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

Missing a sand wedge??

I've never seen this before. #18 tee this morning.

Upside down lids

If you happen to notice one of the lids to an underground valve box turned upside down you may try to give us a hand and turn it over. Thanks for trying to lend a hand but this was done for a reason. Anytime we close a valve on the course we will turn the lids/tops upside down so that if another 'fire' breaks out somewhere else on the course that pulls us away from that area we can easily go back and identify what has already been closed.

Just when the greens were perfect...

Spring Aerification 2013.

Typically on the day of aerification we get started before the sun comes up in order to get everything wrapped up and ready for play as soon as possible.  This year however, the weather threw us a little curve.  Because of the freezing temps on Sunday night we were not able to get going until 8:45 and then on Tuesday some severe weather rolled through and shut the operation down for the day.  We made some tweaks to our operation (after the machine sunk into the green this past Fall) and everything went as well as possible given our weather hurdles.

The drill crew comes in and drills holes that go down about 10 inches. 

 

After the drill crew leaves the green our crew comes in and aerifies.



One man follows behind each machine and scoops up anything that is left behind.

 

The 'U'-shaped box behind the aerifier is our tweak this time.  It drags the plugs off to the side of the green.  It worked great.

#4 green.  You can see both machines and all the crew members on the green cleaning up.

The plugs are left on the edge of the green in piles that are picked up and hauled away.



Kyle wanted this picture taken to show reference. 

Next 4 different fertilizers are added so that they can fall down into the open holes.

After the fertilizers the greens are topdressed heavily with sand.

Behind the sand comes the orange brush drag. (forgot to take a picture this year)



The hand brooms.  This has been the best way to fill every hole completely.

A few little mounds are left so they are scooped up and spread lightly across the green.

Then we use a mat made of coconut fibers.  It gets the sand smoothed back out.

 

The last step is to roll the greens to smooth out any humps created during the process.

We then come back and repeat several of the steps a few more times to get everything just right.  We were able to get the front nine almost ready before the large rain storm hit on Tuesday and brought everything to a halt.  Today we got back out in some pretty cold temperatures and the process pretty close to complete.