Rainy day, office cleaning and painting and.....

Running into many photos from the past 17 years here at IHCC.  Realizing how fast it all goes by and what a great career choice i made by accepting this position back in December of 1995.  



2001 - # 12 from the tee



2003 - # 12 from the tee

What a great and massive project this was.  As much as that land continues to move now, just imagine what it would be like now if the ownership did not take the steps to make this improvement.  I'd have to say that by now, # 12 would be long gone.  Something that should be keeping things in perspective.



Superintendent & Professional - a few years back and most importantly
still great friends.   John & Joe probably back around 2000.   





10 fairway Spring 2011



15 Fairway spring 2011



2006 ad in Golf Course Management - I still stand by this statement! Best investment we've ever made was this vertidrain, deep tine aeration machine.

17th Season coming up and as excited about it as my 1st !

Looking forward to a fantastic 2012. 

Back on # 9 again...

Once the trees were removed, the stumps pulled, the area graded, and the new trees were installed - we took a look at the 9th hole from the tee.  It became very apparent that this is an exceptionally good time to possibly make some progress into the master plan presentation and add a fairway bunker to the 9th hole.

Greens Chairman Nick Pecora was here to see both the removal of the stumps and installation of the new trees.  We then discussed the addition of a fairway bunker and decided to "rough one in".  This meant our talented Assistant, Phil Rosati, (who should have been a golf course shaper - he has incredible vision and ability) could jump on the skid steer and have some fun.   Once the bunker was "roughed in" - sort of a quick, let's see what it looks like idea, I called our PGA pro Joe Laurentino, who promptly jumped in his car to come on over and take a look.  Nick Pecora also made another visit to check it out and while all 4 of us liked it - we all agreed that while a bunker needs to be there, it is not quite right because a bunker should not have a tree between it and the green.   

With that in mind, we changed our thought process a bit, Mr. Pecora thought if the top end of the bunker was more towards the fairway it would reduce the tree's interference.  Back into the skid steer Phil went and with some back and forth conversations and earth moving we changed the one large bunker into two smaller bunkers which would allow for a much larger chance of a ball coming to rest in (what will become) our now expanded and somewhat flatter  fairway extension. 

Once the "rough in" was near completion, I brought our managing owner - YM Yang out to see what we were doing, he thought it was a very good and a well thought out plan and then, after discussing the financial aspect of the project, stamped his approval to move forward. 

As you can now see from the pictures above, the two smaller bunkers on the right have been re-aligned.  The bunker closer to the green was moved nearer the fairway and the lower bunker was condensed to provide more of a landing area.  We also removed the last "bump" in the series of bumps & humps which will also allow for another flatter lie. 

The white lines in the bunkers on the right, allowed us to see the "sand line" from the tee, this insured that the visual of the bunkers from the tee shot was appropriate.  The final product will be fantastic!               

                                   Hoping the weather stays good, so we can keep working!

                 Also wanted to post these shots of #16 looking towards #9 green

             9 green is No longer in sight from the 16th tee due to the addition of 7 large trees on Tuesday

 

      Hope you are all enjoying my blog about what's happening on the links, see you soon!

                                                                         BTW.....

...Nick and the JV boys from SWHS rocked at Newfield yesterday,
Nick had 19 points in the victory

The exceptional weather this winter has allowed us to continue working on projects.  This week we have really accomplished an incredible amount of work on the 9th hole.  On Monday, we had an excavator here to pull out some major stumps on 9 & 10.  Excavator??? think of it this way, baby teeth come out with a little wiggle and tug, wisdom teeth require an "IXTRACTM" visit and surgery.  Same with trees, little trees - no big deal - 70 year old trees have major roots and require Major equipment to do it right.  We had to walk the large machine in on plywood planks so no damage was done on the way in or out.  Once dug, the stumps were so massive that we could only put one in our dump truck at a time, the photo to the left show the monstrous stump being dropped to remove soil.  (No, it didn't land on those legs, but it is a funny photo) The removal procedure took an entire day to pull 13 stumps that would have been directly involved with play areas.  Other stumps out of play will be ground down with a stump grinding machine, hopefully next week - again weather permitting.

