The long summer continues and as of October 15 we have not had a substantial frost to slow down turf growth going into the winter. This is good and bad from the point of view of golf course maintenance. Good in the fact that the longer season means more players to enjoy the golf course. The bad is that this sort of rapid growth puts strain on our ability to keep up with simple, routine mowing as the crew size dwindles towards the end of the season. Any way you want to look at it, I like it and hope that this is a future trend that continues.
The extra workload, thankfully, has not kept us from continuing our plans for lasting improvements on the golf course. Current projects that go hand in hand are the removal of the decrepit landscape block wall on 9 North and drainage projects throughout the golf course. The block wall on 9 North was in an advanced state of decay as the picture below illustrates:
9 North 10-11-2021 Morning
Not only was the wall disintegrating but, like its now gone counterpart on 10 South tee, it created a real maintenance issue from a productivity and safety standpoint. Doing any kind of work on that tee with access from only one side was a real headache. The solution is removal of the wall and then using fill generated from other projects to add on to the front part of the tee to both enlarge the playable area (important to distribute wear on a Par 3) and create an area which we are able to maintain with greater ease and safety. Messy work with a purpose:
9N 10-11-2021 Afternoon-Wall is gone
After removal of the wall, we also removed the useless unused cart path in front of the tee in preparation for expanding the tee forward to add usable space and ensure future ease of maintenance.
9N 10-14-2021-Note accumulation of fill on the area from:
13W 10-14-2021-Bunker Drainage
As we all know, the main issue with bunkers at Nemadji is terrible drainage which leads to hard, messy playing conditions. In the picture above, we are using our rented mini excavator to cut yet another drainage line for the golf course. Our plan is to move on to 2 North fairway, followed by 7 North fairway and the practice area. In between tackling these jobs, we will knock off a few bunkers as well. This work will be steady and ongoing until we are unable to work outside anymore. Usually until around Thanksgiving but we will go longer if we can. This work is dirty but meaningful in that it leads to lasting improvement on the golf course. Golf course maintenance is a lot more than mowing and watering-or at least it should be.
On a final note, I am happy to report that nobody dumped a golf cart into a creek this year and so our measures have, I think, contributed to a somewhat safer playing experience. That being said, somebody continues to be upset because they are being asked to not drive golf carts wherever they want on the golf course for their own safety and so they cut ropes that displease them:
Vandalized Rope October 2021
All I can say is that it would be nice for whoever is doing this to please stop. This will not keep us from continuing to do what is right and all you are doing is making extra work for the people that are doing the best that they can to give everyone a good playing experience. As should be evident from this newsletter and others, we have too much work going on to have to deal with this kind of nonsense.
See you on the golf course. Vince
Boomer 16W 10-7-2021