Clubhouse Fowers

This year was an excellent year for all of our spring flowers around the club.  Here are few photos of everything in case you were away or just want to see them again.

Better Billy Bunker Trial Bunkers

We were able to have the Better Billy Bunker company come out and install their product on three of our bunkers.  My reasoning for doing this was to use the time between now and when a renovation is done, to see if this method of bunker lining is really is as great as everyone says it is.  We spend more time and money on our bunkers than any other part of the golf course other than the greens.  Even with all of these added resources, we still are not satisfied with their quality.
  Many courses have started implementing the Better Billy Bunker process at their courses because of the rave reviews it has received and amount of labor it cuts down on in the bunkers each day.  In a typical installation, a contractor would have to come in and remove all of the existing sand, check performance of the existing drainage lines, add a 2" layer of stone, spray the epoxy, then go through the process of adding new sand back to the bunker.  Because this is a trial we did all of this work with our own crew other than the spraying in of the epoxy liner.  Below is the process:

All the existing sand has already been removed and a blanket of gravel has been installed.  Typically a bunker does not have this stone layer.

Stone layer before epoxy liner.



Signs placed around bunkers to keep golfers from entering to retrieve golf balls.

Better Billy Bunker crew arrives and uses a meter to check moisture.  If stone is not dry they cannot apply epoxy.



Smoothing out footprints from a few that entered bunker to retrieve golf ball.

Process of applying epoxy begins.

Applying epoxy liner to stone

Epoxy application complete.

Circled bunker and placed several signs around outside to keep golfers from walking on new liner.

Caution tape and signs to keep golfers out while material dries.

Better Billy Bunker crew returns following day to perform quality control.

Some one didn't see the caution tape and signs.  The circles are footprints and places that had to be redone.

Applying epoxy by hand to the damaged areas.

Measuring square footage

We soaked this area for several minutes to see if it would puddle.  Everything drained away immediately.

We begin to add new sand.

New sand added.

Spreading sand by hand.

We remove all the attachments from the bunker rake to pack everything in with the tires.

We also use hose to wet the sand while we are compacting it.

We will come back and add more sand and continue to pack these bunkers over the next few days. 

Spring Aerification 2013 follow-up

We decided to aerify the greens this year about 2 weeks earlier than we have in the past.  By doing this we realized that the heal in may take a little longer if the weather did not cooperate.  However, even with a little longer heal in period we could be completely ready when the warmer weather arrived and have very little affect on the beginning of the golf season.  Everything has gone well for the heal in process, but the cold has not been great for trying to grow back in the holes.  The warm days forecast ahead should go ahead and complete the process though.  I looked back on the weather from the last two years to compare the temperatures and sunny days.

As you can see below our heal in has taken about two weeks longer than last year to this point.  Looking back at those 80 degree days in 2012 compared to all of the 40 & 50 degree days this year though easy explains that to us.  This year, due to the cold temps we really didn't benefit from going so early, so we will evaluate everything again for next year.  The photos below show the difference between last year and this year.

10 days after aerification LAST year

 

10 days after aerification LAST year



24 days after aerification THIS year

24 days after aerification THIS year

Puzzling irrigation leak

Again back to irrigation issues.  WE've had a leak that we have not been able to find for a long time now.  We could watch as the irrigation pumps pumped water out from the lake but we could not find the location.  The rain made it even tougher to pinpoint a wet spot.  Well we finally found the leak and were able to make the proper repairs.  Take a look below to see where the pipe had burst.

Looks like an obvious wet spot.  Should have been easy to find right?

Zooming out shows a lot of weeds and debris near the sprinkler

The spinkler is located in there

Near the base of that power pole is the sprinkler head

 

This was obviously an old sprinkler that was left during a renovation.  It was nearly impossile to find because it was on any plans and had not been used in probably 15 years.

Irrigation battles continue

Making repairs to our aging and failing irrigation system continues to be our biggest time and man power consumer every week.  We dedicate at least 2 workers to digging up and repairing irrigation leaks and other issues just about every week now.  This really eats into being able to use them around the course to make improvements that are more apparent to the golfers.  A lot of our issues are due to a particular fitting that was used extensively throughout our course as well as many many courses that were being constructed during that time.  These Pierce fittings were a ductile fitting with an enamel coating.  This is great as long as the coating is not compromised.  It seems as though during the installation process the fitting would get nicked on a rock and it would invite the rust process to start.  Now we are definitely in the window where they all seem to be breaking through the rusted nicks that were formed years ago.

Here are two leaks we dug up over the last few weeks and they were both due to these rusted fitings.

Behind #9 green

 

 

The rusted out hole is cirlced in red



#14 green with the same rusted spot on the fitting

The Worst Day Ever

Here a few pictures of situations that have made my stomach turn over the years when I pulled up to them.  The best part about each of them though, is having a staff that can get them corrected and back in shape.

Shirtless golfer chipping balls on the lower putting green.

Torrential downpour during construction of the Par 3 course. These are the tees on #7 and they were basically destroyed.

Geyser irrigation blow-out in #2 fairway

Large pine tree laying on the back of #9 green.

Large rough mower down in creek on #4

Old silver maple spontaneously combusted



Major irrigation leak in rough on #5