It's a Plane?

     Last month the golf maintenance team on the Members, Founders, and Players Clubs at St. James continued a tee leveling project that began last summer.  Several tees were leveled using a Turf Planer.  Basically, the Turf Planer runs over the entire surface of the tee and shaves down areas that are higher than the other portions of the tee, leaving a more level tee surface.  The picture below shows what the tees at Cate 2 looked like immediately after being planed.

The next picture is of the same tee 2 weeks later.

As of now the tees are closed to being fully healed after regular fertilizing and topdressing.

 

Last Week 7/14/14 through 7/18/14

We were closed three days at Players Club to aerate the greens, which we did, but we also accomplished a lot more:

·        Stripped and leveled #7 tee on the bridge, then re-sodded. (Photos Below)

·        Edged all bunkers, yardage markers, cart paths and drains

·        Treated all fairways with a growth regulator

·        Repainted tee markers

·        Topdressed and double rolled all greens for smoothness

·        Mowed all rough



Renovating #7 Tee on the bridge at Players Club



Players Club #7 Tee
Stripped, leveled, sodded and added a border of pavers!

 

Members Club Conversion Update

6/13/14

This week 6/9/14 - 6/15/14

• We fertilized the sprigs with several different products this week -- 21-0-21, 5-4-5, 0-0-5 and gypsum. This is a great combination of slow and quick release fertilizers, providing a wide range of nutrients essential for growth.
• Fairways were sprayed with a chemical to remove the remaining ryegrass, allowing our bermudagrass base to flourish and prosper unencumbered.
• The bridge on Irwin #5 was renovated. The original deck was completely stripped. The old planks were hauled off and disposed of. A new deck was installed and is ready to go.

Just sprigged



One week after sprigging--As you can see, the sprigs have really started to green up

Old Bridge

New Bridge

 Next week 6/16/14 – 6/22/14

·         We will continue to push the sprigs with fertilizer

·         Strip the sod from several tees that are in need of re-leveling

·         Slice and fertilize thin areas in rough

 

Winter projects

       Since winter decided to come a little early this year we have been able to get a jump start on some off-season projects. A few projects that never seem to go away are the leveling of sprinklers and drain inlets. This hardware is located all over the property and often times comes into play. This makes the leveling task hard to accomplish in the middle of the busy summer.

       The first drain that we addressed was located in the small fairway on #16. We extended this drain two years ago, however it has since sunk another six inches. This causes an unsightly and unplayable depression in the fairway and forces unnecessary wear and tear on our equipment. The pictures below shows what we did and how we've adopted a sleeker method to extend the life of the new extension.

Former grading with new drain extension.

Drain inside larger "form" pipe for gravel channel installation.

Added soil for leveling surrounding grade and securing our gravel channel.

Close-up of gravel channel after we removed our 10" channel form.

Drain extension and leveled grade.

Finished product.

Tee Leveling Update

It is no secret that there are several tees on each of the older courses in need of leveling. On a trial basis, we are attempting to level a few of the most uneven ones in-house. We began with the middle tee (white tee location) on Cate #8. Below are photos of the progression.

One day after stripping, tilling, packing and leveling

 

Thirty days later

 

Forty days later



 

Fifty-four days later.

By next week this tee will be ready for play!