Spring Fling!

Golfers and golf course staffs were spoiled by the early spring in 2012 and have been cursed by the late cold springs of 2013 and now again in 2014. Although we were able to open on April 5th the course has been cold and slow to green up.

Fortunately the recent increase in temperatures and helped dry the course and green up the playing surfaces. As I write this on May 6th the trees are just starting to bud out and the rough is just starting to grow. Some new things you may notice on the golf course include:

On hole two we changed the route for water draining from Trowbridge Drive into the pond by the tees. Last fall we dug a new ditch to allow the water to reach the pond via a culvert under the cart path. As part of the project mounding is being built left of the tee and right of the fairway bunker and a new forward tee will be added. Disappointingly they fall rains and early winter put a halt to the project so the areas will need to be graded and seeded this spring.

The rains stopped and the winds cooperated to allow us to mow about half our gorse or natural no-mow areas. Controlled burns reduce weeds and promote healthier growth of the grasses. Burning also returns nutrients to the soil while improving the overall visual quality of the no-mow areas.

 

Burning reduces last years matted vegetation.

 

The marsh grasses on hole 14 burn quickly.

In a bit of bad news part of the bridge used to go from holes 19 to 20 and 17 to 18 collapsed on May 5th. Due to the importance of the creek crossing we have to move fast to provide a passage way for the carts. We plan to install two 24" culverts side by side to the back right of 19 green for traffic going to hole 20 and a 36" culvert on hole 17 near the walking bridge.

Both of these crossings will be more convenient and a shorter route to the next hole. It may take a few weeks to bring in a air compressor and jack hammer to take out the old bridge and abutments so we appreciate your patience.

The right span of the bridge behind 19 green collapsed. It will be

replaced with a culvert crossing.

Fall Activities

Late fall is usually a good time for getting work done and playing golf but the wetter than normal and cooler than normal weather has put a little damper on that.  Since mid-October is seems as though if it isn’t raining it is windy. The weather usually averages out so perhaps the recent cool spell will be replaced with a few nice days to get the last rounds in.

We have a few things going on besides leaf cleanup on the course.

 

BLOWOUT – On October 30/31 we “blew out” the irrigation system. We rent a 750 CFM air compressor and set it up by the pumphouse. We then use the compressed air to “blow out” any water that could freeze in winter causing pipes to burst. We work in all directions away from the compressor to push the water to the ends of the course.

Although it rained both days it made the job quicker because we did not have to look out for golfers when turning on heads. Due to the size of our pipe system we blow out the system 3 times with time for water to settle to the low areas between each shift. This ensures a complete job and no problems next spring.

HOLE 2 DRAINAGE – You may have seen the dump truck and backhoe working over on the left side of hole 2. When we have medium and heavy rains the water that comes down swale on the left of hole 2 backs up onto hole 9 because our underground piping cannot handle all the water at once. We are extending the swale all the way to the pond so the drainage system will handle the water from the golf course and the new swale will handle the water coming from Trowbridge Drive and the Industrial Park.

The spoils or dirt from the new swale is being used to build a mound on the right side of hole two for a visual effect for holes 2 and 9. The mound is in the natural area and considered. The new portion of the swale will be out of play for most golfers and runs right along the out of bounds. It will not be marked as a water hazard but it may have casual water in it at times.

NATURAL GRASS AREAS – We hope to burn most of our natural areas this fall or next spring to reduce organic matter and mat that builds up from the leaf tissue. We have mowed the areas that are too close to buildings or the neighbors to burn but the others we will leave with hopes a low humidity weather window for burning will happen before spring growth.

Burning in fall usually provides a hotter more complete burn while spring burning is cooler because the ground is cool and wet.  With the industrial park and roads around the course we need the wind to be in different directions for burning different areas so it takes a few days to complete the job.

NEW TEES – Through the US Kids Golf Program Rolling Meadows is going to create a “PGA Family Course” with two additional sets of tees per hole. For a few years we had our “yellow tees” in the fairways. Those will be replaced with a blue and gold set to yardages recommended to allow juniors and beginners to use the same variety of clubs longer hitters use.

At this time most of the tees will be placed on the edge of fairways and marked with PGA Family Tee markers. The tees will not be limited to juniors or beginners as we expect some of our seniors to use them and hope other players will use them in the spirit of “Tee It Forward” to play a shorter course.

 

The graphic shows that if the average white tee player uses a driver/7iron to reach the green the Family Course Tee player will do the same.

We will mow greens, tees and fairways one more time to clean them up so we can spray winter fungicides on them. Greens will then be top-dressed with a heavy layer of sand to ensure a smooth surface for next year and to reduce thatch levels.

I hope to see you out on the links a few more times before the snow flies for good.

Didn't You Dig That Hole Last Year?

