Monday, September 12, 2011

Can you guess what I love about this picture.  If your a member at Tacoma C&GC, you probably only need one try to guess what I love so much about this picture.  If you're not a member, than you might think it has always been this beautiful around the green on number 3.  Well, one thing is certain and that is that it hasn't always been this bright around the green on number 3. So, what I love about this picture is how clearly it shows the putting surface basking in the sun at 9 a.m.  More specifically, look at how the back left section of the green is getting the sun first.  This is so exciting since that particular area on the green was by far the worst over the years due to excessive shade.  The picture below shows the condition of this area last winter before we removed the trees to the left of the green.

Given that now the green is receiving a significant amount of morning light all year long, I don't expect that you'll ever see this green get thin and weak in the winter months.  Below is "before and after" of the area east of the green which shows how densely wooded it was, and how bright it was immediately after tree removal, and how great it looks today.

It's surprising to think that in just that area alone, we removed 17 douglas fir trees.  This picture is one of many I took during the logging process.
After grinding the stumps, it was quite a project restoring that area to turf.  This next picture is neat because it shows the 3 endangered Oak trees that that we "freed up" from the doug firs.  Now they have a chance for survival and even at full maturity, 100 years from now, they won't get tall enough to shade the green on #3.
Another benefit of the project was the removal of the cart path on #4 tee.  Now that there is abundant sunlight to grow grass, and no trees, the cart path didn't make sense so now we have another area where carts can go wherever they want which distributes the wear and looks so much better.  This last picture shows the area as looking from the 4th tee with morning light streaming out to the third green.  Really awesome!  It is so good to let the sunshine in.  This winter we will be doing similar work to the green on #7, #11, and #14.  Soon, putting green shade will be a problem of the past.

No comments:

Post a Comment