Monday, April 19, 2010

Course Conditions

We managed to get the greens aerification completed last week and lucked out on the weather. Mondays first assessment concluded that it was going to rain out once again but the skies cleared and we went for it. Although it was a late start we still managed to complete 16 greens with one aerifier and completed the remaining four the next day. We used the 3/8's quad tine this round and the results were exceptional. By the looks of the parking lot throughout the week it appears the event didn't hamper the golfers one bit.
We will be aerifying the fairways next but ran into a glitch with the Kubota. We discovered a large split in one of the back tires and felt it was not safe to run it until we replace it. We ordered two new ones last week and should have them soon. Our sand pile will be filled this week as well as it took quite a bit to do the greens and the tees.
We will be fertilizing the greens this week with Nature Safe 8-3-5 . This is an organic fertilizer that has various meat by product meals which provide nitrogen that will slowly release over a 7 to 8 week period. We have used this product now for quite a few years and have seen excellent results, especially following aerification.

While exploring the ponds and the naturalized areas last week I stumbled across an interesting site. As I approached, a hen duck left her nest which naturally rose my curiosity. When I looked inside I noticed a golf ball. What was even more interesting, when I came back the next day to take a picture of it I noticed that she was turning it like the rest of the eggs as part of the incubation process. This ball happened to be a Nike One Black. Doesn't it figure a duck would choose the Nike:)

Ducklings are always a nice sign of spring as are the blooms on the trees and the native flowers. Here is a picture of the dogwood along the fifteenth fairway and one of the Balsam plants flowering between the third and eleventh tee boxes.

The clubhouse project is moving along. We had a small delay due to compaction issues but that has been rectified and they should have the foundation poured by this Wednesday. The plan is to be moving the building in on the 26th. If all goes well we should be able to occupy the building the week of the 10th. Once the building is up we will be able to dress up the landscape and put everything back together again. It will be a chore as all the irrigation lines have been cut and will have to be re-routed and repaired.

One other project got completed last week and that was a thorough cleaning and testing of all of our irrigation satellites. Western Equipments Toro irrigation technician, John Hassler came out and put all the controllers through the riggers and cleaned them to as good as new. He did a fantastic job from the looks of this controller on twelve.