It's been unseasonably cold this week but we are making a lot of progress with our winter projects.  Construction on the new eighth tee complex began on Wednesday.  The subgrade is nearly ready after two days of work.  Expect to see grade stakes tomorrow and the corners of the tees should be set.  With more rain in the forecast this weekend expect some drainage work to commence on Monday on holes five and six as we wait for the tee area to dry up some.

 

Before construction began on eight we took the best bentgrass sod and sodded both upper tees on fifteen.  These tees have been covered and are now closed for the winter.

 

 

Day one of construction.

 

 

Getting the collars back to a consistent 24 inch width and then sodding with tall fescue.  The height of this turf will be lowered in the spring.

 

 

The course has been so wet we have had to use back pack blowers more than normal to protect the turf.  Here the guys push leaves across the ninth fairway.

 

 

Daylillies on the fourth hole illustrate what a wet year it has been.  Normally these would be back to bare ground.  The dark row in the center is our local deer path!

 

 

We have an abundance of ducks right now.  I counted over sixty mallards and mergansers today.

 

 

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving to all.  Another really wet month is about to end with now 8.65 inches for the month and totaling 61.25 inches since April 1st at the club.  Not much happiness in that statistic.  Eight tee construction begins on Monday with some more rain in the forecast.  The crew will begin reducing the width of our collars and adding more sod this week as well.  This work should wrap up by mid-December.

 

Prepping for sod on the tenth hole.

 

 

Looks great except for some washouts.

 

 

Next time guys sod staples where the water runs please!

 

 

More bentgrass to be relocated to the 15th blue/white tee.

 

 

Equipment has arrived and is ready to go.

 

 

You wouldn't want to be a tree with a red dot!  Some trees are dead while others are removed to improve turf health and better playability.

 

 

A beautiful red oak on the 12th hole.  Plenty of leaves to fall still.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snow?  Pretty typical for 2018 I guess.  The course received over 2 inches of snow followed by one and a half inches of rain and is closed for the day.  Expect the course to open on time excluding a frost. 

 

A beautiful scene on November 15th.

 

 

A saw tooth oak still green with snow on the ground.  Crazy.

 

 

Burning bush and hollies painting a beautiful winter picture in fall.

 

 

Construction will begin the week after Thanksgiving on the eighth tee.  Here we have marked the gold tee on fifteen for sod removed from the eighth tee prior to construction.

 

 

This tee was completed before the snow and covered for the winter.  We will try and replace some of the forward tee too.

 

 

We treated the greens and tees with fertilizer, fungicides and a wetting agent before rain events and the results were excellent.

 

 

The two maples between seven green and eight tee were removed in preparation of construction.

 

The view looking back at the seventh hole from eight tee.

 

 

Excluding the bermudagrass encroachment our fairways are absolutely beautiful.  We are working on transitioning out the bermudagrass too.

 

 

It's been so long it's worth a mention- this is the sun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Veteran's Day.  Nice weather to start the day before rain arrives later this afternoon.  It sounds like a broken record, doesn't it?  More rain is forecast on Thursday so sod work has been moved till next week (hopefully).  

It's a great day to deep tine the greens!

Check out the perfect hole with little interference to putting.  Deep tine aeration breaks up layering in the soil profile to improve rooting and internal drainage.

Though not as deep solid tine aeration is a very important practice for the same reasons. 

Tulip planting time is here.  

15 gold tee scheduled to be sodded with bentgrass from the 8th tee this week.  Expect the 8th tee rebuild to begin the week after Thanksgiving.

Nice white roots beginning to peg down on the 18th hole.

Ginkgo's are awesome trees for many reasons.  They are unique how they drop all their leaves at once while they are still bright yellow making easy cleanup.

 

Good morning!  Just a quick comment before the rain begins in earnest this afternoon.  The chipping fairway is now closed till next spring.  The growing season is over and the turf isn't able to recover from the practice it receives.  The chipping green and putting green remain open.

Closed till spring 2019.

Excellent results with our fairway broadleaf weed control.  Lontrel herbicide @6.5 ounces/acre!

Thursday afternoon and we are working late trying to get as much done before tomorrow's rain.  It is a repetitive cycle we are in and it doesn't appear to be ending.  Cold weather arrives this weekend as well.  I believe we can just punt 2018 down the road.

Julio Madrid bucking for employee of the year.  Blowing in the pouring rain!

Plenty of leaves coming down and too wet to put equipment on the course to remove 

A familiar scene and one we'd like to forget.  We have received 53 inches of rain from April-October. Almost 4 inches have fallen in November so far.

These guys are good!  Most of the bunker faces were vibratory compacted after sand was put back in place.

Beautiful work.

Aerification expert Francisco Carranza was able to deep tine the tees this week somehow.

Despite the wet conditions when the sun came out there was some beautiful color.

Reflections on a Wednesday morning.

Ginkgo gold!

 

It's a cold miserable Monday with another inch plus of rain.  Fortunately this moisture is great for the new seedlings and sod but not much else.  This weekend was a great success with Lentz's Revenge and the Maloney Cup finals.  Hopefully there will be more great weather coming.  The eighth tee construction will begin the week after Thanksgiving due to weather delays-what a shock!

Rainy days help pinpoint where drainage is needed.  Here is part of the Audubon garden needing a fix.

This area behind 8 green needs a catch basin bad.

The flower bed behind 18 green was reshaped with less slope and did not wash at all from the heavy rain.

This area by 5 fairway bunker refuses to dry out and will be repaired when the 8th tee construction occurs.

Completed sod work on the 18th hole.

Fall has really arrived this week.  Trees and shrubs have nice color and leaves are beginning to drop.  This promises to be a very busy November with leaves just beginning to fall.  The crew did an outstanding job installing sod around the 18th fairway this week.  We are going to work in some fairway aeration and topdressing next week as well as planting tulips- over 11,000 to be exact!

We still are playing catch up from this wet year.  Here Josh applies an herbicide to eliminate clover in our fairways.  This work was scheduled in late spring!

We also just completed slicing fairways that was started Labor Day week!!  This coming week we start again.

Just how wet are we?  It rained last Friday/Saturday and there is still standing water in spots on Thursday.

New sod installation on the 18th hole.  The dark turf in the foreground was done last year.

Whoops.  Accidents can happen at anytime.  Fortunately no one was hurt and the equipment is fine.

A turf blanket was put on our nursery green to speed up establishment.

Pine trees are evergreens but they have a period in the fall where they lose many of their needles.

Early risers get this benefit!