One Less Eyesore....

 

 

We had a little break in the weather that allowed us to get to another eyesore on the property.

 

 

The Starter House, occupied for the last 30 years by our own Kevin Coll - professional starter extrodinaire, has been removed.  We have ordered and are awaiting delivery of our new, somewhat larger, cedar shake cottage style house.  This is another step of a project to improve the entrance way to the golf course. Below find a few pictures of the removal.

 

disconnecting electric and phone

took out the windows and door

knocked over with the bucket loader

loading into the dump truck

Found out where the bees were always flying to....


I will post photos of the new building when it arrives.  Should be soon.
Snow is melting nicely, hopefully the rains expected this evening will wash away a good amount of the remaining snow so we can get out on the course and continue the massive cleanup.

thanks for checking in...JohnnyP

 

 

 

 

Cold Update...

 

...It's damn Cold.

 

 

 

It also appears that in my last post I spoke a little too soon regarding the "lack of" snow.   I think as i clicked on the "publish" tab for my last blog it started snowing.  Since then we have been locked inside and as of today (2/21) we can't see any grass out on the course.

 

Here in Northport the totals were in the 25-30" range during that monster NEMO storm.  Most of us were unable to leave our homes for at least 2 days, as the municipalities had huge issues trying to clean the roads.

Here are a few photos of the cleanup adventure at the Club

Miguel Flores manned the skid steer to help dig out

Lisandro Ortiz scooped all day in the pouring rain

drifts were well over 3 feet, here on our deck 41" 

At the locker room entrance, it was halfway up the door

The guys had to dig out before the plow could cleanup

Assistant Phil cleaned up with the plow post dig out

Bob from the Clubhouse helped all day in the rain too

I was on the snowblower, it was so deep that we needed all of my 6'6" for leverage

 

It certainly appears that we will not be enjoying golf in March as we did last year.

Looking forward to a little warm up to get the melt underway.  Currently, we do have some solid ice on the greens, which may cause some problems if we are stuck in this freeze much longer.

Our deep tine aeration should allow a bit of air under the ice but we wont know how this is effecting our turf until the melt is under way.  On top of the cleanup from Sandy, that was just about complete prior to the snow, the weight of the snow combined with the massive 60mph winds brought down even more branches and trees.  So, we have a mountain of work to do once we are able to get on the course. 

 

Our equipment repair work is nearing completion and I just received word from the Owners that I can move forward to schedule more drainage work and order a few pieces of equipment to replace some very old, and very tired machines we currently use.   

 

Thanks for tuning in, see you relatively soon.

-JohnnyP

 

 

 

winter sunrise, looking East from the shop 

Winter '2012 - '13

Update on what's been going on at IHCC since the season ended.

This winter has been quite cold so far, but snow free except for a quick little burst here and there.
We (our winter staff is myself, Phil (asst), Pat (mechanic), Miguel & Lisandro) were able to get a few things accomplished, working around frozen ground.

We began to reconstruct the hellacious mess of a bunker on the right of #7 green.  We deemed this to be one of the worst conditioned bunkers on the course and began renovation work in mid January.  Phil does a fantastic job on our old skid steer, moving earth and recontouring the materials.  We incorporated Stephen Kay's Master Plan design into our work and will have 3 much smaller bunkers where the oversized previous one existed.  The bottom photo, taken from the rough on the right of the previous bunker, shows a rough view of what is to come.  We hope to have workable ground in late February so we can get this finished up sooner than later.



Super Storm Sandy cleanup also continues... We had a large track excavator here last month to pull the enormous stumps from the rough between 10 & 18, including the monster Oak stump near 17 green. Norse Tree Service also spent two weeks here cleaning up dead or hazardous tree situations.  There are still some locations that need work.  Norse continues to provide excellent service to our club. The tree work required is extensive and expensive here at IHCC. Many of our trees have health issues including most of the Ash trees between 8 & 15.

Green Ash Borer Larvae

Borer damage

Ash tree ravaged by borers

The above pictured tree located near the 8th Championship tee, snapped during the wind storm the last week of January. The center of the tree was loaded with borer larvae as well as large carpenter ants. From the outside, it did not look bad, but snapped like a toothpick and 70' of tree slammed into the ground. Fortunately, this occurred late at night when nobody was close to the tree. We will be taking a hard look at all our Ash trees for safety reasons as soon as we can get Norse Tree back on site.

Thanks for checking in, JohnnyP.


Split & seasoned Firewood is available for pickup at the maintenance facility...call 757-0555 for more info.




and on my brightside....my pride and joy, (6'3" sophomore) Nick and his Smithtown West hoopsters play for the League 3 title tonight (2/5) at Riverhead.  GO WEST !!!
The varsity is currently ranked #14 on LI with a 13-3 overall record, 11-2 in league play.
 

(btw..Northport's varsity, ranked #5, is a powerhouse - beat us by 3 in a holiday tournament)