Monday, December 27th, 2010

Course Conditions
Last week I saw a special with Alaska Airlines to the Hawaiian Islands for $139! Anyone interested? Boy how tempting that is. What I would give for a little tropical weather right now.
The good news is the days have begun to get longer and spring will be here before we know it. In the mean time snow is once again in the forecast toward the end of the week. Like the rest of the forecasts, I'm sure it will never materialize and the "Tip Bowl" will go off without a hitch on Friday.
We will be a little short handed this week with Brian and Mike taking some much deserved time off. We will mainly be focusing on small projects and will probably mow the greens on Thursday to prepare for Friday's tournament. The weather may become a factor later and we will time the mowing accordingly.

Last week the crew got into the bunker on four and repaired the drainage. It is interesting as we dig up the drain lines on all of the backed up systems. We always seem to find issues that may have been prevented in the construction process. The bunker on number one was simply a grade issue along with a smashed pipe. This latest bunker on four revealed a trench that was dug much to deep and was back filled with loose soil resulting in a lot of sediment which plugged the line. The trench seemed to be fine until a certain point where it simply dove down way to deep. (You can see just beyond where the rake is crossing the trench.) What the guys ended up doing was filling the bottom of the trench with 3/4 minus to where the the natural grade should have been and from there they reassembled the piping. All seems to be working well now.

Our next project will be the bunker at the eleventh green. We are pretty sure it is just plugged and will need to have the sand removed and the drain line cleaned.
Another small project this week will be to clear some of the alders that are in the line sight off the 15th tee. We hope to be able to clear the tee shot for the fourteenth during the Tip Bowl.

This week Steve will continue to work on the cart path bollards. Last week Mark and Doug delivered the posts and Steve heated up the branding iron and put his touch on them. All they need now is some re bar set in the base and they will be ready to go.

Finally, as I make my last post of 2010, I hope all that have been following have found this to be an interesting and informative blog. What began as a weekly report to Total Golf Management Services in a Word document, evolved into a blog that has provided me with the means of not only communicating with the stake holders of Stone Creek Golf Club but also a wide range of peers and customers. Blogging for me has become a part of my routine as it has with many other superintendents across the country. If you have only been following Stone Creek I would recommend checking out some of the other superintendent blogs. It is interesting seeing what other courses are doing out there and it provides an interesting perspective and opportunity to see what is happening behind the scenes at their courses.

Best wishes to all and may golf prosper in 2011!