Game Changers

 Check out what showed up Thursday.  These are triplex mowers, and yes we will be using them on our greens from time to time.  These two new units are replacing 20 year old machines that we phased out of our mowing programs several years ago.  Why did we stop using the old triplexes?  Simply put, they were inefficient and posed a risk to our putting greens.  The old machines were slow.  Yes they could mow a green faster than the walking mower, but transporting from green to green was slow so overall there wasn't a huge time savings.  Most importantly is that the old machines used hydraulics to power propulsion and the cutting units. With hydraulics comes the potential for hydraulic leaks.  I'll never forget the first Member Guest Invitational with myself as superintendent in 1999.  We were mowing greens in the afternoon trying to get a blistering 10 on the stimpmeter (today our daily green speed average is about 11 on the stimpmeter) and a triplex blew a hydraulic line on the 18th green.  Today, you can still see where that oil leak occurred since we had to cut out the dead, oil soaked grass and  replace it with new sod. 

 A lot has changed since those days.  For one, we don't have to double cut or triple cut greens to get great green speed.  We have learned how to grow grass with less fertilizer and we even have products that slow the growth of grass so all that mowing is no longer necessary to produce fast green speeds.  Also we now have really neat greens rollers which help us get speed and smoothness.  But that's not all that's changed.  Mower manufactures have figured out how to eliminate hydraulics.  Take a closer look at the cutting unit of our new machines.

 The two lines going into the reel motor are not hydraulic hoses, they are wires.  This motor is powered by electricity.  In fact all the motors on this machine are powered by electricity.  The only oil in this machine is that which is in the engine. This machine has a small 2 cylinder diesel engine that drives the generator which creates the electricity to power all the motors.  So really there is absolutely no fear that this machine will leak oil on the greens.  It doesn't stop there, with the on-board computer, you can customize the mow speed and transport speed to maximize efficiency.  With 15 blades per reel there isn't a machine out there that can mow any faster.  Lastly, this baby transports from green to green super fast which really increases its overall productivity.  I could go on about this machine but I'm sure you've heard enough to know these things are "game changers".  With these as part of our fleet, we now have options.  If we need to mow super fast, we can do that.  If for some reason a double cut is necessary for that special event, we can easily do that.  Watch this video and see this amazing technology in action.

Finally, if you're on the course this coming week (which you should be since the forecast is perfect), you will notice a couple new things.  First, on the maintenance you'll see we're installing white dots which will replace the white line for the O.B. markers.  Why?  Well......the white line faded so there was certain times when it was difficult to see.  Yes we could paint it more often but the road is a mile long so that isn't cheap or easy.  Every time we paint the line, the area needs to be prepared with the pressure washer and like I said, the road is a mile long.  Washing a mile long road is tough.  The white dots are more permanent.  This of course is just a trial so please check them out and let me know what you think.

The other things you'll notice this week is the big dots on the fairways.  Each fairway will have one big green dot and one big red dot like you see in the picture below.  These markers represent the Committee's suggested locations for the new family tees.  Once the final location of these tees is decided, the painted dots will be replaced with permanent markers.  Adding these two short courses will give the golf course a wider range of suitability for all those different types of golfers.  Super young players or those that are just learning will like that they can reach the green in regulation.  Older players that have lost some yardage off tee can now play a course that is easier to score on.  When you score well, you're happier.  It's all about making golf more fun and part of that is keeping a good pace of play.    

If you're playing a course that is too long for your ability, you are taking too many swings.   The USGA and PGA have done a lot of research on the subject.  They have found that the magic number for keeping golf fun is 90.  If you can't break 90, you are not having enough fun to keep playing the game, AND you are taking too long which means your ruining the fun for the group following you.  Be courteous to others on the course and play to an appropriate set of tees.  Keep moving up to a shorter set of tees until you can consistently break 90.  It's good for you and for those that are waiting on you.  Click here to learn more about the family tee program.

