll.  In the springtime, all of these different biotypes are coming out of winter with different carbohydrate reserves, seeding rates, growth rates etc and it can be impossible to foresee exactly what to do to get good putting conditions.  Everyone comments how their lawns take off in the spring and they can't keep up with the mowing, but somehow if that happens on greens they don't seem to understand.  Yes we apply growth regulators religiously to combat that as much as possible, but Mother Nature can ignore those if she choses.  As turf managers, the best we can do with Poa annua is keep watching, trying different growth regulator cocktails and react as best we can with cultural practices to make the greens as good as possible day to day.

Now let's begin the rant - Usually, by the end of May into June, these growth patterns tend to steady and seedheads begin to disappear making things much smoother and in turn faster.  This is the reason the greens progressively get better and faster right up to the first week of July, which makes people think I just do it for the LPGA (paraphrased from survey comment).  I assure you our department does as much as possible within the financial resources and weather provided us to make the course as good as possible each and every day.  Do you really think we want the greens bumpy and slow?  Do you think I want to listen to the afternoon players moan and complain?  Would you deliberately create less than perfect results for your boss if you had the choice to do otherwise?  Think about it.  Also consider when you go to other courses, the makeup of their greens, the microclimates, the soils, the way they've been maintained for the last 80 years are all different so your comparison of our greens to theirs quite frankly means about jack and squat to me.  Trust me - we superintendents are a tight bunch - when we hear how great X's greens are we usually call each other about it and guess what - it's a perception problem that I will likely rant about in a future article.  (END OF RANT)

As always this spring, we will try some different things this year to keep improving spring conditions and I hope my rantings and the USGA Green Section article below will be of help to generate a little more understanding.

Cheers!

USGA - Patchy and Bumpy greens - click here

Happy New Year!  2015 is off and running and the course is perfectly nestled under a layer of snow.  The Grounds Department staff (what's left of it) is busily preparing equipment, course accessories, budgets, and their brains for another great season.  As you can imagine, there's not many things that may be of interest to the golfer happening right now.  The construction and electrical work are almost finished in our new Range House/Pump Station.   As much as a photo of a light switch may be good news to me, I'm sure you can use your imagination.  In fact, as of today, the most interesting thing I can document is that we just finished sand-blasting and repainting all of our course ball washers.  We have painted them black instead of the traditional "1960's country club green".  A slightly new look for 2015 that will tie in better with our new upscale accessories we put on the range last year.  We are also standardizing the height and making several repairs so they work a little better for us.

We are trying to renovate our accessories to better tie into the upgraded accessories we purchased for the range last year.  As I like to call it the "1960's country club green" just seems a bit outdated and not quite as upscale.  Look for more blacks and browns to tie everything together.

Aside from the fascinating world of ball washers, I did happen across a really nice article from the USGA about winter play, frost delays, frozen greens and other issues we deal with every fall/winter.  I took some heat this past fall for leaving the golf course closed on several occasions due to freezing/thawing/winter conditions.  The below article from the USGA explains everything in nice detail.  If only they had posted it last fall when people were giving me grief!

Click Here for USGA Article on Winter/Cold Weather Play

I hope 2015 has started out as well for you as it has for me.  I am exciting to begin my 11th season at Highland Meadows.  April 16th will be my 10-year anniversary and I am looking forward to many more.

Cheers!

Sooooo close but yet sooo close....

As we get closer and closer to Christmas, every week has meant serious progress on the great water project of 2013-14.  Last Thursday and Friday, we took another big step - installation of the actual pumps.  

There has been some confusion about the pumps which is probably my fault.  My mistake was calling the new building on the range a "pump house" when in actuality there will not be a single pump in there.  The wells we dug over the past two seasons are just larger versions of a well you might use to get water to your house or garden.  The pumps are "submersible" meaning they sit at the bottom of the well and pump water upwards.  My little corner of the "pump house" actually is used to house our new electronic pump control system.  A large electrical panel, sensors, wires, flow meters, and a state-of-the-art acid/fertilizer/wetting agent injection system will be inside to control all of our irrigation operation.  This panel will communicate wirelessly with our irrigation computer back at my shop and allow us to run our system efficiently and accurately.  The panel was set this week, but nothing is hooked up yet.  This will be the final step, along with getting all the electrical work completed to give it juice.

