Practice bunker renovation

The short range bunker's drainage was replaced. The old bunker sand was pulled out and new sand put in. It is now ready for some practice. The sand is a little soft and needs to be compacted before it is similar to the ones on the course.
Special thanks to Fred for helping me get this done!!
Turf

A new look for 7 blue

Here is a photo of the new fountain in 7 blue pond. This fountain will help the water quality of the pond and looks very nice.
The fountain can bee seen from the entrance as well. We have some cattails to remove to improve the view from country club drive.
Looks like a great weekend for golf!
Come on out and enjoy the weather.
Turf

Bunker issues

One of the ongoing maintenance items of a golf course is bunker drainage. The golf course is a living entity, dynamic, and susceptible to aging. Bunkers age. Sand that was once pure and drained well, becomes clogged with organic debris. Leaves, grass clippings, pollen, and other particulate matter is carried into these systems by wind, rain, and irrigation. Eventually this organic matter will clog drainage systems.
This photo is of three blue fairway bunker, not after a rain storm, but after a regular irrigation schedule. The sand is contaminated, as well as the irrigation. The sand needs to be removed, drainage replaced, and sand replaced. We have found that we can improve the condition of the bunkers significantly even if we only remove and replace the sand in the immediate area of the drainage.
We hope to address some of the worst performing bunkers this fall. The practice bunker at the short range is one of the highest priorities this fall. Next spring we will have a quality bunker for practicing!
Up and down!
Turf

Greens aerification

We had a long day yesterday, we completed 18 holes of aerification. We have the red nine to go. The weather looks good to complete this work and the green should grow out of the disruption quickly. We will be rolling the greens daily to return them to a smooth condition.
We are all working hard and I am very proud of our staff. This work is the foundation behind the quality of our greens.
The should recuperate soon,
Turf

One blue repair

The cool weather has given us some relief from hand watering. We have taken the opportunity to address this situation. Shown below is a profile of the area. The problem area has very little topsoil and a heavy grey clay underneath. We are excavating this area and will replace it with topsoil. While it remains close to the path and the tree-line, we are finding some tree roots, but believe the soil composition is the greater problem. After .7" of rain last night, this photo of the clay was taken, it is bone dry.
We will be aerifying greens next week, weather permitting.
Closing scramble this Sunday, call today to get in!!! Great format!!
Awesome prizes! Free beer!
Trifecta
Sign-ups close Saturday at 3:00pm
Turf

Aerification

We have begun to aerify.

Tees on the blue today!

We will update the schedule as we progress. No aerification will take place Thursday-Sunday.

Closing scramble should be excellent!

Course rating day

The golf course is being re-rated today. 

Some of the old factors of the rating system are no longer in use, so the rating may or may not change.  The rating sheets are shown in the photo below.  I will have a full report when the rating is complete.

The biggest discussion I hear in regards to the course is the handicaps from the different tees.  This situation requires more than simply taking your course handicap to the first tee and firing away.  There are a few steps to calculating the shots necessary to level the playing field.

This is taken from the usga website, where the entire process is explained:

My Handicap Index converts to the same Course Handicap from two different sets of tees. This system must be screwed up because I definitely score higher on the longer set of tees and I need more strokes. Example, a player has a Handicap Index of 10.4. The white set of tees has a Course Rating of 70.9 and a Slope Rating of 118. The blue tee has a Course Rating of 73.1 and a Slope Rating of 122. In both cases 10.4 converts to a Course Handicap of 11. As we learned in Example 1, the Slope Rating allows us to receive enough strokes to play to the level of a scratch golfer from a particular set of tees. So, when this player plays the white set of tees, he needs 11 strokes to play down to the Course Rating of 70.9. When he plays the blue set of tees, he needs 11 strokes to play down to the Course Rating of 73.1. So, to play to his Course Handicap, he needs to score 70.9 + 11 = 81.9 or 82 from the white tees and 73.1 + 11 = 84.1 or 84 from the blue tees. The system recognizes the difficulty difference in the two sets of tees, but it doesn't show up until we take into account both the Course Rating and the Slope Rating.

Visit this link for a thorough discussion.

http://www.usga.org/playing/handicaps/understanding_handicap/articles/different_tees.html

Hope this helps, 

Turf

Sent from Erwin's phone, please excuse grammar and punctuation.