Teeways and Efficiency Part 1

After  the Senior Member Guest concluded today, I was able to get some fantastic photos of the teeways on an empty golf course with the sun high in the sky. Here you see the 18th hole.  This week we mowed the teeways down to our fairway height of 340/1000".  Now we were actually able to mow them with the fairway mowers.  Of course this was a learning experience seeing what we could and couldn't do with the large machines.  Thank goodness I have fantastic operators that were able to just figure it out.

Because of the Senior MGI, we mowed teeways and fairways everyday this week.  Each time we mow, we change the direction to come out with the stripeless look which I just love.  I still don't know why some people today mow stripes.  What a waste of time.  On the subject of time, using three fairway mowers, one small fairway mower, and one walker for the tight areas, we mowed all the fairways and teeways (31 acres) using 15 man hours.  Back in the day, when I wasn't very smart and we striped fairways, walk mowed tees and dew strips, and then mowed rough between tees, that same 31 acres took 30 or more man hours to mow.  Saving 15 man hours is like adding two people to my staff every day we mow that 31 acres.   That's huge.  So this weeks 9 am shotgun didn't really hurt us going into the weekend.  All areas got mowed before the gun was fired.

So mowing that 31 acres of fine turf takes about half the time it used to.  Our increase in efficiency doesn't stop there though.  Now that we don't have to mow the rough between the tee decks, we use the large rough machines to mow around the teeing grounds, and so the time it takes to mow that rough has been cut in half.

Here's the 6th hole.  Before teeways, we could never put the blocks this far up on the blue deck, it would have been 6 inches past the rough which would not have been cool.  We have gained countless new teeing areas with the teeways.

Here is the 10th hole from the white teeing ground.  You can see how now there is no difference in the appearance of what once was rough and what once was tee.  It all blends seamlessly.  I need to fix the mowing line on the left this winter.  It's too busy right now.

Here's the 12th tee.  On this one remember we already sod cut out the transition area to fairway so it is really seamless now.  12 teeway is really a finished product.

15 teeway from the green is pretty cool.

Here's 14 as we played it yesterday.  This small teeing area has not been used since the old days when we used to triplex roundish shaped tee decks.  I think that stopped in 1999 when I came on board and thought it would be smart to walk mow square tees.   That wasn't a good idea at all.  Teeways........now that's a good idea.

As part of the master plan, we added this huge fairway height area to the right of the 16th green.  Eventually it will be part of the 17th teeway if all goes as planned.  To establish this area we have been scalping it out just like the teeways. In the center of the photo you can see the unfortunate part of the "scalping out" method.

Here is a close up of what I'm talking about.  On the left of the photo you see scalped out ryegrass which by itself looks pretty good.  On the right you see the original approach which is very old, mature, fine perennial type Poa like you find on our putting greens.

Here is a closer view of the two turf types.  So now here is the question  "how long will it take for the ryegrass to look like pure Poa".  It all depends on how much overseeding we can do and how well we can kill the ryegrass.  How does one kill just the ryegrass and not the other grass??  This afternoon we started a trial with a product called Segment.  Below you see Kevin spraying it on our nursery green.  We sprayed one area at the labeled rate and then a couple different areas at higher rates to see what happens.  Our nursery green is mowed at fairway height and has a mixture of different grasses so it is very representative of our scalped teeway areas.  Hope we see some good results which would be dead ryegrass and living Poa.  Stay Tuned!

Bunkers and Teeways Look'n Good

The first load of sod came in this past Tuesday and I think that afternoon we almost hit 80 degrees.  Not ideal conditions for laying sod.  Not only did the heat put a lot of fatigue on the guys, it also put a lot of stress on the sod and I really thought I was going to loose some of it.  The crew knew this stuff had to get off the pallets and many of them put in 12 hours that day to get the job done.  I honestly have the best crew ever.  They did get the job done, we got the water on it, and I'm happy to say we didn't loose any sod.  The first thing finished was sodding of the bunker floor.  Once the sod on the floor is established and rooted in, it will be sprayed out and the bunker sand will be installed.  The sod decomposes under the sand and becomes an impermeable layer which protects the bunker sand from being contaminated by rocks or native soil within the bunker floor.  There are many fabrics or other materials being used in the industry to line the floors of bunkers.  Simply put, at 28 cents/sq ft. (delivered), nothing comes close to the affordability of sod. 