On Tuesday, we had local tree experts Conserv-a-Tree come in with their giant tree spade.  They were able to move 7 trees for us from out of the way areas to the rough between 9 & 16.   Some trees as tall as 25 feet were placed carefully to provide separation of the two holes.  Three large Red Cedars were placed further up the 9th fairway to block out the view of 9 green from 16 tee, a really huge improvement.  Sr Staffer Miguel Flores jumped in so we could show you the size of the transplant holes.

                                            Thanks for following the blog, more info soon.



Smithtown's Nick Paquette skys to block shot by No. Babylon player

                                        Big Hoop game today for Nick and Crew...Go Bulls!!!  

Whaddya do all winter???

What do you do all winter?  Well, we do a lot with a little help.  This winter our staff totals 5.

We are not in the Caribbean, though we certainly would like to be.  (Maybe for a week at some point...maybe not) 

On staff besides me is our Assistant, Phil - Mechanic, Pat - Foreman - Lisandro, and Senior Staffer - Miguel.

Here is a small portion of the list of things that we need to do over winter:



My new plates...dedication or crazy? Probably both!



Blow out the irrigation system, root prune, tree work, bring in every single accessory from the course, make repairs...paint, every single accessory from the course, vinyl guard the trap rakes, vinyl guard the flagsticks, verti drain all tees and greens, topdress tees and greens, verti drain fwys until the ground is frozen, try to get some projects done,  pressure wash every piece of equipment, make repairs and service every piece of equipment, chase the geese off the course 5 or 6 times a day, prepare budgets and fight for them, plow and snow blow the snow if there is some, help Bob with Christmas decorations - putting them up and taking them down, sand and seal the benches, keep the grounds at the clubhouse clean, treat the golf course for winter diseases, repair the fences that the neighborhood folks tear to the ground to go sleigh riding, make repairs to the greens that the neighborhood folks ruin while sleigh riding, yeah....just try to keep them off the course - i've been cursed at, spit at, and the best was a high school field trip that actually came in a bus to sleigh ride on #3 green and after calling the school and the cops....getting nowhere, because one of the folks sleigh riding was a cop and he told me to go F myself, because he's been sleigh riding here since he was a kid and wasnt about to stop now, should I continue....ok, sharpening all the reels and bedknives, cleaning the shops, winterizing the sprayers, split and stack wood when its too cold to do other work, ok anyway i think you get the idea.  Seeing we got a snow storm on saturday, i had to reach a bit for this weeks update...nonetheless there is no slacking off around here.

On the enjoyment side I coach an AAU U-14 Long Island Lightning Basketball team, which had 2 Championships under its belt during our 1st season, season 2 about to get under way this February.  Looking for 2 "bigs" if anybody has a 6'5" or bigger freshman looking to play - pleeeeeeease let me know.  Also, following my son Nick through the HS hoop curcuit. Currently Nick, a Smithtown West freshman - who worked here this past summer, is leading the 8-2 JV team with 18ppg avg.  He also plays for another AAU team (Team Express) which should be headed to the Nationals this summer in Orlando. 

Also must mention, I'll be rooting for my Patriots vs most of your Giants.  (Remember, I am from Massachusetts and am passionately attached to my NewEngland sports teams, we suffered for many many many many years and I will enjoy the good times while painfully enduring the not quite so good times)  this Superbowl is going to be a lot of fun!  I hope......

thanks again for tuning in.......

if you haven't checked it out, for the best eat at home food available...please do

www.myrastellidirect.com/roxpaq   huge sale on Porterhouse steaks, had them over the weekend. OMG, so good!

