Snow mold and equipment care........

So today I finished up the snow mold prevention application on the greens. I also tank mixed a plant protectant to help prevent winter dessication. I usually have this down by Thanksgiving but the weather before Thanksgiving was really nice and then the week after Thanksgiving I handwatered greens instead. Then we got some snow and I had to wait for that to melt to put the finishing touches on the golf course for the winter.

I also picked up the front nine flags and some other stray furniture which makes the course open for winter play only. That means no carts and no play on the front side.

When we bring these pieces in for cleaning it has become quite the process. This sprayer will take about 12 hours to clean. The tank gets cleaned with muriatic acid. If I cleaned something at my house I would use acid; it works pretty good to get rid of chemical stains.

During the cleaning, especially on the sprayer, I make notes of parts that need to be repaired or fixed. The sprayer this year will get all new spray tips and I repaired a function that I have been living without during the season, but kinda missed it. I also have a part to replace that I got caught on a tree limb back in August and a few inexpensive parts to fix on the booms. Otherwise this piece of equipment has been running very well for us and is heading into its 8th year with just short of 1000 hours.

winter work

During the winter the cutting units on the mowers are taken apart, cleaned, de-greased, and moving parts are replaced if needed. After the reels are reassembled we grind the reel and bedknife.

We have 35+ reels here and each reel is in a maintenance rotation because the work is time consuming and we have found that a tear down is required every 3 years except on certain pieces which get the treatment everyother year.

All the reels get sharpened during the offseason and our maintenance schedule seems to find problems before they are problems saving us from in season breakdowns.

winter?

Usually by Thanksgiving we have gotten enough weather in either snow or rain form to shut the course down for the winter. But this year the nice weather just keeps coming and unfortunatly your grass really needs some rain.

Today I am out handwatering the new sod and starting a few greens. Each green gets about 500 gallons of water or more and that should give us another two to three week window to wait for either rain or snow. Tank watering is a painfully slow way to water.

Irrigation blowout.............

Next week Monday we will be starting the annual irrigation blowout. The process takes about 3.5 days.

This week we mowed all the short grass one last time and then pulled all the reels off of the traction units. So I dont plan to mow anymore this season. The bathrooms should be winterized and shut down for the season by the weekend. Most of the rakes, t-signs, tee markers, ballwashers, etc. have been brought indoors too.

Following blowout we still need to make our snowmold application and topdress the greens. We also will be working on the leaf harvest, but that has been a waiting game as the trees are not dropping leaves real fast yet.

New tees????

Here are some new locations for ladies tees in 2012. Hole #6 could be 50+ yards shorter (125 yards) and #16 could be as much as 60 yards shorter (120 yards) than the current tee boxes if this project is approved.

I have often believed that the ladies tees were positioned too far back and also believe that the tee space on our par 3's is too small. The construction of new tee's on these two par 3's allow for more tee space for the men and a more comfortable hole for the ladies.

My plan is to cut these areas down to tee height (did that today as you can see in the pictures) and when construction begins save the sod so the tee can be put into play as soon as possible. We want to excavate a larger area then you see in the picture so we can elevate the tee slightly and of course be left with a flat tee.

No time table is set for this project because it has not been approved yet. I would like to get #16 done early in the summer and #6 (requires more fill) completed late summer or early fall.

#8 drainage project complete.................

The drainage project on #8 is complete. The fairway lines have been adjusted and we will be evaluating the playability of the new fairway lines through the spring of next year. My current plan is to maintain this area at 1 and 1/4 inch.

We are also working on building 1 and maybe 2 new tees next year on #6 and #16 for the women. While nothing is approved I will be working on exact placement, size, and distance heading into the winter months.

#8 drainage

Today we trenched our drain lines, put in the drain tile with pea gravel, and put in some transfer boxes. There is about 100 ft of tile left to be laid and we should get to that Monday and complete our finish grade. If it stays dry I hope to get the sod finished next week too.

Today we trimmed some trees around the property. This is a before and after picture of one limb we trimmed that was hanging over #1 fairway. A member requested it be removed and I couldnt see why it needed to stay.

It would be better for the future if I took before and after photos from the same spot and with the same camera. It would make the differences a little easier to see.

#8 drainage project update.....