So let's all agree to call it a "range house" from now on.  Most of the building is for much needed range storage and two indoor hitting bays anyhow and I just have more of a large "closet" anyhow.  

More pics coming as installation proceeds.  We should get most of the equipment in place in the next week or so, some finishing touches on the building, and then after Xmas start looking for the final electrical work. 

Hope everyone has a great holiday!

THIS is what a 100-horsepower submersible pump looks like.  More like a long range missile but will move around 700 gallons per minute for us.  This will be the workhorse for the system.

Here is the smaller, 60-horsepower rig waiting to be put down the hole.  All of the pipe stacked underneath will be attached to bring water to the surface into the manifold.

Here's the "brains" behind the whole operation.  A new Flowtronex control panel.  If you remember, the fact we needed to replace our current one of these is what got this whole thing started. 

Back from Margaritaville

First of all I must apologize for such a gap between posts.  With winter weather looming, my family and I took a much needed break and headed to south Florida for a week during Thanksgiving.  After a few days of sun, sand and a couple of (small) fish, I am back in full swing with late fall work.

It sure seems like winter snuck up and smacked us all in the mouth!  With so many projects happening at once, the unseasonably cool and snowy weather still has us scrambling.  This week, we will be applying our last blast of chemicals for snow mold protection, dormant feeding our greens, and trying to pick up the mess from the high winds of last week.  All this while trying to start our winter preventative equipment maintenance regimen and moving further forward on the water project.

The water project passed a major hurdle last week - the last of the new main lines were installed.  There was quite a bit of worry regarding the potential for hard bedrock which we would be digging through to install our lines.  While the digging wasn't easy, the contractors managed (with only a day or two of jack-hammer use) to get through it all.  Basically, the biggest source of anxiety I had leading into this project is done and over.  Now that the lines are in and through the building, we are awaiting the installation of doors, drywall, and electrical to complete the interior work.  Afterwards, the "brains" of the new irrigation supply will be installed along with the pumps and we will be 90% of the way home.  Look for cranes and pumps on the golf course next week along with the finish work on our range house.  Feel free to contact me any time if you want a tour or would like more information.

The main line trench filled in from behind the range house down to the existing main line.  This line takes all the water passing through the system to the entire golf course.

The main line passes through the pump station area.  Here there will be sensors, injection ports, and all sorts of gadgets that will help manage and monitor our irrigation activities.

Hopefully the holes in the range house make sense now with the new main line manifold passing through.

This portion of the main line is stainless steel.  This is done in order to prevent corrosion from the acid injection system.

While originally I was hoping to have this project buttoned up by November, I am not displeased with the progress.  Managing so many different contractors and inspections and permits in so many specialized areas offers a lot of potential changes and obstacles which seems to stretch things out.  There are some definite advantages to completing work in December however.  First of all, we haven't really disrupted play or range use with the bulk of the hard construction happening in November-December.  Also, with the final few bills coming in late this year/early next year, we are going to pay for this project without touching the club's line of credit.  This is possible because of all the prepaid dues payments member's make in January to fill up the cash coffers at the club.  In essence, we will fund a $400,000 project with only a minimal $500 assessment to golf members and no interest payments.   That's pretty good if you ask me.  It is exciting to think what we can accomplish on the golf course with that kind of creative financial management.

As of today, the greens are frozen and technically closed for at least the next few days.  I am missing Florida already!

 We had a great time in Florida.  My daughter got to dip her toes in the ocean for the first time!  

It's still fall right?!?

On the bright side, the unseasonably cold temperatures seem to make everyone work just a little faster.  ProPump and Controls, Liebold Irrigation and your maintenance staff are working hard to tie up all of our fall projects as well as putting the finishing touches on our new irrigation source/pump station/range house.  All the while, we are still grinding away on #14.  We have never been so busy in November, and we love it!

