Under Brush taken out of 7 and 8 ditches

We have cut out under brush on holes 7 and 8.  Under the direction of Art Schaupeter a Golf Course Architect out of St. Louis , Missouri  we opened up these areas.  Art stated we should be able to see shots that go right of 7 green, plus the trees were blocking the right side of the green when tees were on the right side of all 3  tee boxes.  On hole 8 the right side of 8 green was blocked by trees and under brush even if you hit the ball in the fairway.  If you hit ball into the ditch and took your drop you had no clear shot to the green.

 #7 Before

 # 7 After

 # 8 Before

 #8 before Cypress tree removed

# 8 after Cypress tree was removed

Winterizing Irrigation system

The Monday before Thanksgiving we blew all the water out of our irrigation lines.  This is a pretty big job.  We first open up drains and heads in low areas to drain out as much water as possible.  We have to rent a large air compressor.  We pump air into the irrigation system at the pump house.  This pushes all the water out of the irrigation heads that we turn on 1 station at a time until all water is pushed out.   We have 263 total stations.  It takes 8 to 10 hours to push all water out of our system.

 Compressor hooked up at pump station

 Water being pushed out of system

 Air and water being pushed out.  Notice the fog.

Sprinkler head almost purged of all water.

 

Winter Home

Karen has been busy digging up all her tropical plants.  These plants have to be placed in a warm environment or the cold will kill them.  She has just the right place in our green house.  Picture below shows the green house filling up.  Without the green house we would have to buy some of these plants yearly.  Most of the plants are in the beds around the swimming pool and in some of her large pots.

Blimp

Did you see the Blimp flying over Washington.  Here is a picture of it looking from 17 Green.  We could not figure out what the writing on it said.

Seeding

We have been very busy on the golf course.  We are over seeding our green surrounds with a turf type tall fescue blend.  We will also hit some of our weaker rough areas. 

 Dan seeding # 8 green surround

 We punch a hole and drop seed in one pass

Grass seed will germinate in holes.

Rain update

We have received more than 4 inches of rain and it is still raining.  We have not done any mowing since Wednesday.  Maybe we can mow greens this weekend.

Rain go away

Here are some pic's after a 3 inch rain this morning.  Golf course is soaked.  Ditches, lakes and oh yes Bunkers are full of water.  We just finished fixing bunkers from our last rain storm last week.  It took 5 people 12 hours.  All washed away.  Looks like it is going to stay wet for next 4 or 5 days.

 # 1 Bunker

 Left Bunker # 2

 Right bunker # 2

 Left Bunker # 4

 # 10 Bunkers

 Catch Basin 12 lake

Close up of #12 spillway