Turning boards for mowing greens

We are now using turning boards when mowing greens. We started using them in the fall and will keep using them through the winter and early spring. This should help reduce the amount of sod work that must be done around greens due to wear from mowing greens in the winter.  The mowers take 4 boards each and they lay them at each side of the green and turn the mower on them after each pass. This keeps the mower off of the turf while turning. After about 6 or 8 passes they must stop and move the boards over and then continue on. This did add some time to the mowing process but we have found that we can use 5 mowers and get done in the same amount of time that it takes when we normally use 4. This is not a problem in the fall and winter when the rest of the golf course is slowing down and we can use more guys to focus on things like this. Below are a few pictures of the guys using the boards.

Rye Tees

The rye tees came up nicely. It only took a few short weeks before we were able to get the first cut on them. The picture below is one of the first cuts that we put on the tees.

Wet Start to the Winter

It has been a while since our last post because there have been a lot of new things going on around the Great Waters maintenance department. I have been taking many pictures of projects and routine maintenance items that we have been getting done over the last few months and I am going to try to get a few of them uploaded over the next few days. A quick update on the amount of rainfall we have had lately, over 3.5" of rain has fallen since right before Thanksgiving. This does not sound like much compared to the massive amounts of rain that we were getting in the spring but it has just been a cold wet drizzle most of the time so it has not been the best working conditions to get anything done on a golf course. However, we are pushing through it and getting a few projects done here and there.

Overseeding Practice Facility tees and par 3 tees

We took advantage of the rain earlier this week and got our rye grass seed down on our tees. The rain helps to get the seed worked into the Bermudagrass and saves us from having to run so much irrigation. The rain was not supposed to be here until Wednesday afternoon, which was our closed day this week. So the plan was to scalp the tees on Tuesday afternoon and drop the seed on Wednesday morning.  Well it was raining when we got here on Tuesday morning so that plan had to be changed. It rained on and off all day on Tuesday so we decided to try and scalp the tees and drop the seed right behind the mower on Tuesday afternoon. It was hard, wet work and we had to take extra precautions to keep the seed dry but we finnally got it done about 5:00 on Tuesday afternoon. Here are a few pictures of the whole process. You can see we do two double pass clean up laps and then 2 directions to fill in the tees with the drop spreaders. You can actually see the rain coming down in the last 2 pictures.

Photoshoot #11

On Tuesday August 27th we had a marketing photo shoot on hole #11 at Great Waters. We were split tee that day starting at 8:00 AM on holes 1 and 10, so this did not give them much time for the shoot. The team also wanted all of the dew off of the hole before they started taking pictures. We sent the majority of our crew to 11 and in 20 minutes we had the entire hole mowed out. This included mowing the green, tees, perimeter, fairway, and rough, we also flymowed around the bunkers and the shoreline, blew out the bunkers and raked around the bunkers.  I wish we could have had a time-lapse camera set up on the tee to catch all of this action because it was pretty neat to watch it all come together. Here are a few pictures of the marketing team taking their pictures.

Rain, Rain, and More rain

Just an update on the amout of rain that we have gotten this summer.

May was not bad with only 4" of rain. June also saw a small amount with about 3.5".  Then July got here and we got 16" of rain, and so far in the month of August we have received almost 7" of rain.  I took the following pictures on Monday of this week after the bad storms Sunday night. We have river rock in a lot of our drainage areas and I have never seen it rain so hard or run off so fast that it washes the river rock out onto the golf course but as you can see from the photos it did this time. 

The pond on #2 full of debris

You can see just how far the water went out onto the green in this picture.

Aerification 7-30-13

This past week we performed our big yearly aerification on greens. We did a 5/8" hole on a 2X2.5 spacing. Our process was very similar to what we did in the spring with a few minor adjustments. We Double verticut Greens, Top dressed heavy, aerified with core harvester attachements, cleaned up the plugs by hand, brushed 3 times, rolled, then lightly blew off. The next day we put out all of our amenentments. We also used these 2 closed days to aerify tees and double verticut all of our fairways. 

 Here is #1 being aerified, after the verticutting and top dressing. You can also see the verticut units in the fairway here.

This was 2 days after aerification.

Soggy start to July

We have had a very wet start to the month of July. It has been a wet spring and summer already but the month of July has just been miserable to be working outdoors. In the last 5 days we have had just over 6 inches of rain. And these are not just small showers with a little rain these are torrential downpours that create washouts in our bunkers, on the cart paths, and in the mulch beds.  We have been able to clean everything up just about everyday.  The guys are growing weary of pushing up bunkers but we will do it everyday we have too. We are just very thankful for the bunker renovation that we were able to perform 4 years ago or we would still be pumping out the 1.6" of rain that we got last Wednesday, then the 1.9" on Thursday, then the 1.1" on Friday, then the 0.5" on Saturday, and the 1.0" on Sunday. For the most part we have dodged the strong winds that have been associated with these storms.  Here are a few pictures that I took over the weekend.

