Course Update 5/9/19

We received measurable rainfall the first five days this month amounting to 0.85", but fortunately the past four days have been warm and dry.  I can't remember the last time we had four days in a row without rain and we took advantage of the weather this week to get caught up on numerous maintenance tasks.  This most important one this time of year is mowing and blowing rough, and we'll have the mowers going again this weekend as long as the weather allows.  We also made our scheduled fungicide and nutrient applications to greens and fairways, along with fertilizing tees.  These types of applications are planned over the winter to maximize the health of the turf and reduce the potential for disease outbreaks.  A delayed, or missed application can have negative results that may last all summer.

In addition to our regular maintenance activities we spent some time fixing the drain line on Orchard #8 upper fairway that continued to wash out.  The drainage contractor was here for two afternoons digging out the edges of the trench that had collapsed and removing the leaves and soil that had accumulated on top of the pipe.  They then backfilled with several inches of clean gravel, followed by a sand/soil blend up to the fairway surface that was approximately six inches deep and compacted everything.  To avoid future erosion issues, we decided to sod over the drain lines in the fairway to minimize the large volumes of surface water that would run into the trench and wash the gravel and sand out.  Now during heavy rains, the surface water will stay on top of the turf and run down the hill at the end of the fairway and into the pond.  There is still a little more work to do on the lateral drain line, and we anticipate having it finished in a day or two.

The contractor started the repair process by digging out the collapsed sides to expose the drain line and gravel.

Fresh gravel was installed over the pipe then a blend of sand/soil was used to backfill up the fairway surface and compacted.

We then ran our sod cutter over the compacted sand to remove the old turf and square up the edges, thereby making it easier to install new sod.

The lower portion of the drain line from the wye down to the end of the fairway is complete in this pic, and we had time to finish the left side of the "V".  The right side, or lateral line, will be finished in the next day or two.

Here's a shot from the end of Orchard #8 upper fairway looking up towards the fairway bunker.  We had enough material and were able to re-sod small worn areas in the cleanup pass.