We Begin Again

The snow is gone, the ground has thawed, it's a new year and we are getting back at it.  Today was a gorgeous day for construction.  No rain and close to 50 degrees. Above you see the 17th hole and specifically the new left green side bunker which is about 1/3 the size of the one that was here before.  Why the reduction?  Well it's pretty simple.  Why spend a ton of money building a huge bunker if most of it is out of play.  In addition, every square foot we build now is a square foot we must maintain indefinitely.  My staff is no longer going to dread raking the traps on #17 and if they are spending less time raking traps, then they are spending more time doing something important.  Here's a picture of the new trap on the right of 17 green.  As with the bunker on the left, this one had a large mound next to it that was removed.

The mounding was created back when the bunker was built or remodeled.  Traditionally, construction spoils are reused on site by building mounds which saves time and money because less material is exported.  Unfortunately, these mounds rarely look natural and can constrict traffic as people are naturally going to try and avoid walking or driving over them.  With today's project, we need all our spoils for tee construction and Kip's equipment is unique in that he can move large amounts of material with minimal disruption.  So all the mounds are being removed which creates a end product that looks more like it fits in with the existing terrain.
About 50 cubic yards of material was removed from this green complex and hauled to #7 tee to extend that teeing ground.  Here's a picture of that tee showing the progress there.  I think we almost have enough material here to build it.

David Kidd was here this week. Nick and Boo gave him the full tour of all that's been going on and what the plans are going forward.  Here's a shot of David, Nick and Kip visiting with each other in a bunker on #17.

Together they came up with a great idea for the 10th green complex which you see here.

Notice the two rows of flags.  They are marking underground mainline which we originally figured on relocating to accommodate the new bunker.  This of course would have cost some money so David and Nick said "hey, let's design around the pipeline".  They figured not only would it save some money, it would be an interesting challenge architecturally.  You're going to have to tune in at the end of the week to see what they came up with.  Meanwhile, the fairway sod you see here has been saved and relocated to the 5 & 8 green complex.  Let's go check that out.

Kip and his crew spent a lot of time getting this area sod ready by grading out a 2 inch thick sand layer over the whole thing.  This is the view from 5 green and below you see how this looked from 8 approach.

Now, here's how it looked at the end of the day

It's really taking shape. This morning we are again importing more sod to this area so be prepared to see a complete transformation next time you come out.