IHCC - July Update

 

We have been blessed with incredible weather this summer, especially so considering the hellacious 2013 summer and winter.   Our golf course, due to it's tremendous variety of soils and landscapes, reacts to what we are dealt in both good and bad ways.   This year we are benefitting from cooler temperatures and while quite dry, the lower temps have allowed our turf to stay strong.  

 

There is a tremendous amount of science involved with our day to day decisions, and despite what some think, we do not randomly maintain the golf course.    a quick example... we do mow our greens everyday, occasionally skipping a cut on a Monday if the club is closed and we do not have an outing.   We do not change the height of cut during the season.  We are currently mowing the greens at .120" - all the greens are mowed at the same height, everyday.   Last week we were accused of raising the heights or not mowing at all.   There were complaints of the greens being very slow for our 1 day Member Guest.  The tournament naturally came on a very nice day that was preceded by 3 days of rain where we received over 3.0" of rain on our push-up greens.  They were soft and quite slow despite being mowed and double rolled.  We were again accused of not mowing and not rolling.   Weather..... its all about the weather.      

 

 

 

Many of you may have noticed a difference in color on the chipping green.   We are one of 10 courses in the US selected to test a "poa annua" control product.  We agreed to treat one sprayer width pass of the chipping green with the product while the other two-thirds is treated as all the other greens.  The two photos below show the discoloration.

 

 

 

I tried to keep up with tradition and gather some of our flowers to make arrangements for the Ladies Tees on 1 & 10 during their Member Guest.  The flowers hold up well throughout the event, but do wilt by mid afternoon.   We also have made 1/2 pink flagsticks and have purchased pink cup liners that add a little something special to our women's and Babe Z events.



Our new theory on replacing divots instead of filling with sand, only works if the divots do get replaced.  Three keepers here on #10 were not replaced and dried.  Our staff is constantly our filling divots with sand and seed, but please try to help by replacing your divot(s). 

Met up with this LUNA MOTH on the right of 14 last week

We tried this product to help us keep our very shallow ponds cleaner.  Without question it has helped tremendously, the ponds are much clearer, have far less algae, and do not have the foul odor they usually have in the summer. 





Random shots taken around the course:

13

turf looking good on new green #15

Sun setting on # 12

New 16

New 15

15

sunset on 12 with irrigation running on tee

 sunset on12 again with irrigation on

Panorama photo of 13 - amazing what quality shots you can get with an iphone

 







Good Morning!



12 Tee looking towards Stamford CT.  Beautiful view.

Things are progressing nicely at the course.  New greens are coming along and on schedule for the Memorial Day weekend projected opening.  All damage to the greens last year has healed and the greens are in fine condition.   Our fairways are dense, and the rough is actually very tough right now due to all of the spring rain.   We are mowing as much as possible to keep it under control while still getting our project work closer to completion.

During the early part of the spring we chose to mow the fairways in a half / half pattern.  The variation in color is provided by the direction the mower travels, as you see in the pictures above the darker color has the mowers coming towards you, and the lighter shows the mower going away from you.   The same occurs when the fairways are striped, the mowers just cut on an angle instead of going around the fairway. 

PLEASE DO NOT DRIVE GOLF CARTS OVER THE BLOCKS AT ANYTIME

We are getting a lot of damage to the blocks that edge the cart paths.  Our new carts have lower transmission casing than our older fleet and they do not clear the blocks.    

  Not only does it damage the block and make for costly repair, but it damages the carts as well.

We have scheduled a mason to repair all the blocks towards the end of May.
  



IHCC WILDLIFE gets a checkup.......

Dr. Goldberg and our very large snapping turtle get to know each other on #2.





New greens continue to improve, sod seems are almost gone.

We have aerated, overseeded and topdressed the new greens twice in the past 3 weeks in preparation for their opening.  They are now being mowed at .195" and we hope to have them at .165" when they open.  Our regular greens are currently mowed at .125" 




Heavy rains continue to make things interesting, we had this 3-3/4" storm wash sod down onto the cartpath on #8.  Thankfully this was a quick fix and the entire hill didn't come down.

