Intermission

Today is the official beginning of winter and so it seems appropriate that we started the week with a little of the white stuff.  It made for some interesting pictures of the new bunkers.

The fescue bullnose faces are so vertical that snow was unable to come to rest on them which left ribbons of green throughout the white landscape. 

Building bunkers in these conditions is difficult.  Considering the weather and the upcoming holiday season, we are taking a break from construction.  Another complication is that our sod is coming from the east side of the state.  The east side of Washington is a high desert climate so it is really cold over there right now.  So cold that the ground is frozen and they are unable to cut sod.  We knew this time would come but we really thought it would come sooner.  We did not expect to get so many bunkers built before the freeze.  To date we have built 23 bunkers and filled in 8.  We are exactly halfway done with the project so this is a perfect time for an intermission before we get back at it and finish this thing.  Since I don't have new bunkers to show you, I'll take this opportunity to discuss some other aspects of the project.  Specifically, I want to show you the unique features of what will be the new 6th and 18th teeing ground.

This diagram shows how the new mowing pattern will include all the tees of the two holes into one area.  Notice the words "new tee".  Both holes get added length and yes, if two groups are hitting from the black tees at the same time, one will probably wait for the other since they'll be hitting almost directly over each other.  There isn't too many rounds played from the black tees so this potentially awkward situation won't happen very often.

Most of the rounds played at Tacoma are from the blue tees, and this diagram shows how during a normal setup, there is no safety issue and some groups might choose to hit at the same time, but I expect here too folks will wait for one group to play first, or maybe just alternate between individuals of both groups.  It's going to be interesting to see what people do.  What I love about this new combined teeing ground is the options for playing the two holes which adds almost an infinite amount of variety.

For example some days you'll walk up to this configuration.  What I love about this is that this is the way these two holes where played before the rerouting in 1989.  In other words, this is the way these two holes were played for 83 years.  This is going to be fun. 

This is also going to be fun.  We can set it up like you see here which is a combination of the old 6th hole and  the new 18th hole.  A very unique situation is created here where people will be teeing off right next to one another.  I just love this.  Now of course to create this teeing ground, we had to remove a planting of ornamental shrubs that separated these two tees.  Ironically, I myself built this planting as the Assistant Superintendent in 1994.  That's really kind of weird that I've been here long enough to start changing things I already changed.  Anyway, this is such a great idea, I wonder why we just didn't do this back in 1994.  Let's look at some pictures I took of the area today.

This is the new flat area of the teeway that will be the black tee for the 18th hole.  From here she plays about 560 yards.

Here I'm standing on what will be the new black tee for the 6th hole.  She plays about 195 from here.

Here is the shot from the original routing which is playing down today's 18th hole from today's 6th tee.  Whats really interesting here is that curbing in the right side of the photo.  Notice how it points down the 18th fairway.  Yes, that is the same curbing that was there when the hole did play down that fairway.  Nobody since then, including myself has bothered to replace, or relocate that curbing.  Well I can tell you when this new combined tee is grown in, the plan is not just to remove the curbing you see there, but the entire cart path system.

Here's a spot that is right in the middle of the two blue tees.  It was recently part of an ornamental planting bed, but soon will be flattened out to be teeing ground.  I'm guessing no one has ever really hit to the 6th green from this area, but I'm certain we will in the near future.  It's a great angle to this green.

A little further up is an area that will be a new angle from the white tees.  Again, I don't think at any time in club history was this hole ever played from this area.  Now, I'm not sure what you're thinking about all this, but personally I think this new combined teeing ground might be one of the greatest teeing grounds you ever play.  Unbelievable variety can be created, especially for the 6th hole.  In fact, considering how often the flag position changes, it could be that you never play the 6th hole from the same yardage and angle more than one time for the rest of your life.  If you don't think that's pretty neat, then you just don't know good golf.

Full Steam Ahead

We had another very productive week on the golf course with the restoration project.  This picture shows the crew going at it with all hands on #18.    The bunkers against the ridge here are highly visible and they are screaming to be dramatic in nature.  Nick Schaan was here again this week and with his direction, we really got aggressive with these.  At this moment we still have some sod to lay here so I cant show you how they turned out yet.  This weekend we will finish the fairways bunkers on #18 and the fairway bunker on #10 which is seen below here.  That's Nick with the paint gun.

