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.

Golf course happenings.............

The sod project from last week is healing in nicely and this week we are concentrating on planting some 75 flats of flowers throughout the course.

We will be planting a donated oak tree along the left side of #10 sometime this week. The position was determined based on future playability of the hole and the idea that a few of the ash trees in the area will be removed because of instability and the fact that we no longer can trim all the dead wood out of them. Trees will be planted with the intent that when full grown they will not hang over the fairway which will still help frame the hole but not impede a shot to the green from the fairway.

Next week the maintenance crew will be close to fully staffed and you can expect some more frequent detailing and cart path edging.

Sod project

We completed this small sod job early this week. You can see in the back ground that we dug up some valve boxes near the green and leveled them off. In all three spots we added some dirt and did some light grading around the sidewalks to reduce the amount of sidewalk edging we need to do during the growing season.

This sod will be healed in and in playing condition well before the Member-Guest and our SDGA event in June.

This week on the course......................

As everyone can image we have plenty of branches and sticks to pick up after the weekend winds. All of our power poles stayed upright and that is a blessing.

I am going to continue putting down pre-emergent weed control in the roughs this week. We will also be fertilizing the tees and getting all the flower beds ready for annuals. It doesnt feel like flower season out there, but it is.

We will also be cleaning the pool and getting the wader pool ready for paint this week. We have numerous cracks to repair before we can paint.

The course is in fair shape and the few small areas in need of seed will be planted soon. The plan is to aerify, seed, topdress, and fertilize the areas in the fairways. The areas in the rough will just be seeded and fertilized. The soil temperature is still well below 55 degrees so we are not rushing this repair job.