Storm

Yesterdays storm left lots of debris behind.  We had a number of greens covered with sticks, leaves and Oak blooms.  No major damage was done to the course.  Below is a picture of 10 green.

Dead Elm Tree

The old Elm Tree in # 1 rough was cut down today.  We called in a climber to bring this big tree down.  He made quick work of it.  In one hour he had the entire tree on the ground.  Quite impressive to watch.  The Climber used the Oak tree next to the Elm to secure himself.  That was a wise decision I could not believe how dead and brittle the big Elm was.

 Before

 Dropping large limb 

Not much left

Mowing Fairways

We mowed our fairways today.  First time in 2016.

Swimming Pool Maintenance

We were busy cleaning out the swimming pool.  Removed all plugs and cleaned out leaves.  Dan then power washed the entire pool.  Pool is now ready for the painters.

Mowing Tee's

We  mowed our tee's for the first time in 2016 today.  Some of them are quite hairy and others are not.  We will cut grass on the majority of them.  We will be mowing everything real soon.

 

Tree work

     We have been busy taking care of some dead trees on the course.  Most of the trees removed were  alive at the end of last season.  Not sure what happened to them.  We lost a Red Maple on hole 4, Silver Maple on hole 5, Persimmon tree hole 10, Hackberry tree hole 13 and Pear tree hole 15.  We still have at least 3 more trees to remove.  We have a big Elm tree 1 rough, Sugar Maple by 6 white tee and a Hickory tree by forward tee on 9. 

 Silver Maple # 5 had excessive rot

One limb was completely hollow.  It only had about 1 inch of wood holding it up.

New Invention

10 days ago we aerified all of our greens.  Rob made a new tool to help us get this job done more efficiently.  We call it the Turf Broom.  Basically it is made out of PVC piping that is connected to a Back Pack Blower.  It helps open up aerifying holes that are closed up  aerifying the greens.  We have struggled with this for some time.  In the past we would take back pack blowers  and blow the entire green trying to open up as many holes as possible.  We were not that successful opening up holes but spent a lot of man hours trying to do so.  With the new attachment on our blowers we open up 99% of the holes in a lot less time. This allows us to get sand in all of our aerifying holes.  Look at the video below.  We can broom a green in about 30 minutes and almost all holes are open. 

Notice how many holes are closed.



Turf Broom

This is after green is aerified

After Turf Broom.

Video of Broom in action