Late last week we finished up #5 fairway and the first bunker on #9.  Here is a great pic of #5, but I will say it does not do it justice.  When your standing here in  that spot you hope to hit your drive, it sets up as one of the best looking approach shots I've ever seen.

Now here is the new bunker on #9 fairway.

This one is unique in that it was built on a downhill slop.  This meant it had to get pretty deep for the floor to slant properly.  It is a very good looking hazard but the depth of it concerned me a little so we added some interesting features to make it a little easier to get in and out of.

From this angle you can see that we cut in a little goat trail in the fescue face for those that want to get in and our of it from the high side.

From this point of view you can see that we cut in a little step on the low side.  Both of these features will become less noticeable once the grass grows up a little, but those that play frequently will know they're available.

This is the shared teeing ground for #7 and #17.  It continues to develop as more and more soil gets imported.  This week we break into the bunkers on #17 green where I believe we will find enough fill to finish the grade here.  I can't wait to see how this turns out.

With all that's going on, we still found time to start cutting in the final shape of the teeways which is producing some very nice short mowed sod for finishing up some of the bunkers we built weeks ago.

For example, below is left of #7 fairway where we expanded the fairway cut up close to this new bunker.

It feels really good to have some of these bunkers 100% sodded.  Now all we need is sand which is coming sooner than you might think.  Despite being winter time, we are getting some rooting of the sod and once that  happens, it will be soon that we spray out the sod liner and install the bunker sand.  

If you're getting tired of the course being under construction, I'm sure you're not alone but I'm excited to say that as of today, we have finished 23 of the 47 bunkers so we are half way through it.  The good news is the membership has spoken loudly with an overwhelming vote of "yes" to finish it before next spring.  So we will continue to press on full steam ahead, and that means you'll continue to see these updates for several more weeks.

UPDATE!!!!  UPDATE!!!!
Some new pictures are in this morning of #10 and #18 fairway bunkers.  The weekend crew just finished laying sod on these bad boys

Here's the fairway bunker on #10.  This bunker was pulled out away from the oak tree about 20 feet and therefore is more in play.  A 270 yard drive from the champ tee will carry it but everyone knows hitting driver on #10 is usually a foolish decision.

 Here's the third fairway bunker on #18.   Nick really added some spicy sauce to this one.  It may look rather benign from this angle........................

but this is what you see if your in it..................if you're lucky, you may see the top of the flag..........This is when you pick out a tree in the horizon and just commit to making a good swing at it...............remember on your next round to just stay out of it.

Back At It

So if you don't already know, I'm sure you will soon hear that we are back at it.  It's been an emotional roller coaster ride, but we have finally begun to finish the magnificent work that John Harbottle III started back in April.  The contractor again is the very gifted shaper Kip Kalbrenner, owner and operator of Ridgetop Inc.  He worked with John H. on possibly over 1000 different bunkers since he started his own business in 1989. It's safe to say he knows what he's doing.  He is really the only contractor to work with me at Tacoma since I came back as Superintendent in 1999, so you can imagine we have a great understanding of each other.  The new player on this team is the brilliant architect Nick Schaan of DMK (David LeMay Kidd Design).  He worked with Harbottle on over 24 different design projects before making the move to DMK which has given him the opportunity to work on some of the best properties all over the world.  I can tell you the three of us get along very well and as a big a project as this is, it may not be enough to fulfill the passion we all have for this kind of work.  We are very "into it"!

Here you see Nick and Kip studying John's work on #11 and #16 (below) before starting up the project.

So after careful consideration, it was decided to essentially start at the farthest point away from the property's entrance and then work our way out.

 So here we are on #14.  The two greenside bunkers have already been shaped and as planned, the back bunker has been removed and replace with a "run on" area.

 Below you see that Kip did a really nice job making the back bunker go away.  It's impossible to tell that there was ever a bunker there.

 This is a very large project so we are going to be careful to stay on budget as we go so as not to get ourselves in a situation where we might need to make compromises.  By measuring the square footage of each bunker and each area that is disturbed, we can make good predictions of what each bunker will cost to rebuild.