"Project Water" (sounds better than 'water project' to me) is moving along nicely.  ProPump and Controls/Liebold Irrigation are installing our new main lines and doing battle with the bedrock on the driving range.  There's been digging, welding, grinding, and every manner of physical labor involved to get that new pipe in the ground.  Our electrician has been busy with staging materials and there has even been a Toledo Edison sighting as they decided to finally install our new transformer and pull the remainder of our underground supply line.

Carl, "The Wizard" prepping our well heads for new hardware.

The new valve assembly goes on.  The pumps have still not been installed, but we are trying to get the infrastructure set asap.

Custom fixtures for our main line drops.

The trench line headed to the new range/pump house.  

When you work with one of the most highly regarded irrigation companies in the world, you get a really nice result.  Trench backfilled, compacted, sod laid and cleaned.  Pretty clean result for the amount of disruption burying a 10 inch pipe over 2 feet below the surface.

Carl started work setting the portion of the main line that will run through the pump station.

By day four they were digging on well #2.  Here comes the bedrock.......

A little in the field metal work getting the custom pipes just right.

Even Toledo Edison made an appearance to install our new transformer and pull the remainder of the underground supply line.

While all of this is going on, we have been busy trying to get #14 as close to done as we can before everything decides to freeze.  There is finish work, bunker sand placement, drainage work, and cleanup to do before the bitter cold comes next week.

Getting the drainage installed for the front bunker.  The last of the three to be drained.  Hope to get finished and dump sand in tomorrow.

With the depth of the bunker, we had to trench pretty far to get the necessary fall needed to drain the bunker.  A perfect example of how many corners were cut in the construction of the golf course over the years.  Nobody wanted to handle this much work to do things right before.  Now it is done and done correctly.

The back left bunker finally getting filled.

A little fine tuning and compacting.  We are pushing the sand up to the edges of the sod to protect against dessication.

Also, you may notice a fresh sand topdressing on the greens.  With colder temperatures approaching fast, we wanted to ensure we could get some protection down before the ground freezes.  If there is another day of golf available before we put out temporary cups, we will make it as playable as possible.

Overall great progress despite the weather.  Very pleased thus far but still a long way to go.

Further updates as events warrant.

The anatomy of a bunker

While "Operation Agua"  plods along, we shifted our focus temporarily to tackle the renovation of #14.   After much debate, consideration, research, and a little yelling, we have moved forward and rebuilt, tweaked, and even added bunkers to our toughest par-4.

Obviously, there has been quite a few opinions on the plan.  Thank you to all who attended the informational meeting to voice said opinions.  My own opinion is irrelevant, but frankly I think everything came out great.  Some classic features of the hole were preserved, updated, and accentuated, and some new features were added to give the hole more modern, strategic (and even penal) value.  Aesthetically, there will be rolling lines and shadow faces which will offer tremendous visual appeal.  From a playability standpoint, there are some great new features and nuances that will add some new strategies and options for higher handicaps and our better players.  Yes, I said my opinion was irrelevant, but this is my blog, so you have to listen.  

The one opinion of mine that is relevant and most important is this: We performed the work correctly.  Regardless of your opinion of the placement and design, the bunkers were built, drained, and shaped properly.  They will be better to maintain, more consistent, and infinitely re-buildable.  Grades were shot on every contour to make sure surface water moved in the correct direction.  They were done right.  We have an excellent professional golf course architect and hired one of the best golf course shapers in the business today to do the dirt work.  Your maintenance staff did the rest, with great attention to detail.  If there is one upside to doing a great deal of the work in-house, we are really good at trying not to create extra work for ourselves down the road.  In other words, we strive to get it right the first time. 

So if you have been avoiding the cold weather and haven't made it to the club in awhile, below are a few photos of the process and the result.  I evidently suck at taking cohesive photographs showing a natural progression of work, so enjoy these semi-random photos of the work and I will explain them as best I can.  

So far, those that have seen the result have reacted positively.  I know I did.

The BEFORE - Our goals were to 1. Renovate the bunkers with drainage, new sand, and rebuilt faces 2. Open up this narrow approach in order to offer strategic options and improve playability.  3.  Make the hole more aesthetically pleasing

Another "BEFORE" - you could drive a Mack truck between the green and approach.  We wanted to get the bunker up next to the green where it belonged.

