Happy New Year!

As the year winds down we continue to plug away at the bunker projects. Most of the grade work on #6 is complete and we have started taking sand out of the green side bunker on #4. Those projects will be difficult to work on for the next few weeks after the deluge of rain the last few days. The short days and cool temperatures are not conducive to drying a course and as a result it will be difficult to get carts and equipment to the bunkers. However, we are not complaining at all, the weather has been outstanding this fall (now winter) and we have completed far more than anticipated. 

Moving forward we will finish the wall at the range and do as much tree work as we can, again realizing we are limited our ability to move around the wet golf course. What we really need is for it to get cold and the ground to freeze. Once we are able to continue on the bunkers we will resume work there and should be in great shape to have everything wrapped up before golf resumes in the spring. I hope everyone had a great holiday season and has a very happy new year. 

#4

#6 

Driving range wall. 

Ian 

Project update

The mild winter continues to afford us plenty of great days to get a lot of projects finished. The bunker on #5 was sodded last week and grade work, drainage and irrigation work started at #6 and the wall at the driving range is nearly finished. In addition to projects, our routine fall work on the course is getting done as well. We put out our last snow mold application last week, are more than half way done with the Vertiquake on fairways and started a second trip around the course topdressing fairways. El Nino has certainly helped our productivity.

#5 bunker.

#6 grade and drainage work.

Range wall. The guys have done a great job here, one 75 pound block at a time.

It looks like the mild weather will be around for a while so we'll continue to take advantage of it, especially after the last two brutal winters we have had.

Ian

Tree work, bunker projects and wall at range.

Last week we continued removing dead trees from the course, which for the most part are Ash. There aren't as many this year as in the past but there are still a lot. The biggest reason for this removal is safety. Dead trees can come down at any point, in fact we had two come down last week in the heavy winds. This is some of the most important work we get done every winter. 

Dead tree hung up in canopy of other trees.

We also started work on the green side bunkers at #5 and # 6. The bunker at #5 had some regrade work done around it, new drainage installed and is now ready for sod. The bunker at #6 just has the sand removed for now, but we also stripped some sod behind the bunker where we will do a bit of regrade work as well. The goal of all this grade changing is to keep the water from running through the bunker. By slightly changing the grade we are able to move the water away from the bunkers and toward drainage. 

#5

#6. The sod we stripped out of this area was used to cover the drain lines at #7. 

We continued at the range working on the footer for the new retaining wall. We are using a a pretty cool product to form the base that doubles as drainage and it should work pretty well. We have the form all set up and will have concrete delivered Friday to pour the actual footer. Once this has set up we will start putting the wall up. 

Form for footer. Sorry for the recent shadows of myself in pictures, but with the early setting sun it's hard to avoid. The alternative is me taking a picture into the sun and then you can't see anything.

Ian