Oak Pruning Update

The arborist was out today to address the tree on 11 tee.  He was actually apprehensive to climb it because there was so much stress on cables.  The cables are designed to minimize swaying of the tree, not to actually hold the tree up.  This morning it appeared that the cables where actually holding the tree up so it was clearly a potentially dangerous situation.  Justin from "Trees for Life" is a very accomplished arborist and one of the only guys I trust to work with the endangered Oaks on the property.  After getting his courage up, he did go up in the tree and he removed several large leaders which he estimated to weigh over a ton.  I must say the tree looks great. In this picture below, you can see the lowest cable now has some slack in it which means the tree is holding itself up.

Today I am very comfortable with the tree as far as a safety issue.  I mean I don't think we need to worry about it falling on someone.  We do, however need to discuss what we should do with it to make sure it is a safe situation during the windy winter months.  The arborist recommended that we add a support post.  This may sound extreme but I've seen it done and below is an example from a picture I took while in Monterey.

This Thursday at the Green Committee Meeting we will be discussing this issue.  I personally think we should pursue a support post.  The only other option to insure safety would be removal of the tree and that means it is almost inevitable that someone will get hit by a golf ball on the 11th tee.  Kind of a tricky situation but we should if possible save this tree since it is one of our endangered Oaks.  I'll follow up with another blog after the meeting.