We have begun our surrounds project as well, as per our Green Committee recommendation we will be stripping 9' of the mixed grasses in the existing surrounds and replacing it with bluegrass sod.   This will give the greens a very distinct appearance and provide a better and more consistent playing surface.

We are using the sod removed from the surrounds in wear areas near cartpaths.  Here we are repairing the areas near 9 tee with the old surrounds from 1 green.   






Our final bit of info for this update shows the excavator we had hired to replace the broken cesspool on the front lawn of the clubhouse.  The existing pool no longer functioned properly and continually sunk.  the old has been pumped out and filled, the new should provide many years of properly functioning service. 

Thanks for checking in on the blog.   Hope you are all enjoying the golf season so far, I'll see you out there.

 

-JohnnyP

Course update April 30th 2014

Pouring rain and a balmy 41 degrees.   Not really the weather we need to get our course tuned in for the season, but it has allowed us to nearly finish up the 15/16 project without falling too far behind on the rest of the course.  As usual, pictures are worth 1000 words, so have a look and follow along.

Concern had been voiced regarding standing water in the new bunker floors on 15 & 16.  The drainage systems that were installed had been compromised by silt contamination over the winter.  We had to install new lines and hundreds of feet of pipe to get the water to leave the bunkers.  Heavy rain following our procedure proved our work to be successful as no water remained in the bunkers. 


Assistant Supt. Phil Rosati trenching new drain lines for bunkers on 16 

Edis making the first cut on the bluegrass approach to 15 green 

staff repairing drain work on 16

our method of lining bunkers with less expensive landscape fabric keeps the sand clean from upheaving, here it is being installed on the new large fwy bunker on 15. 

liner installation on 15

drainage install on 16. we also lowered the floors in the bunkers by 4-6 inches. 

connecting drain lines in some really sloppy clay soil.  solid pipe was used to avoid contamination in some areas not surrounded by gravel.

edging and finish grading the floor on 16 bunker

Our tree experts from NORSE TREE assisted with the installation of a 20x100 net along the 1st fwy which will hopefully keep some errant shots on our property

Long time employee Miguel Flores repairs irrigation wires that were accidently cut through while installing drain line.



top of the hill on 15 being hydro seeded.  the mix used here will take a while to mature but will be long growing fescues and blue stem that eventually will be blowing in the winds.

we also had the left side of the cartpath on 15 hydroseeded with drought tolerant turf due to lack of irrigation here.

aeration on 15 & 16 green was done to remove cores of clay that the sod was grown on and to allow seed pockets to grow in.

all drain line elevations  were checked with a transit to make certain the water would continually flow down hill and leave the bunkers.    

16 drain installation

even brand new irrigation heads need to be adjusted and tuned

our resident dinosaur...... a monster snapping turtle took a stroll between ponds.

on her way to the pond on #8



regardless of the far below normal temperatures, the course is slowly coming along.....hope to see some 60's soon and have the course enjoyable for all of you.


Thanks for checking in.....see you here soon!
- JohnnyP.

 

 

Project Update....April 15th

 

We have had a few days dry enough to rework the surfaces and lay some sod.   On the weekend of the 12th, the fairway on 15 was sodded to low mow bluegrass, fine fescue was laid on the mounds on 16 and a truckload (13,000sqft) of tall fescue/bluegrass blend was placed in the roughs on 15.

 

Yesterday, 4/14, another truckload was put down on the surrounding rough  on 15.  We also were working on some drainage on the fairway bunker on 15.   We were fortunate to get the work done while the weather was nice as today the rains have returned.  The rain is great for the sod, just hope that tonight's predicted rain is not as heavy as they are forecasting.  The remaining sod is scheduled for this Thursday.  Stay tuned for more project updates....

 

 

 

 

sodding between 15 & 16

sod work 15 & 16 hill

fairway / approach on 15

drainage work on fairway bunker on 15

Miguel working on drain line splices.



sod behind 15 green and around rear bunker

15 - getting close to the end...