Thank you for noticing but last year we dug over there, two years ago and three years ago we dug here...... Irrigation leaks happen to all golf courses just like water main breaks happen to all communities no matter how large or small or how new the system may be.

Our golf course like most has several miles of piping underground leading from our pumpstation located behind the 11th green to the 500+ sprinkler heads. All of our underground piping is PVC and varies from 6" near the pumphouse to 2" around the greens and tees.

Our pumpstation has two 75 horsepower pumps for general pumping and a 5 horsepower pump for maintaining the pressure or running one or two heads. We keep the pressure in the pipes at 80psi when we are not watering to reduce stress on our pipes but the pressure slowly increases based on flow rates to 110psi when pumping over 200 gallons per minute up to the 1400 gallons per minute capacity of the station. We have seen our number of leaks decrease by over 50% by keeping the pressure lower when not watering.

Leaks can happen due to improper glue fittings, defective parts, stress from the ground moving due to freeze / thaw or dry / wet periods and water hammer. We blow out all the pipes with compressed air each fall so breaks from the pipes freezing are very rare.

This particular repair on hole 17 was made for the fourth time which is rare. We average 4 leaks a year and in my 16 years we repaired 2 of them twice and now this one 4 times.

This section of pipe is a 6" mainline with a 4" tee leading up hole 17. The first time we had a glue fitting leaking and found the entire area encased in concrete. We chiseled out the area to be repaired and being it was the middle of summer took the easy route and repaired only that section. The repair was difficult because the pipes did not line up close at all so we had to pry quite a bit to get it all together.

That lasted a couple weeks when the stress was too strong and the new glue fitting failed.We made the decision due to the pipes not lining up to dig up both sides of the pipe, rent a jackhammer and air compressor to break out the concrete and replace the entire area. We made what we thought was a good repair and it lasted a year when our new 6" tee cracked either through the ground moving, a defect or the pipes moving due to water hammer even though we had properly installed thrust blocks.

We made our repairs and this time used more gasket fittings rather than glue to allow the pipes a little flex and we thrust blocked them again to ensure we would not have problems. Well that lasted two years when the tee split again during the recent dry spell leading us to think the pipes are moving as the clay dries and re-wets.

Our irrigation consultant Tom Emmerich suggested we use a ductile iron tee and fittings to take the stress better than the PVC fittings. So $1,100 and a lot of digging later the repair was made and we are up and running again. I hope this is the last time we see this stretch of pipe.

Working in slop is never fun!

The PVC fittings have been replaced with a ductile iron tee and 

couplers to give it more strength. After this picture we added thrust blocks and

filled in the hole.

Summer Maintenance

It is hard to believe it is middle August and our hard working student employees are heading back to college. It seems as though they have just started. I had good intentions to keep this blog updated but one thing led to another and work on the golf course comes before updates!

After a wet and cold spring and early summer the weather the past 6 weeks has been darn near perfect for golf. Ample rain and cool nights have been kind gifts from Mother Nature. I wanted to highlight some of the maintenance activities we do to keep the putting greens consistent from week to week through the growing season. 'Growing" is a key word because unlike carpet the grass is always growing or changing and we need to manipulate it to preform as we want it to.

Even at 1/8" height of cut on greens new shoots are growing and old shoots are dying as well as stolons, rhizomes and roots. All this activity combined causes thatch to accumulate in the turf canopy. A little thatch is okay but on putting greens less is best in order to provide smooth firm surfaces that are receptive to a well hit golf ball.

Core aerifying may be the best way to reduce thatch levels but that is disruptive to putting so it is only done once or twice per year. The second best way is to verticut or thatch the greens by cutting the grass vertically by using blades that go 1/8" into the turf canopy. Verticutting is time consuming and messy but leaves the greens putting smooth.

This greensmower has special carbide tipped verticut blades to thatch the greens

 leaving quite a mess of debris.

After one mowing most of the debris is removed but some remains.

After blowing off the debris and mowing in two more directions the lines are visible

but the green is ready for play or topdressing with sand.

A light layer of sand also smooths the surface of the green while

diluting the thatch in the turf canopy.

After a topdressing with a sand that meets USGA specifications the green is

rolled and ready for play.

 Our other main activity on putting greens is to increase air exchange by opening up the turf canopy without reducing putting quality. The easier it is for air to move in and out of the greens the healthier they will be and the more they will survive the heat of summer.

 

This spiker attachment on our sand rake can make thin 1" long by 1.5" deep holes for air and water to move through. Although the holes are not deep we can spike all 28 greens in 4 hours.

Our Toro Procore 648 is fitted with 60 needle tines to leave a 1/8" wide x 3.5" deep hole. These holes provide for great air exchange but the process takes 11 hours for all 28 greens.

After mowing and a light topdressing with sand the holes are visible but

do not reduce putting quality.

All these processes along with proper watering, fertilization, fungicide treatments and help from mother nature provide consistent greens through the golf season.

Spring at last!

