Details

To get ready for the member-member this weekend we are doing a lot of detail work in an attempt to polish the place up for you guys. We have guys edging irrigation heads and bunkers, pulling weeds from the fescue areas and bunkers and sodding out dead bunker edges. The course itself is in pretty good shape thanks to the cool weather we've been having, so if we can stay dry for a few more days (of course as I'm writing this the lightning alarm just went off), then you guys should have a great golf course this weekend. This is one of the nice things about a mild summer, instead of having a few guys out watering, we're able to use those guys to do detail work like this to really make the place shine. We'll continue getting everything mowed and cleaned up and hopefully have a great course for you all this weekend. Enjoy yourselves this weekend and good luck!

Ian

Lightning detection system

I just wanted to let everyone know that the lightning detection system is back up and functional. The transponder for the system had to be sent back to the manufacturer for service and it took a bit longer than expected. The problem was that the alarm at #14 beverage station wasn't getting the signal from the maintenance building, which meant it wasn't working when there was lightning. Everything is back to good though and you'll hear an alarm if there is lightning in the area.

Ian

Drainage

This week we were able to sneak out and put some drainage in on the right side of #9 approach, a spot that is wet a lot. This was a good project because it was only a short run of trenching and it should give us some great results. We also added a bit of soil to raise the grade. In the actual approach, we raised and sodded out two dead spots where water sits. By slightly changing the grade of both areas, we're hoping that the water will no longer collect in these two spots and instead continue on to the catch basin below.

Here you can see where all the water sits. All we did was run a drain right through the wet spots in the rough.

Installed a pipe and tied into an existing drain line. Back filled with pea gravel

Cleaned up and seeded. This is ground under repair, so please take a drop if your ball finds its way into the freshly seeded area.

Ian

Irrigation

Last week our irrigation system decided to go haywire and made for a frustrating few days for us, and probably for some of you. Early last week a storm came through with a lot of lighting and knocked out about half of the satellites on the course. The satellites are the green boxes that you see on every hole that control our irrigation. Now, the irrigation system uses electricity to tell the heads when to turn on and off, so when lighting hits too close, it can jump onto some of the irrigation wires and wreak all sorts of havoc. When this happens, fuses blow, boards get fried and general irrigation chaos ensues, which is why there were heads popping on last week for no reason. If you got wet because one of these heads came on, I'm very sorry. The problem is, we needed to have power on to the system to trouble shoot and fix it, but when the power is on to the system, anything, anywhere on the course can run, which is exactly what happened. On top of all that, and unrelated to the lightning, we had a bad power splice, which affects the voltage that runs to each box which in turn makes the boxes malfunction. The good news is, we have been through the system and have it back up in working order. Now, we just need to dodge lightning for a while.

Inside of a satellite. There are a lot of things that can go bad in there. 

Bad splice. 

Repaired splice. 

Speaking of lightning, our lightning alert system is down until next week because the transponder that sends the signal to the boxes to sound the alarm wasn't working. So, we sent it in to get repaired. It should be back in by Tuesday and we can have it installed and working the same day. Just know that when you're on the course you won't hear the siren even if there is lightning in the area, so please keep an eye on the sky and if you see lightning head for cover. 

Yesterday, we took advantage of the rain and sprayed some wetting agent on the fairway spots that always dry out and wilt. Wetting agent needs to be watered in, otherwise it will sit on the leaf and burn the plant, so when it rains we like to take advantage of it and put some wetting agent down. The wetting agent retains moisture in the soil so that it is available for the plant. We sprayed it at a rate that will give us 30 days of control, and save us from a lot of hand watering in the areas where we sprayed it. So, if you wondered why we were spraying in the driving rain, it's not because we enjoy doing it (it's a pretty terrible time actually) it's because we get great results out of the wetting agent when we do it that way.

Ian

4th of July week.

It is July 1, the course is green and we have a pond full of water. Life is good. The weather we've had in the last few weeks has allowed us to minimize our water usage and even these last few days of high heat have not overly dried the course out because the high humidity has kept the moisture from leaving the plant. Now, the high heat and humidity has increased the disease pressure, but we are staying ahead of the pressure with timely sprays and are in good shape.

If you saw the small slices in the greens today and wondered what they were from, the answer is a PlanetAir. This machine vertically slices the soil, allowing for greater air exchange and water infiltration. After we ran this over greens we put down a very light layer of topdressing. The idea here is that the sand will work its way through the slits and into the thatch layer to help dilute the organic matter. The thatch layer grows through the season as plant material dies off, so by lightly topdressing throughout the season we are trying to match the accumulation of organic matter with dry sand to avoid thatch accumulation. The slits also help to keep the turf canopy dry, which helps to reduce disease pressure, because disease loves moisture.

PlanetAir in action.

These are the knives that slice into the soil.

Slices in green

















You can hardly tell we were here- In fact the PlanetAir is heavy and acts like a roller, so the greens are actually faster and firmer after we do this.

We also swapped three catch basins that were very close to greens last week. Two of them were on 12 and one was on 13. Because of the heavy topdressing on fairways the catch basins are getting very low, so we are raising them up. When we raise them we are also putting in a more heavy duty catch basin that doesn't break as easily as the old, plastic ones. I really like doing these because they look drastically better right away.

Old catch basin- Low and broken

New catch basin- Level and looking good.

I hope everyone has a great 4th of July weekend!

Ian