This project stalled out because of the rain last night. The rain did gives us a chance to check our work before we start trenching in our drainage system. I am shooting for starting our trenching on Friday this week.

#8 drainage project......

Here is the start of the drainage project across #8 fairway. Today we stripped and hauled away the old sod and started moving some dirt around to improve the surface drainage. We also located the irrigation lines. We probably wont hit any of those when we start putting in our subsurface drainage.

If things dry up on the site we could get most of our grading finished tomorrow and start trenching on Wednesday.

tee adjustment............

Wednesday we repainted and adjusted some tees around the course. Some of them have become much to small and even though they are free form tees a couple of them were a little too "free form."

10 or more years ago when I was here it would take me 4 and 1/2 hours to mow tees and collars and now it is taking people 3 hours. Something must have changed and it isn't the mower. This picture is of #6 and I know that it excites everyone that this tee got moved back another 5 yards but if this adjustment allows us to use more of the existing tee then we have accomplished our goal. Our goal is to have flat tees, good grass to hit from, and be able to follow the basic rules for tee setup. One of those rules being the tees should be placed no closer to the back of the tee than two club lengths.

Wednesday we trenched a new drainage line from the wash pad to another "drain field" or ditch. The area around the wash pad was not draining and all the water was starting to limit access to the shop and ruin the surrounding turf. This project should be finished up soon. To further improve the drainage we might add some drainage units to catch the grass clippings before the go into our drainage system.

#1 cart path exit............

The cart path exit on #1 was more than a little rough so at a member's request we fixed it. First we saw cut the end and then we used some of these old pavers that were donated to the club some time ago. We still have enough of these pavers to fix the exit on #2 cart path.

some small fall projects...............

our bentgrass nursery - The stripped area in the picture will be put into bluegrass this fall which we will be used for some fairway leveling next spring and early summer.

#11 collar repair - This year we are using bentgrass from our L-93 nursery which might help our success rate as this particular spot gets very hot in the summer. This coming week we will be finishing some fairway aerification and overseeding, sodding a small area on #12 collar, making a fall broadleaf application around bunkers and the perimeters of the golf course, and detailing trees for the final time this season.

#14 fairway regrade and sod project

On Wednesday we were able to get sod and finish the fairway project on #14. I also ordered enough sod to sod the new cart path edge on #17. The project went well and in a few weeks we will start the work on #8 which will include sub-surface drainage, surface drainage, and more sod. Big rolls of sod cost $1.05 per yard plus about $100 for delivery if we can keep the amount small enough to avoid the semi.

The remainder of the season this area will be mowed to 1 and 1/4 inch and next year in the spring we will re-draw the fairway to include this new area.

Once the sod is healed in along the cart path traffic will be able to continue as normal, but for now the best option is for cart traffic to vary the entry points and avoid the wettest parts of the new sod.

On Monday we will be deep-tining the greens and the course will be closed. The remainder of the week will be spent monitoring green recovery and repairing a few bad spots on collars #12 and #11 with our nursery bentgrass. If time allows I will also be addressing the exit point on #1 and #2 cart paths. We have a pallet of old pavers left over from a project and we will use those to make a smooth transition from path to turf.

Green adjustments........

This week we started to adjust some of our green edges and fairway edges. Most green edges were adjusted to the outside by 2 to 6 inches depending on the green. The process is simple. I take a 5 foot piece of pvc and put it on the edge of the bluegrass or perimeter cut and put a paint dot on the green. In a perfect world the mowers would never miss their line and the adjustments would not be needed, but its hard to mow good on Saturday and Sunday morning when you slept in the parking lot.

The fairway adjustment are a little more abstract. I am trying to put each row of irrigation heads in the fairway. This is not possible on all the holes, but most fairways are being expanded in one spot or another.

We will also be going through all the tee complexes this fall to make any needed changes to the free flowing tees here at Hillcrest.

#14 fairway project...............

I could not take it anymore and decided I had to repair the uneven areas on #14 fairway that hold water way too long after even small rains. The areas hold water for so long ducks were starting to gather. Still on the late summer project list are repairs to a couple of collar areas, some more fairway interseeding, a number of stump holes to either seed or sod, and a couple of very small green surrounds to sod. I had to squeeze #14 in somewhere and this was the week.

October is reserved for adding sub surface drainage and re grading #8 fairway.

