Sunday, March 17, 2013

Project Update 3/17

So now all the bunkers have been constructed except the bunker on the practice hole.  We're hoping to give the practice hole a more extensive makeover but right now the plan for that is still under development.   But every bunker on the golf course has been reconstructed and now we're just waiting for those that we just finished to grow in before the bunker sand is added.  In the meantime we will deal with all the exposed soil on the property.  As you see here on 18, some of these areas are very "in play".  Those type of areas will be sodded so that they can be immediately restored to turf.

This type of area on 14 is just where grass has been removed and used elsewhere.  It is not very much in play and not an area of construction so there is no loose soil or rocks at the surface.  This type of area is perfect for just seeding.  Using seed when possible will save us a lot of money and the timing is perfect with spring around the corner.  Soon temperatures will be perfect for "growing in" these areas quickly.
This area on 18 will be a combination of seed and sod.  We will sod the half against the fairway so playability is restored immediately but we will seed the other half to save costs.
Same here with this very large area of disturbance on 4.  The part in the foreground will be seeded but the the second part near the bunker will mostly be sodded.
The teeing grounds like this large area on 11 will all be seeded except one row of sod to define the teeing surface from the roughs.  Using seed here will mean that we can't play these new tees for a while but the end result will be much better looking and definitely saves a lot of money.
Here's the ninth tee and it will mostly be seeded also.
Here's the 12th green and back left you see where the new 16th tee is and since these two areas connect together with fairway turf, it's best to sod most of this.  Not only that, this area is obviously very "in play" so trying to just seed this would result in very frustrated golfers taking free drops, and several instances where the area would be disturbed and that would slow establishment.  So this type of area will be sodded but since it's not roughs, it will be sodded with mature Poa from another place on the property.  This will insure immediate playability on fine turf similar to our greens and fairways. 
Here's another area where fine Poa turf is desired.  This is the area between 9 and 18 fairway that once was roughs and trees.  Now it will all be fairway.  Check out the area in the center of the photo that is partially sodded.  See how well the sod blends in with the surrounding turf.  That is because all the turf you see here is mature Poa.  This area is going to look so awesome...................So where are we getting this Poa sod?????

The driving range fairway.  Here you can see what the crew harvested in just one day.  By the end of the week we will have harvested 6 times this much and placed it on the golf course.  At that time I estimate we will be done sodding all the fine turf areas and then moving on to seeding tees and sodding roughs.  So yes by April 1st, we will pretty much be finished with all the hard work on this renovation and just growing things in.  In order to harvest this much sod from the driving range, we will need to be out there all the time and so it makes sense that we cannot have people hitting into the range.  So the Committee has approved a partial closure of the range for just this coming week (3/18-3/22).  Specifically, this week the range will be closed until noon each day, Monday -Friday.  Sorry for the inconvenience but purchasing this amount of fine Poa sod would cost the Club about $15,000.

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