Here is the same bunker today.  You can see we have cut the sod off the drain lines so there will be rapid infiltration over the drain pipe.

Above is the bunker to the right of #6 green.  It really turned out beautiful.  Although the grass on the floor looks similar to the grass on the bunker lip, it isn't the same at all.  The grass on the floor is straight perennial ryegrass.  The grass on the robust lips is fine fescue and it will be kept at a higher mowing height than the surrounding turf which will add a dynamic, classical, rugged look.

Here is a close up of the robust bunker lip which architect John Harbottle III refers to as a "bull-nose" style. I simply love this look and I'll give props again to John and the guys from Ridgetop Inc. for their excellent craftsmanship.  Next Tuesday the remainder of the sod will be laid and then its just waiting till there is good enough rooting to kill the stuff and put the sand in.  I'm guessing that they will be done for U.S. Open Field Day on June 9th.  These bunkers are going to be so cool.

On a side note, our fairway mowing height is back down to 0.340 or 340/1000 of an inch.  Now you can again enjoy that extra roll and a lie that allows you to spin it enough to hold the greens.

 Lastly, the teeways are definitely starting to take shape.  This one on #8 is probably one of the biggest since there is a lot of distance between each set of tees on this monster hole.  Next week we will drop the mowing height down and they should be even more defined.  I am so excited about the teeways.  I love the look, but on top of that, it will for sure be a time saver.  Even now in the establishment phase we are enjoying that no longer do we need to mow dew strips and rough between tees.  Our efficiency is already improved.  Next week we will take them down to 500/1000 or 1/2" and then we will stop mowing the tee decks with the walkers.  That will save at least 16 man hours a week.  Stay tuned for next weeks pictures. The drop to 1/2" will be very noticeable.

The Plan

The Tacoma Country and Golf Club has updated the Master Plan and on the 9th day of this month in a historic meeting which included both the Green Committee and the Board of Directors, it was approved and partially funded.  If you right click on the image above and select save image as..........you can save a copy of the plan to your computer which you can zoom in on and study in detail.  There are several projects within the plan created by renowned architect John Harbottle III, but to sum it up in one word you could say the new course will simply be "classical".  And really I hesitate to use the word "new" to describe the course once the plan is completed.  I hesitate because once the plan is completed, I believe the golf course will be more likened to how the Club's founders dreamed it to be.  So it won't be a "new" course, it will be be a very old course "reborn".  Knowing this great Club was founded by some Scotsman almost 120 years ago, I imagine the vision was for a course that was more open and favored the ground game similar to the game played upon the greatest golf courses in the world which today reside in Scotland.  The first two generations of members at this Club were able to maintain the links style and traditional heritage for which it was based upon. We have very old photographs to prove that.  But in the 50's and thereafter, the Club went in the same direction as many throughout the country.  Trees were planted with the thought that this would beautify the property.  Well everyone has their own idea of beauty but the bottom line is the intended character of the golf course at Tacoma C&GC became compromised.  As the trees grew, the course developed some narrow corridors which limited players options off the tee but worse, shaded the turf which resulted in less than satisfactory playing conditions on many of the greens.  Today most of the shaded greens have been addressed with tree removal and now as the new Master Plan depicts, more trees will be removed to improve turf quality and make golf more interesting.  Another huge component of the plan is additional native areas.  These areas will not be mowed but once or twice and year, be un-irrigated, and receive minimal chemical input if any.

There are many interesting projects on this plan which I will talk about in this blog as time goes on.  For now I will touch on two things that you will see immediately.  I'm talking about a complete bunker remodel and the mowing in of the teeways.