    

Thanks for tuning in, this is winter update #2  1/17/12  JohnnyP

Very exciting to be able to get so much done over the past few weeks.   Got some great news from our owners who approved the beginning of a proper greens drainage program!!!  We will be hiring Golf Preservations Inc, a greens drainage company based in Pinesville Kentucky.  They have done some great work all over the USA and here on LI they have drained greens at Deepdale, Fresh Meadows, Huntington CC and the Cresent Club, as well as the Creek.  We will start our program doing 4 greens the first year and trying to continue at that pace until they are all properly draining. Trying to set dates this week, will let you know when we are confirmed.                   

             The 3 most important things on a golf course:
              1). Drainage,  2). Drainage and..... 3).Drainage. 

We've had our tree company (Norse Tree) here this past week cleaning up some work too big for us to do in house. Next time you step on 17 tee, you will notice that the a lot of the clutter has been removed.  Very little air circulation or sunlight was seen by that tee.  Also extreme competition for water from nearby trees made it hard for that tee to survive.  And just as importantly, golfers no longer need to "thread the needle" when hitting a tee shot, more specifically those playing the championship tees.  While still a very demanding tee shot, it is now a fair tee shot.

(Anyone need a good tree guy? Erik @ Norse is excellent (473-TREE) and tell him you got his name from me)

The 9th tee has also had tree work done on it, removing a few very large trees from the right side of the tee.  By doing so we should be able to re-align the tee so it faces the center of the fairway and not the right side of the fairway and a huge bonus to that project is that #2 could possibly be played from #9 Gold tee!  This photo on the right is that view of #2 from #9 Gold tee >>>>>>>>>>

Also, our staff has done an incredible cleanup of all the brush on the left of 14th tees.  Years of overgrown brush had made that narrow passage not only ugly to look at but certainly unplayable.  This spring, we will make a few non- selective herbicide applications to make sure weeds will not grow there, and then hydroseed the bank with a blend of Fescues. 

 

Those of you who may not have been here after the first of November will notice that the valley of the 2nd green has been raised by 18".  This will allow for many new pin placements in the middle section.  We also added extensive drainage to that section of the Biarittz green and now it is firm and dry.  The work done is what was approved by the owners to alleviate some of the concerns about that extreme green. >>>>>>>>>>>

Also, We have a mountain of nice clean woodchips in the club parking lot. If anyone wants some, bring a truck and we will load them for you. 

 just call my office 757-0555. 

and....seeing this is my blog and not an official IHCC product.

Please check out my wife's website for some great deals on the

absolute best Steaks available, you'll be glad you did! 

 www.myrastellidirect.com/roxpaq 

thanks, stay tuned......

Winter Work at IHCC

Lots of action from our reduced maintenance staff this winter, as mother nature has been very accommodating.  We have done extensive root pruning where damage from tree roots is occurring.  We were able to access a trenching machine with which we have been able to root prune many areas.  Normally this would be done with the pipe pulling blade, leaving just a small slit.  But, roots were so thick in most areas that we had to use the trencher to power through them.  As you will see from the photos, the roots were so heavily massed that it has been very difficult to grow quality turf because the tree roots could easily out compete the grass roots for water and nutrients.  Our arborist explained tree rooting to me this way; " turn a tree upside down, and double the size - that's how far the roots can reach".

Extensive tree work is now underway.  At the club we have thousands of trees, many of which are injured, damaged, broken, or just over grown for their current position.  On a private golf course where quality turf is a necessity, often trees are doing more harm than good.  We try our best to have the best of both worlds, but turf comes first and we are taking strides to improve

wherever possible.  

We have removed a number of Black Cherry trees that were on the right edge of #9 fairway.  These trees restricted cart traffic and their roots made it nearly impossible to keep the hill alive during summer months.  We intend to widen the fairway in the landing zone and have pruned the 3 remaining trees to insure their health.  We will be having the stumps removed to stretch the fairway and will be adding nearly a dozen Red Cedar trees between 16 tee and 9 fairway to provide separation of the 2 holes. 

Stay tuned......