Spring? has sprung...... well, at least on the calendar.

Sunrise at the maintenance facility - 1st day of spring is here



but.... 13 tee still has snow.



13 fairway....still has snow.

turf on our greens looks GREAT coming out of winter!



Verti-Draining (deep tine aerating) all our greens

3/4" wide x 11" deep

Verti-Drain depth 11"

spacing pattern

cleaning up our fairways,  dragging goose droppings to break them up, then blown to the rough

March 10th Update....still Very Wintery.

Our North Shore location has been pounded this winter by heavy snow storms.  Last weekend I was on the South Shore and golf was being played, some courses even had their greens open, but here, we are not even close.  Our shaded areas, such as # 1 and # 13, are still 100% snow covered.  South facing slopes are free of snow.  Hopefully, the temperatures will stay over freezing this week and we can get some serious melting underway.

Here are a few photos from Last Month.....

Plowing....again, and again.

14 fairway

12, always a nice view, even when white

12 green to tee

Ugh...not again.

 

looking across 5 fwy from maintenance area

 

 

The Canadian geese, who annually use Fresh Pond as their winter palace, have ravaged all exposed turf areas.   As their food supply was close to nil due to snowcover, once any grass became exposed they literally ate it to the ground.  We spent many hours chasing thousands, no joke - thousands, of geese off the property only to return in the morning and see them right back at it.   Unfortunately, the end process of their ingesting our turf leads to a heck of a mess.  Truthfully, every square foot of turf without snow on it is covered with goose droppings.   This mess can not be cleaned
up until it dries and with all the melting that is coming - that may be a while.



Grass goes in.......and well, you know the rest.



 

#7 fairway on Saturday March 8th

#7 fairway again -  this taken on March 10th.    Significant meltdown.  

lots of tree damage from the heavy weight of the snow. 

Our winter work, done with minimal staff - ranged from repairing our maintenance building where we were able, to overhauling all of our old equipment and grinding (sharpening) many, many reels and bedknives

. 

    

  We Are VERY Ready to get back at it on the course......hope to see you all soon!

 

 

Seeing that the weather has tossed a stop order on our project, as a proud father I share this:

 

 

Keep up the good work my boy!   Keep the college phone calls coming!

 



Sod update 12/6/13

The 3" pre-Thanksgiving rain was tough to overcome, keeping our predominately clay soils too wet to work with for a good part of 4 days.  On Tuesday the 3rd, with sod scheduled for Wednesday the 4th, we were able to buff out most of the surrounds to a point were we would be able to begin laying sod on weds.   We had 16,000 sqft of A1-A4 bentgrass shipped in from Southern NJ and began the installation process on the greens once again - on schedule.  The greens sod was completely installed by the contractors (DeLea Sod) team by 3pm on Wednesday.  The fact that the green surfaces were completed was a huge relief as that is certainly the number one priority area.  Irrigation installation was extensive and we all worked with and right behind Friends Irrigation getting it all done in 3 days.  Our coverage went from 6 heads per green complex to between 15 & 20, proper irrigation is will be a huge help to our success.

 

 

Me on Thanksgiving day, spent 7 hours pumping out the bunkers that were silted up due to 3" of rain.


Golf Pro Joe Laurentino commented after a visit to our muddy site : "Boy, after walking through that mud today on # 15, I REALLY realized what horrible soil the course is built on."

Rich Friend and his guys getting started on pipe installation



over 30,00 feet of wire was run into the ground

 

 

Early morning on Thursday we received a tiny bit of rain - approximately 1/10th of an inch.  Unfortunately, this was enough to wreak havoc for the rest of the installation.  Our bare clay soils acted as if they were coated in an inch of grease and made the install so difficult on 15 that we had to delay any further work as we did not want to create more damage.   16 was nearly completed as the soils there we just a little better to work on. We will need to do quite a bit of rolling and topdressing to the fairway area, but it will be fine. 

 

A large amount of pictures with captions will follow, enjoy.

 

we used a kelp/seaweed product to assist the sod with rooting, very expensive, but it works better than anything else.



15 green



15 green



15 green, approximately 9.5 pallets of 750 sqft were put in place



15 halfway



the crew worked on plywood to no damage sod that was already in place



A1-A4 sod



pallets lined up and ready to go.....wishing the sun stays out



15 just about done



green completed on 15

16 irrigation still going in as the sod begins

16

irrigation continues, sod flying

16 - cranking it out

16

15 from the landing zone

16 - very little wasted

halfway on 16

16 green  surface completed

surrounds starting / fairway too

16 -  view from 9 green

16 back bunker - view from halfway house

16

16

16

16 - progressing nicely under the eyes of GC Architect Kelly Moran (red) and Shaper Kevin Nolan 

16 from halfway house

16

16 from 9 green

16 

16

16 from behind the green

3 different types of turfgrasses were used in the sod process.  Our greens, similarly to the renovated 2 & 9, were grassed with A1-A4 bentgrass.   The fairway areas were sodded to "low-mow" varieties of Kentucky blue-grass (as were 12 &13 fairway back in 2003).  The roughs and bunker banks are being grassed with turf type Tall Fescue/Bluegrass blend and finally the mounds to the right of 16 as well as the top half of the ridge separating 15 & 16 will be hydro-seeded with a blend of fescues that will remain unmowed and beautifully blowing in the wind once matured.

 

 

Thanks again for tuning in....more to follow as we get past this next 4 day stretch of bad weather....at least the greens are done!!!

-JohnnyP IHCC