May 29th: Spring Update
- Michael Curtin
- May 29
- 3 min read
Spring is well underway as seen and felt with the amount of pollen and tree debris blowing around. The pollen and oak catkins are problematic and frustrating for both golfers and the maintenance staff. Turf surfaces need to be blown clear before mowing or spraying can take place only for these surfaces to become covered again shortly after. By the time afternoon groups of golf are starting their rounds many greens are completely covered again. Raking bunkers filled with the oak catkins causes the debris to get caught in the rake and dragged along the bunker bottom. These bunkers first need to be cleaned out, which turns bunker raking from a one man job into a three man job. As a result the crew member assigned to bunker raking for the day skips raking the worst of the debris filled bunkers until we have a chance to clean them out. As the amount of debris consistently falling from the trees decreases in the coming week or so we will be able to catch up on cleaning out these bunkers.
Renovated Forward Tees Update:
The 6th and 8th forward tees that were renovated at the start of the month will be opened to play on Tuesday, June 2nd.
12th Green Surround Rough:
The fairway drive off area just short of the 12th green surround was sodded last week. This area will remain roped off until it has time to establish. The last area from the tree work on 12 is almost ready for sod. As soon as we have finished hauling loam and prepping the area we will move forward with sodding it.
Tree Removals:
A tree between the end of the 8th fairway and start of the 18th fairway snapped in half recently. The top half is still suspended in the air and leaning against another nearby tree. Next week a tree service company will be coming in with equipment to safely remove and dispose of this tree. While equipment is nearby we will also be moving forward with the removal of a tree at the end of the 10th fairway on the left. This tree has been visibly declining over the last few seasons with bark peeling away and debris constantly collecting at its base. There is also a significant hollow spot forming at the base of the tree. Not only is this tree a safety issue, it also negatively impacts the turf conditions on a portion of the fairway.
Irrigation Repairs:
Since we pressured up the irrigation system back at the start of April we have been working on repairing leaks. It has been discussed before, but there is a specific part used in the install of our irrigation system (the saddles) that are very prone to failure. Every spring we have dozens and dozens of leaks that require us to replace these defective parts in large numbers. Our irrigation technician Marcelo has been hard at work digging up and replacing these saddles with the help of another crew member, Juan. We also contracted out two days of repairs to Winterberry Irrigation. This spring roughly 90 saddles have been replaced and we are now caught up on repairing these leaks. These repairs take a large amount of labor and time that could ideally be used elsewhere especially during the chaos of the early season. Now with all the necessary repairs being made labor can be shifted to catching up on detail work.