This image shows some of the recent work by Harbottle.  This is similar to what we will be doing at Tacoma but not exactly.  Harbottle will create a unique style just for Tacoma but I know for sure we will have some rough edges that give the classic old look.  After all, if we're going to say we're the oldest country club west of the Mississippi, we should look like it.  Since we're getting a late start this year, we will only do a half dozen this spring so as not to disrupt things too much.  Doing just a few is better than nothing however since it'll give us a chance to show what the bunkers will look like and also show how much better new sand will play.  If anything it should get everyone excited about the new Master Plan and the idea of finally having the bunkers fixed.  Construction will begin on or near May 7th and the bunkers being reworked include those on 16 green, 6 green, and maybe 11 fairway if the weather cooperates.  We will rebuild approximately 15 bunkers  this fall so as to have about 1/3 of the course complete this fiscal year. The Committee will decide which bunkers to focus on this fall but I imagine we will more than likely start at the beginning by doing those on 1-4.

 Now just a moment ago I mentioned you will immediately see the mowing in of the teeways.  What is a teeway?  It's my word to identify our new fairways which will include the teeing ground.  Below is the legend of the Master Plan.

Notice how the plan says "make tees extensions of fairways".

The image above shows the teeway concept applied to the 12th tee.  Why are we installing teeways??  First of all it is a huge time saver.  We will basically be mowing the tees with fairway mowers instead of walking mowers.  This will free-up one of our greenkeepers to do something else more important each time we mow fairways and tees. It also eliminates a lot of turning of machines between tees and around tees.  This not only makes our rough mowing more efficient, but it means less wear and tear on the turf and machines.  We will have better turf conditions throughout the teeing grounds and at the beginning of the fairways since machines won't be turning in those areas.  I also want to point out that the teeways will simply  look amazing!!

So now you know why we are doing what we're doing on #12 right now.

You can see on the left side of this picture that we have sodded in the edge of the new fairway.  We did that here because we needed to replace all the sod we used from here to fix those wet areas this past fall and winter.  We will not do this in all areas right away but we will mow in the new teeways by scalping the turf at each mowing until we have all the teeway area established.  So now you might understand why #7 looks like this.

You can see the new edge of the teeway at the beginning of this fairway.  We utilized some of the nice short mowed poa sod from this fairway to create the runoff behind #7 green and repair the front of #12 fairway.  What I'm trying to show is that we don't want to waste the sod in those areas that will be rough when the teeways are mowed in.  Fine poa fairway height sod is priceless.

Here is the back of #7 green.  We created this runoff using fairway sod.  There is a lot of these areas to be installed per the Master Plan.  Over the next couple weeks, you'll see the teeways start to develop and if we have time, sod will be removed in some areas to create the new runoffs and runons.  Please check the blog often to see how we are progressing on the new Master Plan.

Lastly, remember we were working on eliminating the cart path on #12 tee.

Today it looks like this.  You can't tell we ever had a cart path at all.  I love this!!

Soil Monitoring.......Really cool stuff!

Okay these things are really neat.  What I'm holding in this photo is a sensor that communicates with my office computer and is completely wireless.  It senses the temperature, moisture, and salinity of soil.  So as you can see by the next series of pictures, these things are buried in three of our greens and so now we can monitor growing conditions and therefore make better decisions in regard to our cultural practices (i.e. irrigation, fertility, etc.)  Although I love technology, I must say I grow grass by using visual observations more than any other method to determine the turf's needs.  So initially I felt this type of monitoring would not be very beneficial to me and so I never thought about making the investment.  We recently purchased new irrigation software, which we did need, and that coincidentally made investing in this wireless monitoring technology much more affordable, so I decided to try them out.  To my surprise, they work very well and I am very excited to see how they might assist me over the next growing season.