The lay of the land didnt leave a lot of options as far as subsurface drainage is concerned so basically we raised the area by about 3 inches and graded the section smooth with the surrounding fairway. On Friday we will be laying the sod.

This was a trial run for a couple of other areas that give us trouble coming out of spring and #14 has plenty of depressions and poorly drained areas that should be addressed, but this section is a nice start and fits our sod budget.

What a storm..........

OK, so we did not really need that. I dont know how much hail we got but I know it did plenty of damage to the greens, trees, and the flowers.

Today we did the leaf harvest around the pro shop and clubhouse, cleared all cart paths, backpacked all 20 greens, backpacked all tee complexes, and blow about 1/3 of the fairways.

Pat cleaned off the roof and we had a crew putting an effort into the pool but alas it was decided that it should be closed for the season as only a handful days remained on the schedule.

We double verticut the greens and then mowed them. They look good from the fairway, but not so much when you stand on them. The hail beat them up pretty bad but dont expect recovery to take too long either. We mowed about 1/3 of the fairways today and quite a little rough.

Tomorrow the game plan is to mow the greens and topdress the greens. Mow the collars and approaches and blow off some more fairways. Sunday we are going to roll the greens and backpack blow out the bunkers and on Monday we will start chopping leaves in the rough and putting back the bunkers. We will also send out a tree crew and at least look into draining the pool (that doesnt make the pool sound very high on the priority list does it, but it is up there, for real).

The olde girl will be back in shape before you know it. Have a good riverboat Days.

Extra water..............

What a nice picture.

With monthly rain totals not even reaching a .5 inch and multiple days with temps in the high 90's and 100's we started putting down some supplemental water where irrigation coverage is either light or impeded by trees. I like to turn these heads on for about 2 or 3 hours and then fertilize them. All the areas are in the rough and some water and food now will hasten their recovery when cooler temperatures and rain return.

This happened................

Saturday night of the Pro-Am we were up against a rain delay and it was a fore gone conclusion that some fairway mowing would have to be finished in the morning despite the fact that one of our units does have headlights. Then less than 1 hour into our mowing a hose broke making a beautiful stripe done the 12th fairway and pulled both mowers in because we didnt not have that particular hose in inventory.

The operator did everything right after he saw the leak and the hose broke where our technicians could not have seen the worn hose. Not exactly the straightest line he ever laid down though:)

Tee and approach aerification...............

Following the Pro-Am we started aerifying the tees and approaches on the golf course. We choose this time to do this labor intensive and important task for a number of reasons. One, it is the best time of year to aerify and avoid more poa growing into the voids in the turf. Second, our recovery time is very fast compared to moving aerification into October. And third, we have the man power to complete the project and really limit the amount of golfer interruption.

The process starts with pulling the plugs and then backpacking the cores off the rough onto the tee or approach. After some dry time our core harvester picks up the plugs and then we backpack blow off the remaining debris. Then we fertilize and water and the next day we roll if needed and mow.

Our game plan this year was to do about six holes per day starting with holes near the clubhouse on Monday. Tuesday we worked on certain holes to avoid interrupting any ladies and saving certain holes to avoid the back nine senior league shotgun on Wednesday. We did great on Monday and Tuesday but a few groups of seniors did have to fight some plugs on two approaches
Wednesday morning.

Next week we will start aerifying and interseeding fairways and again we will be doing our best to aviod disturbing golfers.

A couple of thank you's

Often throughout the course of the growing season members lend their personal talents or equipment to help us complete a project, give us material, or save a crew members thumb (it wasnt that bad).

For the cart path project on #17 we borrowed a local contracters plate packer to pack the base course for the concrete and when a full truck didnt quite finish the cart path the last two yards came for free. I certainly appreciate the help and while almost all of these donation go unmentioned they dont go unnoticed.

When we put up the new canopies this spring we got to borrow a contractors dyna lift which would have cost a little to rent and added a couple of hours to the task. The best part about that was now I am a licensed operator if I need to hang some trusses. I think the only thing you need to know about hanging trusses is how to drive the dyna lift. Right?

And today, I was pretending to be a mechanic and tried to remove my thumb from my hand. I finished up my morning work and was still losing blood so I stopped over at the doctors house for some stitches and a medical demit from my 2:20 tee time today. I sure appreciate the time and money savings to patch me up.

