Project Wrap-Up

It looks like the great stretch of weather will come to a end this week with highs forecasted to be in the 30's. Saturday the 24th will be the last day for play and we hope to apply a heavy application of sand to the greens next week.

We are glad many of you were able to enjoy the nice days November offered and take advantage of our free round for Veterans. Looking back I think November was nicer than October when considering the number of warm days.

The weather also allowed us to work on a couple projects to give us a head start next spring. The newly designed tee complex was dormant seeded and covered with straw to keep the seed in place until spring. A dormant seeding is when the seed is applied but not expected to germinate until next year. The benefit is the seed is down and ready to emerge long before we could work on the the wet ground next spring.

As a reminder we changed this tee complex for two main reasons. First the tee was unlevel and as a huge "runway tee" would be difficult to strip and level to customer expectations. Secondly this tee was left over from the old course before expansion to 27 holes so the tee lined up with a fairway that no longer exists. The tee encouraged players to hit the ball onto the 9th fairway more than the 10th.

The new 10th tee complex shifted the tees right and lined them up with the fairway. The silver and white tees are a bit shorter while the blue and black are the same length.

The chipping green project is also moving along well with the weather and hard work by the staff. The new addition should open mid to late summer next year with a sand bunker and many areas to practice your short game from. The area had to be elevated due to construction debris being buried under the site and mounding was added for aesthetics and safety.

The dirt for the mounding came from the nearby 10th tee project along with thousands of yards donated by Baumhardt Sand and Gravel as they were working down the street and it saved them money to give us the material rather than haul it away.

Trenching drain lines in the chipping green. 1" of pea gravel goes in the bottom followed by the perforated tile and then the trench is filled with pea gravel. (sometimes pictures from my phone will not stay upright so you need to tilt your head.)

Carefully spreading a 3" layer of washed pea stone on the green base while not driving on or catching the soil below.

Building a green takes a lot of steps, first the base is graded to the specified slopes, leaving a 12" lip of soil around the green. At this point the green looks like a pond or swimming pool and really confused some of the customers. Irrigation is put in around the green and drainage tile is put at the bottom of the green.

The lip of the green disappears when 3" of pea stone is laid on the base followed by 9" of sand/peatmoss mix called greensmix. In our case the greensmix will be installed in winter to allow the surrounds to freeze to reduce damage from the trucks.

But the best part of the warm November days is we were able to grade and seed the mounding around the green and then covered it with straw blanket to prevent erosion. This site was just under a acre and the small staff earned it's wages working hard to get it all done in one day.

In spring the greensmix will be graded and seeded and the bunker will be finished and filled with sand.

The new chipping green site with the surrounds covered with seed and straw. The sand bunker is
barely visible on the bottom left.

The final project for this fall is a redo of the red and silver tee on hole 17. The old tee was small and unlevel but also had large tree roots from the nearby pines poking out causing a unsafe condition. The new tee has been shaped and topsoil added. We will allow it to settle over winter and seed it in the spring.

To all our customers thank you for your business and feedback and enjoy your winter.