To install these devices, we first needed to select which greens to monitor and which area of the green to bury the device.  I'm starting with just three sensors so we decided to choose three greens that had very different growing conditions so as to see the widest range of differences.  In other words, I picked green #9 because it is wide open and will therefore have some of the highest soil temperatures.  It is also constructed of native soil and drains rather poorly so I expect to find some of the highest moisture readings on this site.  Another sensor is buried on #3 since it is one of our shadiest greens and should stay cooler on a sunny day.  Number 3 green also drains very well so I expect to see some drier readings in regard to moisture.  The third sensor is buried in green #18 which is kind of an "in betweener".  The 18th green is shaded most of the morning but has adequate sunlight overall and decent drainage.   So as you can see by the picture above, we use the same tool that we use to cut cups for making the hole to install the sensor.  I chose to cut two cup holes right next to each other which gave me a little more room to get my fingers in there and push the sensor probes into the soil.

Here you can see the sensor probes are pushed into the soil and I'm backfilling the hole.

The turf plugs are then replaced.

And as you can see I did a decent job of making it look like I was never there.  I forgot to mention that I selected an area on each green that was close enough to the edge of the green that it is very unlikely a person would ever cut a cup there.  This is important since when we cut cups, we usually thrust the cup cutter into the ground with the kind of force that would damage the sensor if it was struck with the cup cutter.  Of course we also need to avoid aerifying this spot since the aerification machine would certainly destroy the sensor.  So we take measurements from two fixed spots to the sensor so that we can find it in the future.  For our fixed spots to measure from we chose sprinkler heads and in the next two pictures you can see how this is done.

FYI, we top-dressed the greens the morning we took these pictures so that is why the turf looks a little grey in color. So now the sensor is installed and all we need to do is set up the antennae to receive the signal.  This is done inside the irrigation pedestals as you can see here.

I have direct communication with each of the irrigation pedestals but really they are only needed to provide power to work the device.  All the communication is done wirelessly from the sensor to the antennae and then to a base unit in my office and then to my office computer.  Okay so now we are ready to start collecting data.

Here is a picture of my computer screen and you can see that there is three sets of data.  The top graph shows moisture in the three greens and as I expected the numbers are higher on our poor draining 9th green which is the center red bar.  The green bars in the middle of the screen show temperature and again the center bar which is the ninth green is higher than the others since it gets much more sunlight.  The bottom purple bars indicate salinity and right now it is completely irrelevant since none of the readings on any of the greens reveal a level of salinity that is alarming.  Given the large amount of rainfall during the winter months, salinity will almost never be an issue.  I imagine in the summer after prolonged irrigation, we might see something interesting with this data so I look forward to July and August.  I also look forward to summer because I think the most useful data will be soil moisture.  During the irrigation season, I expect moisture readings from these sensors will assist us in deciding when to water and how much to water, therefore providing even better more consistent conditions for the golfer.  Either way we now have another tool to help us manage turf and I'm guessing this is just the tip of the iceberg.  Stay in touch with the blog as there will definitely be more posts coming to show what we are learning from the sensors.  This last pic shows some of the cool graphs we can display with the data.  The most interesting trend so far is to see how much temperature fluctuates on the putting surface from hour to hour and day to day.  Stay tuned.........

Mulch.....Now......Hurry!

Today we sent the rough mower out but its job today is not to mow rough.  Its job today is simply to mulch.  The oak trees are defoliating rapidly and luckily we have yet to have a major wind and rain event.  Without wind, the leaves fall straight down and the new TORO 4300 can chop them up nicely.  If we were to have any kind of wind event now, leaves would be blown all over the place which means we would have to condense them into piles or rows which would be too dense with leaves to chop up. If we get any kind of rain with that wind, now we have wet, dense areas of leaves and that's the worst conditions for mulching.  Conditions are perfect for mulching right now.  No wind and dry weather.  So today we are trying to cover as much ground as possible, focusing on just mowing up leaves.  Every leaf we chop up now is one less leaf we will have to pick up after our first major windy, rainy day which is bound to be any day now and looks like what we're in for tomorrow.

What's that smell?