When Shawn saw this natural "valley" on the back left, it was just screaming for us to punch a bunker here.  It would offer improved aesthetics as well as protection for dicey back left pins.

We decided to work counterclockwise around the green.  Step one- the maintenance staff removed all sod from the area of disturbance.  Step 2- fill in the front right bunker and create the new "bailout"/collection/run-up area. 

Once the bunker was filled, Shawn and our construction super developed a strategy.  Javier and I worked together on my last golf construction job over 10 years ago.  He is one of the best in the biz and it was a pleasure working with him again.   

Once the right bunker was filled in and collection area completed the front right bunker was turned into a back-right bunker.  It's objective is to collect errant run-ups and protect the newly expanded back right corner of the green.

The shaper Fernando was one of the best operators I have ever worked with.  He was fast, efficient, and paid great attention to detail.  I hope he will build every new bunker we ever do here at HMGC.

The new collection area where the bunker used to be and the new bunker location.  This low area will become fairway that will offer some really fun and new shots to be played on the hole.  Also, the fairway will run dangerously close to the edge of the bunker which should swallow up errant or overly aggressive running shots.

While all the shaping was going on and once the sod was stripped, it was time for our crew to start cutting in drainage.

Your maintenance staff hard at work doing all of the detail work.

The biggest obstacle our bunkers face towards being consistent is lack of drainage.  No more problems here. 

In the blink of an eye, Fernando had the back left bunker knocked out too.  The crew had it compacted and ready for sod.

Time to remove the sand and get going on the front bunker.  This was only day two and 1 bunker was gone and two new had already been finished.  I cannot say enough about the proficiency and care with which this crew worked.  

Another blink and the front bunker is shaped.  Notice that the high face was kept and moved closer to the green.  An homage to the old bunker but closer to the green and a little deeper.

Compacting the bunker bottoms.

What would a blog post be without comments about trees.  My glove is in what is about to become fairway.  Those sticks around my glove are tree roots from the pin oak in the background.  We are well outside the drip line of the tree.  These roots would cause havoc for this part of the fairway were it to remain.  Not to mention it hides all our work on the left side and someday will obstruct the green itself.  Also, positioned right next to the cart path, it makes an already stressed, high traffic area struggle even more.  It's gotta go!  

With the rough sod laid it was time to start rebuilding the new fairway lines.  Sod was removed from the start of #10 fairway.  There is no reason a fairway should run all the way up to the front of the tee box.  We have about 50 yards of unnecessary fairway cut.  Using it will have an added benefit of opening up traffic paths for the Marathon.

This sod is where the old bunker used to be.  We added about 8-10 feet of flat run-up.  The intention was to protect the left side of the green from the spine to the left edge.

This is thursday.  It was miserable, rainy, cold, and just plain wet all day.  Your maintenance staff busted their ass transplanting almost 6000 square feet of fairway sod from the start of #10.  NOTE how the fairway runs right into the bunker!  Should swallow up some failed recovery or run-up shots.  And you thought we were making it easier.

You used to be able to drive a Mack truck between the green and the bunker, now you can barely get a golf cart in there.  Also, the collar is pitched towards the green which will punish short shots to tight front pins.

Another look at the BEFORE.  Narrow neck, bunkers almost pushed up in an unnatural look and few strategic options on our longest par-4.

The AFTER :The end of Day 4.  There is no sand in the bunkers yet, so their aesthetic impact can't be fully realized just yet.  The new collection/run-up points straight to the new back bunker.  Once sand is added, I think the back left bunker will jump right out.  Check it out in person and you will see all the small contours, creative lines, and natural feel.  Much more nuanced, strategic,  and aesthetically pleasing.

We did get a tremendous amount of work done in only 4 days but we still have quite a bit of finish work remaining to complete the project.  Unfortunately, the cold weather looks like it will be bearing down on us soon.  We will tidy things up as soon as we can in hopes you may get to play it before the season is over.

I hope this is the start of a great journey for our club.

Cheers!