Drain and gravel #14

Here is a picture of the beginning process of the drain instillation and the gravel layer install.

Mix #17

Here are a few pics of the mix being installed on #17 green.  We started on this green today and will move along the river holes this week with the new fill.

Trash

Some of the trash buried under 8 green along with the stumps - a shovel head.

Material out of 8 green

Not good

We are having to dig down about 24-36" past the sub-base on #8 trying to remove all the garbage that the green was built with. We were pulling out roots, stumps, and just straight black muck. This area was humping and not setting up so we have to dig it all out and replace it with clean compactable fill. This could have developed over time or at least made worse by the poor drainage grading in this green.

Here we go again

Why me???

Good bye. .

It's making my day a little better to see #5 green get plowed under. I'm not going to miss this one!

Rain

The 2" we got yesterday will set us back a little trying to get these base layers shaped out. As you can see they are very wet.

Another tree

Second even bigger oak down #8.

Tree down

Large oak down at 5 tee

Bunkers.

We just got done with fixing the front 9 fairway bunkers from the first storm yesterday. The rain yesterday washed them all out again. We will probably start fixing them within the next few days.

Course conditions

The course will be closed today. The temp greens have standing water on them and some of the holes are completely destroyed with large branches and some smaller trees down.

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Tees, fairways and apps

The short grass on the course looks like hell right now. It is from all the topdressing we did which makes the mower reels dull. On top of that all the rain and humidity has caused the Bermuda to take off. Typically I like to wait a little longer after topdressing to mow but we were forced to start sooner than we wanted because of the increased rate of growth. Once we are out of the sand and rocks on the fairways we will grind all the units and get them cutting good again.

Drainage

16 green is done with drainage and gravel. Working on 18 and 1 now.

Not good.

More rain. Not just rain but heavy torrential downpours. I've had enough of the rain for a while. It's shaping up to be a wettest July we have had in quite some time.

High Traffic Areas

The bermudagrass in the high traffic areas is really looking pretty good. Usually these areas are pretty beat down and compacted. The limited amount of play and cart traffic along with the recent rainfall has really helped the bermudagrass in these areas to recover and thicken up - at least this is one of the upsides of having limited play on the golf course.

#17

Starting the drainage and gravel on #17 today.

Bunkers

The bunkers got destroyed from all the rain this weekend. We will be fixing the fairway bunkers this week. The green side bunkers will not get fixed since they are out of play and they will be getting re-done after greens.

The bunker on the left has the fabric liner in it and the one on the right has not been re-done and does not have the the liner in it. You can see the difference in severity of washout between the two.

It's been a long time since I have seen the bunkers in this bad of shape from a rain event.

Sunday

We are going close the course on Sunday. With the 4.5" we got last night and the on and off rain we got today the course will be too wet to play - especially on temporary greens.

Rain

The 4.5" of rain that we got last night made a mess of the course. The greens that we have cored out are very wet and washed out in some areas. It will take some time for these greens to dry down enough to work on them again.

The bunkers on the course are destroyed. We will begin fixing the fairway bunkers on Monday.

Drainage vents

We are installing vents on the outfalls just past the subair fittings that will give the drainage system some fresh air and the ability to potentially prevent future problems.

Sub air

Here is a picture of one of the subair fittings that we are installing on all the drainage outfalls. This system will give us the opportunity to hook up a unit that will allow us to "vacuum" out the water in the green during wet periods and also give us the opportunity to push cooler air into the rootzone.

This system will be extremely valuable once the greens start to develop some organic material (after the first year or so).

Gravel #16

Here is a picture of #16 green just before the gravel layer was completed. The gravel layer is installed with a skid steer then finished all by hand. After checking the gravel layer (TRCC employees with probes) the grave layer was installed to a remarkable level of perfection. Not a single spot was out of spec.

We have installed a wire to track every single foot of drainage pipe in the green. This is something that is not typically done except on the main trunk lines on most constructions. I wanted this done to insure that we can track and find any and all pipe in the green incase we ever get into a problem with the drainage on a green. The most important part of any green is having the ability to drain the water out of the green.

We have seen where some of the old drain lines didn't have the exact proper grade that there was some pretty foul smelling water in some of the pipes. This was probably one of the problems that we had with some of the old greens in some of our wet areas.

Drainage 16 green

Here is a picture of the beginning stages of the drainage process.

Drainage 16

Drainage and gravel being installed on #16 green.

Testing sand

Here is a picture of our consultant pulling the first round of testing on our mix. This is the sand that we will use to build the greens (our rootzone mix). It's constantly tested and analyzed to make sure that it is exactly what we want. There's a lot of science and lab work to make sure that we get a mix that will perform to our expectations.