When we aerify fairways, we generate mountains of plugs.  Here's the pile behind 7 green.  We have about 5 sites on the property right now where we are stockpiling these plugs.  When we're done aerifying, we'll have to spend many hours trucking these plugs around the property in order to get rid of the stockpiles.  In the picture below you can see an ideal spot to get rid of these plugs.  This is an area where there is very little topsoil, so you can see rocks, and roots exposed.  Obviously this is not a very good area for your ball to land.  Taking a shot from an area like this can break your golf club, or break your wrist. 

So now in this next picture, you can see we have distributed plugs around the base of some trees in order to cover these rocks and roots with something that would be just fine to hit your shot from.  After we put the plugs on these areas, we throw down some seed so it eventually becomes turf.  Another benefit of doing this is that now this is also an area we can mow.  Before, with rocks and roots exposed, mowing here could obviously cause damage to my mowers, and dull the cutting blades.

Although there are countless areas to get rid of these plugs, there is a significant amount of labor involved with this method. That is why this week we took advantage of the dry weather and spread the plugs with our fairway sand topdresser out on to some of the roughs.  Specifically, we spread plugs over the area where the sewer pipe was installed along the east property line.  Below is a picture of Doug spreading plugs on the left of the 4th hole.

Following the restoration of the sewer project, many rocks were at the surface in that area so spreading plugs here will help build up some cover over those rocks.  Mainly, it was a great way to recycle our plugs back onto the property, and it was fast and easy to get rid of them by spreading them with the machine.  Getting rid of these plug piles over the next couple weeks takes a lot of time so the opportunity was there and we took advantage of it.  Anyway, that is why it kind of smelled bad over there this week.  Those plug piles composted a little bit even though they were only piled for a day or two.

Simple Fertility

Here at Tacoma C&GC, we fertilize almost exclusively with liquids that we blend ourselves.  Why? Because it's the most ecomomical way to purchase fertilizer, and we can control the ratios of Nitrogen, Phosphorous, Potassium and all other necessarry elements.  This picture below shows the three main components of our blends.  All three of these materials are highly soluble and therefore readily go into solution.  We "melt" them into solution using the inductor which feeds into the 1100 gallon batch tank at our chemical storage building.

Below in this picture you can see Doug feeding the inductor.  The entire batch tank system is powered by a trash pump.  After all desired products are fed into the inductor, it is disconected from the system and then the trash pump keeps all 1100 gallons of fertilizer agitated or circulating for whatever desired length of time to ensure everything is mixed up.

This picture also clearly shows the pipe connection which is tied into the irrigation system and is our source of water for the mix.  The trash pump is on a timer which we typically set to come on 3 times during the night and run for an hour each cycle.  This next picture shows what the tank looks like from inside the building.

As soon as we are ready to apply the fertilizer, the same pump which powered the inductor and agitation is then used to transfer the mix to the spayer.  It takes a few minutes for the transfer and during that time, other products are added into the spray tank to make up the final blend. Some of these other products might be micro nutrients, growth regulators, etc.  One of the most important additives is a nitrogen stabilizer.  This product makes the final mix cooler, meaning a lower salt index which eliminates the possibility of fertilizer burn.  It also makes the nitrogen act like a slow release fertilizer so we minimize the chance of making the grass "flush" or grow rapidly.  One of the main advantages of making a custom blend like this is we have more control over plant growth.  The color response, and growth rate with our custom blend is predictable which isn't always the case when you  feed turf using granular applied products like the ones most of us use on our lawns at home.



making the transfer to the sprayer

 You can see that the concept of "batching" fertilizer is pretty neat and quite handy if you want to customize your fertilizer.  But one of the biggest advantages is efficiency.  It's economically efficient because we buy fertilizer in it's raw, "simple" form.  It's also time efficient because the blending is done the day before apllication.  This means we can quickly refill the sprayer in minutes and stay ahead of play on the day it's applied.


spraying fertilizer using a foam marker