The weeks have been flying by and it seems the weather is finally cooperating for some great golf. I am a bit behind on my posts and it seems 6 weeks of work to prepare for late May golf was crunched into 3 weeks.

Thankfully college is out and most of our seasonal employees arrive this week to gleefully start mowing and maintaining the course. They are a valuable part of our team and allow you to enjoy great conditions day in and day out.

What happened to the trees????? This is the number one question I have heard this year as golfers returned to see some large trees had been removed over the winter. All of the trees large or small were losing branches during every wind storm and had become a danger to golfers. They were 40 year old silver maple or green ash trees that one were planted too close to the greens and two were at the end of their useful life. In addition the trees on 4 and 16 caused morning shade reducing putting green quality and the trees on hole 4, 16 and 27 had roots that went under the green and further reduced putting green quality.

• On hole 4 four silver maple and one ash were removed. New trees are not needed due to the tree line a little behind the green.
• One hole 16 three large silver maples were removed. Replacements will be planted to the center and right of the green only a bit further away.
• One hole 27 two silver maple were removed and will be replaced but further from the green.

You may have noticed we have resodded some of the collars around the greens where the grass was thin and reseeded fairways and collars for the same reason. 

New sod being laid on the collar on hole 5.

 

 

The sod came from Heath Farms near Coloma and is pure low mow bluegrass. It looks terrific and deep green. It should play well as soon as it is mowed a few times. The areas that were not sodded were aerified and then seed was was spread and spiked in. This process does not provide a instant green but will help those areas recover quicker. Most of the thin areas have some green in them but were damaged from water sitting in winter and were weak entering fall from last summers drought.

 

PROJECT UPDATES -

The 10 tee and chipping green seedlings are coming up albeit slow after the long winter and cold spring. The surrounds of the chipping green were all seeded but the green itself still needs a little more mix to be added before it is seeded sometime in the next two weeks. A few golfers have asked if we are putting top soil on the sand/peat moss material the green is made of now. No, the sand/peatmoss mix is the proper material to build a green that is healthy yet drains well for quality putting conditions.

 

The new red silver tee on hole 17 should also be seeded in the next two weeks. It has been graded a couple times and is ready for the irrigation and cart path to be installed. Then one final grading will have it ready for seed.

 

I hope to see you on the links and if you have any questions about the golf course do not hesitate to ask away! It is why I am here.

Where is spring

After the spring of 2012 golfers and employees alike were spoiled by the early warm spring. When March was cold I said "It is okay as long as April is nice." Well now we are into April and things are not improving. That 60 degree weather is always 8 days out on the 10 day forecast but it never gets here.

We were able to open the driving range on Sat April 6 and my Sunday the 7th the back 9 holes were firm and snow free despite the snow and wet conditions on the front and middle 9's.

On the 7th I was able to blow off the greens and changed cups to prepare for a Monday the 8th opening. We were open for about 5 minutes when we received a half of inch of rain, followed by 1.8" of rain from Tuesday through Wednesday AM. Wed brought with it a a blanket of ice on the trees and turf along with flooded ponds and ditches.

We hope to allow play by the weekend but it depends how fast the water goes away. Looking at the forecast we should be firming up and greening up early next week. THINK SPRING! no scratch that... THINK NICE SPRING WEATHER!

The ice brought down part of a Willow on hole 4.

The pond on hole one is covering the fairway.

The trees are glimmering with ice.

 

This shot from Augusta National is a reminder that good weather is around the corner for us!

Ice removal from greens

I am a couple weeks behind with posting this but as I suggested in my last post grass under ice is not a ideal situation. We removed snow from the greens in early March to facilitate ice melt but then more snow fell and temperatures remained cold.

On March 25th the forecast suggested sunshine and upper 30 temperatures so we decided it was time to clear the greens. We started with the snow blower but when it took 8 hours just to clear the 15th green due to the deep snow I tried the dump truck and plow. It did a great job clearing the greens, but getting to the green took some skilled driving and luck as the drifts were deep.

Our goal was to remove snow on Monday/Tuesday and allow the ice to melt quickly before cold temperatures returned.

Plow on 3 green. With the ice no damage was done to the grass.

15 Green freshly blown off. The snow was too deep to plow.

 

Green dye applied to the green on Wednesday March 27.

The dark color absorbs sunlight and speeds melting.

 

With the deep snow we used a sled, a hand sprayer and jugs of water

 to apply dye to the greens.

 

Thursday March 28 the green is almost bare. The temps were only in the 30's

but the sunshine did the trick.

After plowing vole runs could be seen in the ice on the greens. I have never seen this before on greens. After the ice melt there was no visible damage.

By Saturday March 30 only holes 12 and 16 had any ice remaining and we chopped that up by hand to speed melting.

 

The greens may have been fine no matter what we did but after the long winter removing the snow and ice was the best decision.