Clay on greens

This lump is a huge spot of clay that part of the green was growing on. Almost all of these greens were built on cavities that were 20% too large, wasting money on gravel and mix during initial construction. Not this part.

13 mix

21" of mix!! There should have been 12". Not exactly proper construction.

Fixing the base layers.

So far the greens have been much deeper that expected to fill in and repair. The river greens were averaging about 16-18" of mix when it should be 12". It is just taking more fill material than expected to repair these bases. Not a big deal buy just a little more material needed than expected.

This is a picture of 14 before we started fixing the bottoms. These drain lines will be filled in and the bottom will be brought up to where it needs to be.

14 green

This is a picture of 14 green all dug out. As you can see all the old drain lines are dug out. This green always stayed wet through the middle of the green in the summer - now I know why. One of the problems is that the main trunk line of the drain lines is off center. You can see the trunk line going down the right half of the green. This line should be more in the middle of the green at the low point of the green. We will fix this along with a surface drainage issue during the shaping of the subsoil tomorrow.

Progress

1 is shaped out and we have 15 and 14 cored out - working on shaping the sub-base now.

Range staging

This is a big pile of clean mix that we are keeping for the range re-do. It's important to keep this stuff as close as you can to the area you are going to need it to cut down on haul times and fuel costs. With this mix we will top off the tee and some other areas to prep for sod.

Base layer

We have the base layer done on #16, 17, and we are working on the shaping on 1 right now. Looking good!

Mix depth

This is on the back of #15. It is one of the reasons that that green struggled so much last year. You can see the 12" line where the top of the mix should be. That is a 24" grade stake set on the top of the gravel layer. The excessive depth makes the greens extremely difficult to manage and keep healthy.

15

Starting 15 with the core-out.

Topdressing

We are continuing to topdress holes around the greens construction. We will be trying to stay close to the greens crew on the fairways we topdress, eventually getting them all. This helps to decrease haul times and diesel fuel consumption.

Irrigation wire

The guys are installing pipe and station wire on #6. There are thousands of miles of 14gauge copper wire throughout the golf course. The big green wire is a wire that is being installed for future use. The newer full systems can be put in without miles of 14 gauge copper wire. It is just one 2-wire chord that travels from head to head. This saves money because you don't have to put a dedicated station wire to every head (like we have now). They also have no satellite boxes on the golf course. So in the future when we have to replace the rest of the irrigation system we would just continue this green wire and eliminate all the red and white 14 gauge wire - the grey boxes with the yellow antennas would also go away.

#16

We have started fixing the subsoil on 16 and we are about half done on 17 with the core out. Things are starting to move along.

Greens

#16 is all cored out and we have started on #17. The subsurface shaping will start on 16 tomorrow and the core-out on 17 will continue.

It's all downhill from here. We started on the river monsters. You don't realize how big these river greens are until you start digging them up. They are huge!

Fusing pipe

A picture of the new irrigation pipe on #13. They are fusing a tee on to the line. This HDPE pipe is all welded together making a long, seamless pipe. No glue or gasket fittings to leak in the future.

Irrigation

Irrigation crew working on #13

Construction issues

One construction issue that we have run into - they originally installed the old greens loop irrigation pipe inside the greens cavity on #16. The guys hit it when they were coring out the green. Not a big deal but we may just core out the existing greens where they are instead of where they once were. The issue comes into play with the new irrigation pipes being installed around the existing greens. May be kind of confusing but it's just one of those "what lies below" issues.

Course conditions

The course will be cart path only today and 16, 17 and 18 will be closed so the contractors can have the cart path on those holes. We got 1.5" last night and another 1" this morning.

Not good

We got 1.4" last night and it is pouring again this morning. It figures that the only rain we have got starts the same day of construction. We cant afford to many of these rain days.

Irrigation

Here is a picture of us staking heads for the placement of the irrigation heads.

Construction

The destruction begins.

Aeration pg2

We aerated pg2 yesterday and put some Calcium and potassium down. This green is doing great and it seems like it is getting thicker the hotter it gets outside.

Topdressing fairways

We have started topdressing fairways. So far 16 and 18 are done.

WOW!!

I came out to play a round late Saturday evening to say my last goodbye to these 19 monsters (greens) that have caused many of sleepless nights and long summer work days away from family. I have to admit that this was the mast enjoyable round of golf that I have played in quite some time. The greens are absolutely phenomenal. They are like concrete, rolling 13+, and playing like a major championship on the PGA Tour. It's amazing to me how much you have to analyze every shot - from tee to green - with the greens in this condition. Really fun!

Take a look at some of the greens and look at the entrance and exit spots on each green. Smoked! That is why we put so much effort into traffic control and babying these areas during normal years.

Some patches of the bent still look great. I am going to send some samples of the great looking grass away to possibly see what it is - some bio type super strain.