COVID-19

     This has been a year to remember.  I hope everyone is doing ok.  My staff has been working very hard to get the golf course ready for the season.  With the State of Missouri stay at home order my seasonal staff is still at home.  I have 5 men that are ready  to go when the order is lifted. I have also been staggering my full time employees start times so everyone is not in the shop at the same time.   It has been very challenging to maintain this property with 6 people.  It just does not look right out on the course with no flags and pins in the greens.  Cups upside down who would of ever believed this.

      We suspended all projects that would put my employees closer than 6 feet.  We have been basically maintaining and mowing the golf course.  We had some great weather to get some of our projects checked off our list the past month.  Drainage on 14 green and 17 green are too big ones.  Trimming limbs throughout the golf course and removing a number of dead and damaged trees is next.  We have been hammered with lots of rain.  We get the stay at home order and it turns dry go figure.  We have a big list of projects that seems to get bigger every year.

      Hopefully we are starting to turn the corner and we can  get back closer to normal.  Please stay safe. It won't be long and we can all enjoy golf the way it is supposed to be played.

Spring Aerification

We just finished our Spring aerification.  We deep drilled 5/8'' holes 10'' deep on 5''x 5'' centers.  after that we came behind with our Toro Procore 648 and punch 3/8'' holes 3'' deep on 1.5''x 1.5'' centers.  Here is a little trivia for you.  We have a total of 2 acres of greens.  We drilled a total of 792,000 holes with the deep drill machines.  We aerified a total of 5,632,000 holes with our Procore.  A grand total of 6,424,000 aerifying holes in our greens.
     Aerification is used for gas exchange in the root zone.  O2 needs to get down to the root zone and CO2 needs to get out of the root zone.  The aerification holes gives the gases a channel to get in and escape.  We also aerify to eliminate thatch.  Thatch can cause multiple problems.  Soft spongy greens to increase disease and insect pressure.  Aerification is a very important cultural practice to have nice playing greens.
     You will notice the holes are much smaller than in past years.  We used smaller tines but punched twice as many holes.  Below are a few pictures of the process.  My staff did an outstanding job.  We aerified all 19 greens plus 9 white tee in one day.

We verticut in 2 different direction before we aerified

Deep drill machine

 Look at the holes.  You can see the bigger deep drill hole below the keys.

 We used 35 tons of sand.

Dragging the sand into holes

Finished

10 Bridge completed

     It took about 1 month but 10 bridge is new and improved.  We added some much need support under the decking of the bridge.  You will notice when you drive across no more clatter.  It took a little longer than we thought.  The weather did not help out.  My staff did an outstanding job.