I know I have probably forgotten someone or some act of kindness to our crew, but we really do appreciate the help. We work hard for you and that kindness makes it worth the effort.

Another cottonwood goes down. We also cut down two birch trees this week on the back nine. I notice about two or three more cottonwoods that will be cut down sometime before next season and I am shooting for the removal of at least two Russian Olives near the range before summer staff leaves for school.

During this heat wave it is just to hot for tree work and with night time lows dipping into the 80's we have really been monitoring our night time water and that is why you may see some day time overhead irrigation in the fairways. We have also been out handwatering and that will continue as the heat passes and we get a little more aggressive with the greens heading into Pro-Am preparations.

Now what are we doing.......................

Once again this week we are very busy battling disease, weather, and trying to finish up a couple of projects on the golf course. We topdressed again this Monday with another very light amount of sand and mother nature watered it in Monday night. We also topdressed the tees and approaches. Topdressing has so many benefits and one of them being to protect the crown of the plant and prevent scalping. So mornings after a heavy rain (Tuesday) the consistent and regular topdressing allow us to safety mow greens in less than ideal situations.

Monday we sprayed all the fairways (12 hours) with a grub preventative. The insecticide takes about one month to set up and since we normally start to see grub damage during the middle of August our goal is to complete our application by July 15th. We also had a bunch of debris down from the wind storm which required more man hours than anticipated.

The forecast is not nice as we work our way into the weekend so I am going to make a budgeted fungicide application on all tees and fairways hopefully before the weekend. This application could fight off disease for up to 21 days. Lets hope disease pressure is not so strong the last half of July. Greens were sprayed on their regular schedule today, even though I was a little late getting out because of the rain delay.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) we will be pouring the final piece of the cart path on #17 if the weather allows and the final grading should be completed by the weekend.

Looks like next week could be a tree trimming week, handwatering week, and fairway fertilizing week, but it is awful early to tell for sure.

Tasks completed this week................

This week we completed some more cart path on #17. Cut down a dying cottonwood on #14 and topdressed the greens. We also started on our grub preventative on tees and green surrounds and fertilized both the tees and approaches. The grub application needs to be watered in and watering the fertilizer in will hastens its effects. So our irrigation plan was to not water anything Thursday night with the idea we would be watering a little heavy on Friday night, and when I say a little heavier I am talking about .14 of an inch or less.

The downside of this plan is the Club Championship players on Saturday morning may experience a little softer conditions first thing in the morning, but Sunday should be better.

A quick disease update: We have some.

on the golf course...........

Well, we are certainly going through a hot, humid stretch right now and except for some minor dollar spot break through on some tees we are clean in the disease battle so far. I am going to fertilize tees and approaches this week which should help beat back and heal the dollar spot.

I expect if the weather does not break we will start to see some disease in the fairways.

The dying cottonwood on #14 is laying down and will be cleaned up tomorrow. We will start a grub preventative sometime this week and could start working on our drainage problem on #14 although the answer right now seems to be to adjust the fairway and lay sod with the thought of moving the fairway back sometime in the fall.

We will also be removing a couple of dying birch trees in the roughs on #13 and #14 but I doubt anyone will even know when they disappear.

The crew has been getting worked hard these last few weeks and I, not unlike you, appreciate their dedication to the golf course and its condition. But, we have a lot of work yet to accomplish so I am going to keep my foot on the gas. The best thing about working on the golf course is you get to work outside and the worst thing about the golf course is you have to work outside. Most days in July cover the second part.

#17 cart path progress.................

The cart path on #17 continues to progress. I have plans to make another pour mid week. And probably finish the path the following week. Depending on how much the total job costs I may be laying some retaining wall blocks on the edge closest to the tunnel so the banks

are not running over the concrete edge.
Again a lot of the finish work will take place after the Pro-Am and more likely after Septemeber 15th.

The next pours will not require any changes in routing to and from the golf course or from #17 to #18 unlike our first section.

#17 cart path demolition..............

Today we started tearing out the asphalt cart path near #17 green.

Tomorrow we will do some more dirt work and set forms for our first pour which will cover about 100 feet. All of our plans depend on weather but I plan to pour on Friday and re-open the path for carts on Sunday.

My original plan was to pour on a Monday morning but being that the next Monday is the 4th of July that would
extend the project futher into July than I care for.