 Below you see that double bunker complex on 13 fairway that is now just going to be one bunker.  The rough shape of this area is almost finished so I'll have some pictures of that on the blog very soon.  It is really going to be an awesome spot.

 The 11th green complex (above) is going to be absolutely stunning.  The two bunkers on the left are almost completely roughed in and they are looking seriously nasty.  If you challenge this short par 5 in two, you will not like missing the green left.  The bunker on the right is being filled in and becomes a "run off" area.  We all know how fast that green is from right to left so it will take a delicate touch playing from there.

 Next week we will be breaking ground on the grand daddy of bunkers at Tacoma.  This monster bunker is so unique in that is protects the landing area on two holes.......7 & 16.  Because of it position, it will have the muscle of the fescue eyebrow in different areas that are broken up by mowed and less severe areas.  It will simply be a work of art.  I can't wait to get into this one and I'm telling you, Kip and Nick are also drooling over it.

Boo is posing in front of another bunker scheduled for reconstruction next week.  This trap has been "out grown" by the maple tree which now blocks your shot if you find the left side of it.  It's new home will be more to  the center of the fairway and pushed toward the green slightly.  If your a big hitter, your going to have to challenge this hazard and after seeing what Nick wants to do with it, I'd lay up if I were you.  You can probably imagine this is a pretty exciting time for me.  Our bunkers are way over due for this overhaul.

By the way.  Google Earth has updated their images of our region so now you can look at how cool the new teeways look from above.  In the center of this photo is the 12th hole which is one of the few holes that we have the finished look of a seemless transition from teeway to fairway.  The hope is to have all of the holes finished by next season.

Revised Master Plan

Today we are unveiling the newly revised Master Plan (MP).   Our previous plan was adopted this past April but at that time it was more of a conceptual plan and not complete.  We were still working out the details when our architect and friend John Harbottle III passed away suddenly.  One thing was for certain, John's vision of the new "golden age" bunkering style was bold and magnificent which we can see by the looks of the six traps we completed just before he left us.  Also, John supported my very unorthodox mowing pattern idea that resulted in what we call "teeways".  The teeways have been overwhelmingly accepted and give the course a much more simplified, natural look that fits right in to the classic look of the courses built in the "golden age".  John had left us with many ideas that had not been cemented into the plan.  He talked about removing this or that bunker, and adding short grass here or there.  He was big on lengthening the course trying to look outside the box at possible teeing grounds to keep our course current with the forever farther traveling golf ball. In order to move forward with our much needed bunker remodel and the desire to have a complete plan for direction, we needed to find a new architect to help us finalize the plan. After interviewing a select number of individuals, the Committee determined that Nicholas Schaan was the best candidate.  Nick is a Senior Associate for David McLay Kidd (DMK).  Nick is also a huge John Harbotttle fan.  Nick and John worked on many projects together and they golfed together when of course they would just talk for hours and hours about golf course architecture.  The Committee feels without question that Mr. Schaan is the most qualified person to carry out John's vision here at Tacoma C&GC.  So with that being said, here is the new heading to the Club's Master Plan.

So our new plan is still a John Harbottle III design, but now it is "as interpreted" by Nicholas Schaan of DMK.  The overall theme of the plan is a restoration of the course to one that you would imagine was built in the "golden age".  Even though the first course at Tacoma C&GC  predates the "golden age", it was in 1925 that the Club invested many dollars into the layout which virtually remained  unchanged for 80 years.   That was right in the beginning of the "golden age" which is the period when many of the greatest golf course architects in the history of the game were all at work creating a number of America’s most famous layouts. At the heart of the plan is a bunker renovation.  Of course they will be built in the same style as the ones built this spring under John's supervision (see photo below)

Secondly, a major component of the plan is the expansion of fairway turf.  The teeways have been overwhelmingly accepted and now that concept is taken further to include large areas around greens.  Several bunkers will be eliminated to facilitate this concept, which is hardly a new idea.  In fact this design element is very common on older, classic designs and John implemented it all the time in his designs.  Lastly, there is significant lengthening of the golf course.  New championship tees are to be constructed on 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 16, and 18.  The new course will almost be 6900 yards from the tips and yes that is still shorter than most championship layouts but long enough that no more will the golfing community describe the course as "short".  It's worth pointing out that constructing tees in conjunction with building bunkers results in a "win win" situation.  That is we get the much needed length for the course but also a logical use of all the waste soil generated by excavating the old sand from the bunkers.  Using spoils from a bunker renovation to build tees is a very common and sensible strategy.  Now, let's look at the plan in detail.

