Reel to Reel

Although not a common occurrence, we experienced both frost and heavy fog this morning.  Despite delaying our morning operations and tee times, I was able to get some unique pictures.

Winds in excess of 25 mph and light rain made a huge mess of the golf course yesterday.  We sent the full fleet of blowers and mulchers out today in a strategic effort to win the clean-up battle.  #2 fairway before we cleaned it up #18 bunkers before we cleaned it up #12 fairway before we cleaned it up #14 green before we cleaned it up mulching leaves #2  blowing leaves #2 green blowing leaves #6 fairway bunker mulching leaves #5  Wiedenmann vacuuming leaves #1 blowing leaves #10 tee blowing leaves #12 fairway #5 ready for play #1 ready for play #6 ready for play

Today, a landscape contractor root pruned targeted problematic areas on the golf course where significant tree root competition was evident.  Pruning tree roots reduces competition for water and nutrients between trees and turfgrass, leading to better playing surfaces. maple tree east rough #3 competing with the fairway turf and winning root pruning behind #18 green root pruning along #1 fairway root pruning along #2 blue tee

 Here are a few photos from this weekend.

You learn pretty fast in this business, it is best not to fight Mother Nature.  Winds in excess of 20mph, light rain, frigid temperatures and snow flurries over the last four days made it quite unproductive for leaf clean-up.  We instead shifted to resurfacing the cart paths with cart path material on #3 green, #4 tee, #4 green, #5 tee, and #12 green.  We spread and leveled material over 1,900 linear feet of cart paths. #4 tee path #5 tee path #12 green path

Over the last week, the leaves have started to fall at a rapid rate.  Most of our fall work is dedicated to leaf clean-up and keeping the golf course as clean and playable as possible.  That means blowing off playing surfaces, mulching and vacuuming up leaves daily. leaf clean-up on #7   Below is a video from the USGA about managing trees.

There are many facets to this job I love, the amazing sunrises are certainly one of them. 

It was a productive start to the week.  We were able to needle-tine greens yesterday morning.  Venting the greens is an important maintenance practice we perform that allows oxygen and water to move more easily to the root zone while also allowing built up gasses in the soil to escape.  needle-tining #10 green close-up of the needle tine holes We were also able to repair two more bunker banks on #12 and #13. sodding bunker on #13 finished bunker on #13 The driving range tee has been seeded and it will be closed for the remainder of the season.  Mats will be used for the rest of the year to give the tee time to grow in before next spring. leveling the tee with some soil mix

The fall projects continue.  We have started repairing bunker faces that are showing their age.  As bunkers age, sand is displaced from the bunker from golf shots and wind.  The sand accumulates on the bunker faces creating rooting and stability issues on the bunker banks.  Our bunkers are 21 years old and are certainly showing their age.  bunker face on #8 greenside bunker We are currently repairing and sodding the worst of the bunkers.  We have done work on holes #2, #4, #5, #10, #14, #15. #5 greenside bunker #10 greenside bunker This week we removed the cart path behind #14 black tee.  The path was not being utilized and was also creating erosion issues during heavy rains.  removal and leveling of existing #14 path sodding the area