New Drainage 14 Tee

Last week we were closed for 2 days in a row and we took advantage of these two days to complete a drainage project on 14 Tee that was long over due.  We ran drainage from the number 1 tee box past the 2 tee box and then down to the lake.  The project was completed just like all of the drainage projects in the winter. First, the sod was stripped, then the trench was excavated with a mini-excavator, next a thin layer of gravel went into the bottom of the trench, then the slotted pipe placed onto the top of the gravel, after that the pipe is covered in gravel and the trench is filled to about 4 inches below ground level with gravel, next a layer of sand goes down on top of the gravel, and finally the sod that was removed earlier gets put back onto the top of the trench.  We had a few things working against us in this project. First, there is not much fall from the back of the number 2 tee to the front of it and it is a large tee. Therefore, we had to be very precise when digging our trench and constantly checking with the transit to make sure that we had enough fall for the water to run to the lake. Secondly, the irrigation line for 14 Tee runs directly in the lowest point of the ditch that we were running our drainage in.  This forced us to move over a few feet and run parallel to the line, trying to stay as close to the bottom of the wet area without hitting the irrigation line.

Greens Aerification 5-8-13

We aerified all of our practice greens and the nursery yesterday and the rest of the course today.  We did a little bit of a different process than we have before. In the past we have always aerified the greens, either pushed the plugs off or blown them off (if they were dry enough), top dressed heavy, brushed greens (multiple directions), rolled greens, and then put out the amendments. This time we moved the top dressing to the front of the line. So we: top dressed heavy, aerified, bushed 3 times, blew off what was left, rolled, and then put down the fertilizer. The difference was a new counter-rotating brush that we got last year.  It allows us to work the sand in much better than a traditional brush and it also broke up the plugs and worked some of that sand back into the holes therefore leaving us much less to blow off.  We used 1/4" coring tines on a 2"X2" spacing. I am posting 2 videos of the whole process.  The sound is VERY loud due to the equipment that was running during the filming. Also video quality is not the greatest due to a small memory card, but it is good enough to give you a good understanding of the process. The portion where we are brushing the green gets a little long but I wanted to show how much better the green looks with each new direction that we brush.



The first video shows the top dressing sand going down. You can see that we overlap the throws on the top dresser in order to get down enough sand. Next you see us doing 2 clean up laps with the aerifiers. We did 2 clean up laps because we did not want to cause any extra stress on all of the new sod collars that we have been installing and we also did not want the added stress of double aerification on the normal greens clean up laps, therefore the inside clean up lap is where the double up happens from pass to pass.

This video shows the brushing process and how we brush them 3 different directions. You can see less and less sand with each new direction. You then see that we use a pro force blower to blow off the thatch and turf that was separated from the plugs along with the little bit of sand that is left. And finally you see how we roll the greens to help smooth out any imperfections made by the aerifier along with any tire tracks from the carts.

Fertilizer Mix Station

Over the past few years we have used a regular spray program of fertilizer and primo on our fairways throughout the growing season.  The mix is usually equal parts of 15-0-0 with 6% iron and 16-0-6 liquid fertilizer. The amount of primo used depends on the time of the year. We sprayed this mix for the first time this year and up until this point mixing up has always been a little bit of a chore.  That is because over 20 gallons of each fertilizer must go into each tank that is sprayed and it usually takes 3 full tanks to spray all of our fairways and perimeters.  A five gallon bucket was used to measure then pour the fertilizer into the sprayers. However, over the winter we installed a flow meter to the tanks that hold the fertilizer and ran it through the wall into our mix pit. We can now turn on the transfer pump and move exactly just how much we need into our mix tank, mix all of the fertilizer, primo, and water in there and then pump it into the sprayer.  Here are a few pictures of the system.  Most of the work seen was done by Chris Frame a member of our crew. We still have a small pipe with a valve on it in case we only need a few gallons, like when spraying tees or greens.

Re-sodding greens collars

Over the last few weeks we have been re-sodding some of our bad collars. So far we have just been doing the worst areas on the course and replacing them.  The areas that we are doing first are the spots that are just completely bare around the greens.  The topdressing throughout the winter, wear from mowers, and traffic from golfers can all be attributed towards the turf loss in these areas.  We did a few of these areas last summer and found that if we just strip enough of the old sod off and replace it with new it would end up too high, most likely from the mat of roots from the old turf. After we figured this out we began to set our sod cutter much deeper to take out about 2 inches of material.  We then come back thru and add a layer of sand to the areas, pack the sand and lay the new sod on top of the sand. This process seems to be working much better. It is slow, tedious work to level and cut the sod to just the right height and curve of the green.  Here are a few pictures of the work being done. The sod that we are laying is not the best looking stuff right now due to the cold spring we have had all over the state, but with a little TLC we will have it looking great in no time.

 The new sod that is going down is Tifgrand. It can tolerate much lower mowing heights than the 419 that is in our fairways and perimeters.

Master's Week

It is Master's week and we have been as busy as ever here at Great Waters. We have done almost 800 rounds since this past Saturday (around 200 per day), and the rest of the week looks the same.  The Dogwood's and Azalea's are in bloom and it really looks like Master's week. The rough is still lagging behind a little due to the cool spring we have had so far, but the greens and fairways are looking great. Here are a few pictures that we have taken over the past few days.

New Equipment

Our current lease is up and our new John Deere equipment has been coming in over the last few weeks.  Every piece that comes in gets a thorough inspection by Eric or George. We also have to make sure that heights of cut match up when we try a new piece of equipment for the first time.  They also use this time to add any modifications that we may need to fit our job (like modifying the basket on the Sandpro to hold a backpack blower). We are looking forward to some warmer weather so that we can really put this stuff to use. Here are just a few pictures of some of the new stuff. Some of these were taken while they were still looking over a few things.