Starting at the north end of the property, you'll see that greens 1, 2, and 3 all get some short grass added around them.  Also, the fairway bunker on #1 gets eliminated.  This bunker was only built to get rid of the spoils dozed off by the construction of the tennis courts.  Harbottle was opposed to fairway bunkers on the opening hole so really this is a great idea to get rid of it.  The bunker 20 yards short of the par 3 third hole also gets eliminated.  This bunker mostly penalizes the high handicapper and really this uphill 215 yard beast is already hard enough without it.  Another 30 yards gets added to the 4th hole which arguably makes it the hardest hole on the course.  Yes, at 435 yards #4 is already one of our longer holes, but John stressed that we need to keep the long holes long, and the short holes short so as to maintain good variety of shot value.

Moving southward on the plan, you see that two bunkers are removed on #4.  One large bunker on the right takes the place of two.  The greenside bunker on #4 gets removed since you cant see it from the landing area and it is a great spot for a short grass collection area.  Fairways 9 and 18 become one in this part of the course creating a really neat, huge open area that will be a place you can bail out from 18 if you feel that you don't want to try and carry the nasty bunker complex ahead of  you.  This picture also shows that the planting right of the first tee is removed.  That idea is seen throughout the plan.  All plantings of ornamentals are to be removed from the interior of the course to create the most natural surroundings as possible.  The little bunker short of the 18th green gets replaced again by short turf.  Pitching into the green off a tight lie over the bunker will be very challenging and more fun than hitting out of a bunker over another bunker.

Moving through the plan form North to South, this picture shows a lot of interesting stuff going on in the center of the property.  First, 5 and 8 green are connected together with short grass while a couple bunkers are removed.  That will be some seriously fun golf.   Also, 6 tee and 18 tee are combined into one teeing ground.  I just love this idea and I'm sure this will be my favorite spot on the whole property once this project is completed. The bunker left of #10 green gets replaced with fairway turf which will be so challenging as that green slopes away from that area.  You can see that all the holes in this picture except 17, will be lengthened.  Three of these holes are par 5's and currently all of those are way too easy to reach in two.  For this reason, adding length to these par 5's is important, but the most important lengthening is that which will occur on the 11th which is at the bottom of the picture.  Right now the golf ball is going so far that even the average hitter is coming close to hitting those putting on the 16th green.  I mean really, this is the one of those tees that has remained in the same spot for the entire history of the course.  So this is where the Club's founders were hitting the hickory stick and gutta percha ball.  This hole has gotten way too short with the improvement in equipment technology so it is imperative that this hole gets lengthened.  Another important thing to note in this picture is that all the cart paths get removed.  We have been picking away at this over that last couple years with great success.  I'm sure no one misses the cart paths we recently removed on 4, 8, and 12.  Of course to pull this off, we need to remove trees for added sunlight, and convince people that they can drive over and down the middle of the teeways so that the wear caused by carts is distributed over a large area.