The second pour, measuring some 220 feet will be poured at the same time. Hopefully on a Saturday morning. I will post more updates as we get more finished.

Dead grass carp from #16 pond..........

Here is a dead grass carp we fished off of the pond bank yesterday. It was about 30 inches long and smelled really bad.

This fish is from the first batch of carp we introduced into the pond to control our aquatic weed problem. Two years after our first stock we stocked the pond with 30 more grass carp. The combination of biological control and chemical control has solved what once was a real problem concerning irrigation reliability and irrigation pumping equipment breakdown.

Tree damge and removal on #8

Here are some photos of the maple tree that went down last night (6/20). It really opens up the left hand side of the fairway. So many times we lose trees during summer storms and no one really notices unles they happen to be playing while we are cleaning it up. But this tree people are going to notice because it knocked down more than a few drives.

The high winds were not that damaging to the golf course and besides all the leaves and sticks it left behind Hillcrest came out pretty good. We will be picking up the debris in high gear leading up to the SDGA event this weekend.

Yesterday we removed the dead linden tree from behind #6 green. I am not sure why it died. We will discuss replacement during our next Green Committee meeting.

I also started spraying fairways for anthracnose and dollar spot. The application is one of our three budgeted fairway applications. The weather has been ideal for these turfgrass diseases and with steady storms and large amounts of rain expected a preventative application is in order. In a perfect world we would have been able to push our first fungicide treatment out to July 1st or later, but it isnt a perfect world.

Quick coupler installation.............

For years now we have been installing an irrigation add on called a quick coupler. Quick couplers make handwatering much easier and training handwaters how to actually handwater and how to take a part and put back an irrigation head is time consuming and risky for the turf. Quick couplers by pass staff messing with the irrigation heads and allow us to handwater more efficiently.

Currently on the course we have quick couplers on all but three of our green sites. We also have three couplers around the clubhouse for annual flower watering. We have been putting in about three per year since 2005 and will actually be finished next season. Each addition costs about $75 including fittings.

Above two staffers, make that one staffer, repair the dirt work after the installation.

US Open maintenance info..........

http://turf.lib.msu./edu/gsr/article/anon-open-6-10-11.pdf

This didnt work of course. If you want to look at this go to the right of the blog and click on the Vail page. It is amazing the specs for the US Open and how big the Congressional crew is (55).

fertilizing..............

The few days of heat really slowed down the rough which probably makes everyone kind of happy. This week we fertilized it and it started to rain again, but the very heavy rough is behind us now unitl next season regardless of our fertilizer application. The fertilizer is a slow release fertilizer and will mostly make it more healthy and look greener as we enter a very busy two weeks on the golf course.

We are also getting ready to start some tree trimming soon so not only is the rough thinning out but that punch shot we have all perfected will be easier too. Should I get credit for lowering handicaps? I think so.

Good luck in the upcoming tournaments and lets hope for some nice dry weather for a change during the Invite.

Dakota Dunes Country Club

Today I called my friends at Dakota Dunes Country Club to see what their outlook was for the course as the river rises. Basically, they are moving all their equipment to higher ground, pulling in all of their irrigation satelites, and sandbagging the pumphouse.

Some of the river holes have already been damaged because contractors are building up the dikes to allow more time for the residents to evacuate. And really, because almost all the holes will be under water for some period of time this summer if predictions are accurate a complete re-grow in might be required with new construction on select holes.

Events such as this make me appreciate all the fortune we have had at Hillcrest for so many years. The crew at the Dunes and its membership would probably love to worry about a few sticks around a green site, shaggy cart path edges, and probably would love to see some dry grass.

The Dunes is fortunate to have a capable and skilled leader and crew that will get them and the club to the other side of this event. Good luck guys and hang in there.

Expanded perimeter rough #4

Here is the expanded #4 perimeter cut of rough on the left on the green. The rough has always been quite a hazard over here and this should give the player a nice chance to save par. In the future we may make this into an approach but some light grading and regrassing needs to be done. It is something I will discuss with the green committee as a fall project.

New elm tree #9 rough

Here is a new elm tree we planted on #9 to replace a cottonwood we cut down this winter. This elm tree is one of the 20 or so trees recommended for golf courses in our climate put together by the South Dakota State Extension Service this past year.