Driving Range Mat

     We have installed new Driving Range Mat.  The Fiberbuilt system.  This is a new and improved mat system.  It is built on a frame.  The mat is off the concrete surface about 1 inch.  This allows water to drain below the mat.  We have 2 types of artificial grass to hit off of.  1 strip of longer grass that has an adjustable tee placed into it.  You can also hit off of the standing area mat if you wish this is the same material and height that our old mat was like.  We have 7 double sided hitting areas and one spot is for right handed hitters only.  This is a huge improvement from our old mat.

 Laying down the base.

 Base is held together by pins

 Laying mats down in base.

Finished

Soggy

     

     What a year it has been.  As of today we are at 54'' of precipitation since 1/1/19.  We still have 2 months left in the year and I believe we could reach 60''.  The record rainfall in a years in St. Louis is 61.24'' we might be flirting with a record before this year ends. The average rainfall for a year is around 43''.  Since 2009 we have average in the low to mid 40's except for 2012 we had 33'' and 2016 we had 55'' .  

     The good news was we were able to keep our cost down for electricity.  We did not need to water the golf course as much  and we did not need  to fill our lake up. It did stay dry enough for us to get 3 green perimeters sodded last fall.   #7 cart path  and the drainage issue at the Black tee was fixed.

      The bad news is we had a lot of projects on the books that we could not get done because it was so wet.  Drainage work in our fairways.  Limb trimming throughout the golf course.  Renovating #4 fairway bunker were the three biggest projects that have been pushed back until this winter. We also had some winter kill of our fairways and some tee's.  I had to order 2 truck loads of zoysia grass sod to fix our # 9, and # 12 fairways.   #13 red/gold, #16 white/blue  and #18 white tees also needed sod.  Another problem we are facing is our local sod farms lost most of there sod from the flooding.  They ran out of sod this fall.  I had planed to finish sodding our remaining green perimeters on holes 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 and 16.  That project will  now be pushed back to next year.

    It was not a bad year by no means.  The golf course is in good shape.  Membership is growing and rounds of golf are up.  The future looks bright for Franklin County Country Club.  It will dry out and projects will get completed.  Temperatures are a little on the cooler side this fall.  Hopefully it won't last and you can still get out and enjoy the Golf Course.