This last picture shows the plan for the southern most area of the course.  Again there is lengthening, the most significant being on the 8th hole.  This monster par 4 will be touching 490 yards which makes it again one of the hardest holes anywhere.  The opportunity to lengthen the 16th has only recently been envisioned as the loss of that large oak left of the tee just occurred during the ice storm this past January.  This par 5 has been chewed up recently by long hitters and so this opportunity to add yardage is really a gift from mother nature and a much needed improvement. One bunker is removed from each of the greens on 11, 12 and 14.  This yields the opportunity to create "run off" or "run on" areas that make golf so much more fun and are equally as challenging as bunker shots.  One thing you might notice is that there will be significant tree removal on holes 13-15.  Mostly these are smaller trees that were planted since the construction of these holes back in 1989.  This is something that Nick pointed out on his last visit.  Forever people have commented that the "new holes" don't look or feel like the holes on the original part of the course.  One of the most obvious differences between the two areas is that the "new holes" have many younger, nursery sized trees growing on them.  The original part of the course has more clusters of mature trees and a nice scattering of open areas.  I couldn't agree more, that by removing the smaller trees and leaving the mature trees, the "new holes" will look and feel much more like the rest of the course.  In closing, just in case you were wondering, I love this new plan.  Once completed, I feel that it will definitely be the best Tacoma C&GC has ever been.  Of course the new bunkers will look amazing.  Of course the teeways will be even more amazing than they already are,  and the much needed length will ensure that this course continues to challenge the best players in the game.  One things for certain, it will be a mission accomplished in that the course will look and play like a course built in the "golden age".   The classical architecture from that period will once again adorn the grounds at Tacoma C&GC, and I imagine it will be just as John envisioned it.  To download a copy of the plan that you can look at, click HERE.  It is a very large file so when you click on it, be patient as it loads.  Once loaded and you see the image, click on file and then download.

What's Happening

Tomorrow it will be 13 days since greens aeration and so they should be pretty good since they have been healing well with unseasonably warm temperatures.  There are a few greens however that will show the scars of aeration a week or two longer.  Those are greens #1, #4, #9, and #13.  The reason for this extra recovery time is we used the deep tine aerator on them and that was quite disruptive.

Here is a picture of the deep tine machine on #9.  Click on the video below to see it in action.  This is a 1/2" tine penetrating 10 inches deep.

Why did we deep tine some greens and not all of them? Well, serious problems require serious solutions.  The greens we deep tined don't drain well and start to get soft during the winter.  I'm very hopefull that the deep tine alleviates the poor drainage on these greens.  Over the next month we will deep tine all the greens but not this aggressively and therefore we will not have a serious problem getting them smooth again.  Here's a picture of us getting serious with the rolling as we rented a steam roller for smoothing out the greens we deep tined this past week.  Our regular rollers should have no problem smoothing out the other greens once we deep tine them.

This past week we punched most of the fairways and teeways.  Unfortuantely, we have had such dry conditions that the regular hollow tine operation was causing too much damage.  Specifically, the dry soil conditions allowed the surface to be loosened too much by the aerator.  When this happens, the core harvesting machine has a tendency to grab turf and cause lots of tearing.  To avoid having many, many areas to repair, we opted to just solid tine the fairways and teeways.  Even this process heaved up turf quite a bit but since we didn't need to use the harvesting machine, nothing has gotten torn up too bad.  It is really nice to see the sand going down on the teeways.  This is the best thing for getting them smooth and consistent with the fairway turf.  Speaking of teeways, here's a video of us mowing the 13th.  

Before we had teeways, this tee complex looked like this.  This picture was taken right after we restored this areas following the installation of the sewer line back in 2010.  Back then I was still mowing stripes on the fairways..................................Wow, we sure have gotten smarter in the last couple years.

  

Lastly, remember this picture of my experiment with a new herbicide.

Here we are spraying the new herbicide called Segment.  The objective is to kill the ryegrass that is growing amongst our pure poa stands.  So here is how the trial turned out.  These pictures were taken 2 weeks after we applied the product to our nursery green.

Turf on the left of this photo was untreated and the turf on the right side of the photo was obviously treated since a lot of it doesn't look too hot.  Actually the green is just fine as only the ryegrass died.  The poa never even discolored.  In the foreground of the picture, you can see that almost all the turf is dead on the treated side.  This is because this areas was recently cut out and reestablished with ryegrass since that is what we always use for our roughs when starting from seed or sod.  The picture below is a close up of the short mowed area.  You can clearly see how well the dark ryegrass clumps are no longer present in the treated turf on the right.

Needless to say I am very amazed how well this product selectively kills ryegrass.  Now I have hope that our teeways will look like our very mature poa fairways in only a few seasons.  We will soon be experimenting with this product on the golf course with the hopes to use a lot of it next spring to speed the transition of mixed turf stands to pure poa stands.  Very exciting stuff!