May 30

Well, the plan was to start grassing this week...that was until the sod farm received 10 inches of rain in 3 days. Its hard to cut sod under water! We could of sodded a little bit on Saturday, but we decided to wait until this coming Monday. The couple extra days allowed the contractor a little extra time to do some final prep work, which worked out well. Instead of putting the sand in the bunkers after grass, he started putting it before grassing (which saves him from potentially wrecking his finished product), he was able to spend more time lazer leveling tees, and I had time to install some extra plant materials with heavy equipment.

This pic shows the lazer level machine and set up. Once you set the percent slope to the desired direction, its off to the races. The computer will automatically raise and lower the box blade to either cut down the highs or fill the lows. After 20-30 minutes, a regular sized tee is perfectly flat. Lastly, to pefectly smooth out the surface, a sand bunker machine is used to smooth the surface (in the back ground).




Here's a tee just after finishing with the lazer level. The top is done, but still needs some hand work to make the tie-ins flow smooth.



Here is a pic of the hand work to finalize all the tie-ins right before sod. Its amazing how much hand work there is to be done, even with all the giant earth movers around.


To finalize the screening between holes 7 & 8, I have installed a lot of large new trees. Here is a pic of some of the new bald cypress.


Here's a pic from 8 green looking at 7 fairway. Remember how open it used to be? I can see 14 new trees in this pic.


Here are a couple new cypress in a drainage littoral. I will plant marsh grasses all around the base of the trees and it will look spectacular.


This pic shows a lot if you look close. Yep, that's new sand in the bunkers. Notice how the edges are not filled yet. That's in case we get rain and the sides wash a little, it won't contaminate the nice clean sand. The guys in the pic are taking off the fumigation tarp. We have to pull the tarp and float the greens out so everything can be tied in together. Lastly, if you look way into the background, you can see water running. This is so the final grading can be done. When the soil is completely dry, it won't hold any shape and just falls apart. The black pipes sticking up are drain clean outs. They will be cut off at ground level and capped just before sod is installed. There's always lots going on when preping for grass.


Still on the front side, stipping has begun on holes 5. Actually, by the time you read this holes 3,4,& 5 have been stripped. Here is pic of the dozer heading for #5


He makes short work of it....



Along side of the mighty dozer is a couple of small skid steer bucket loaders for the hard to reach areas, like around greens and bunkers.


In preperation for all of the work done on the front side I needed to make some infrastructure improvements for water control. Here the contractor is installing an 8" valve.



Seems easy enough, right? Look how many guys are in the hole.


On hole 3, lake enhancement work has begun. The stakes are going to be the new top of the lake bank.


On the back, drainage is completely finished on holes 10-13. When I left today, the main drain line between 14 & 18 was almost installed and about 1/3 of the drainage in 18 had been installed. Shaping was complete on holes 10, 11, most of 12, and most of 13. The entire back 9 has been stripped and buried. The lake work on 16 is done, the rock walls on 16 are done, and the fairway has been lowered on front of 16.

This pic is of the enhancements to the lake on 18. The same work done on 16 will be done here, some perimeter work and the front of the fairway will be lowered. All the palm trees laying on the ground across the lake were transplanted to holes 7, 8, & 9. We are trying to reuse as much as possible.


By Wednesday of next week the front 9 will probably be completely stripped. The bury pits have begun being excavated on hole 5. The contractor will dig a pit large enough for 3 & 4 on hole 4, while holes 1 & 2 will go on hole 1 or the range. The next major thing to happen on the front will be the work to the lake on 3 tee, 4 green, 5 tee.

Stay tuned, more to come.

Memorial Day

Since the last posting, a lot of the same has been happening. Scrape off the top, dig a big hole, put the spoils into the hole, and push the clean material around to shape the course. I make it seem simple, but it has been a long couple of weeks. We have found that although the rock is dig-able, they are so big that they are hitting a lot of pipes. Its unavoidable, but still a pain in the neck!!! The good news is starting Wed of this week, we will be starting the grassing process on 6-9. The first thing to get grassed is the sodded areas, bunker faces and lake banks. Then, the following week we will sprig the rest of holes 6-9. Right now, I am finishing up with a lot of little projects, like irrigation and landscaping. The contractor is finishing up any clean up work and even has added a couple of catch basins where there is still low spots.

Here is a truck load of plant material I ordered to plant along the Mooring's fence line. I searched local nurseries and found great deals on over stock items.


Here's a vegetative transplant operation! We took these areca palms off of 12 tees and used them to completely hide the discharge pump enclosure on the back side so you can't see it from the new tees on 13.


Here's a pic of "Operation We Don't Want To See Each Other." These huge arecas were behind 12 green, and now they are on a berm along the eastern property line where the elephant burial ground used to be. These big palms should do a wonderful job of making it so our neighbors can't see us and we can't see them. Surprising to me, that's the way they wanted it, and being good neighbors...we were happy to make it happen.


Look how tall these arecas are compared to the machine...


I took this pic the other day when I was checking on the construction of the new marsh area on 13, between the new tees and fairway. These are rosie spoon billed ibis. These birds are marsh waders, feeding on submerge food sources. I was amazed at how fast the environmental benefit was realized by the animals. This is a great sign of how we turned a waste land into something that will be beautiful as well as environmentally productive. The animal wildlife will be thriving in and around this new wetland!!



As I said before, we are getting ready to start the grassing process. That includes the first set of greens. To prep the greens for grass we have to first roto-til them for fumigation. This process makes the soil "fluffy" so the fumigant can move slowly up through the soil. The fumigant is injected as a high pressure liquid which quickly volatilizes into a gas that is lighter than air, so it slowly rises through the soil profile.


This pic is of the fumigation tractor on 6 green. Sorry for the "fuzzy" picture, they were moving too fast for my camera to adjust.


When the crew finishes with a strip, they cut the plastic off with a sharpened shovel


The sections of tarp in the middle are glued together (notice the red glue) to create one large cover. They always make sure the two covers are glued together tightly, that's why he's walking the line. They bury the outside edges in the sand to hold it down.


Here is a pic of the business end of the deal. The knives go down 6-8" depending on how soft the soil is.


The contractor's large excavator is now on #5 lake shaping the edges by digging out some of the sand that has sluffed off. Remember, the new hole will play along the water's edge so we need a nice gentle slope.


As part of the lake work on 5, we took out all of the huge Brazilian Peppers by the old maintenance building. The excavator will make a berm where the peppers were so I can plant on top of it to hide the building.


What's this, a shotgun? Well, sort of. We had our first "guided tour" of the project for the members. We had almost 50 members sign up! It was great to see all of the members there and the looks of excitement during the tour. Everyone looked like kids waiting for Christmas Day to come so they could open up they present they knew they were sure to get!!!



Tomorrow work will continue on finalizing shaping on 10, 11, 12, & 13. All of the drainage has been installed on those holes and the contractor is cleaning up the rocks, setting catch basins, and grading the dirt to shape the contours. The final push is on for holes 6-9 for grass on Wednesday. I have a little bit more landscaping to install, then those 4 holes will be done.


Stay tuned for a post plant blog update. Green side up, right?

May 18

We are almost ready to start sodding on holes 7, 8, & 9. Probably start that next week. Shortly after we will be filling bunkers with new white sand, and then final preping for sprigs.

Here the contractor is final grading with a box blade


Here's some what of what it will look like after being boxed. He'll just keep swirling around until it is super smooth


Remember how small the old red and gold tee on 16 was? I wanted to give a perspective of how large the tees is now so I took this pic of my cart in the middle of it.


After the contractor finished with the rock walls for the tees, I asked him to see if it would be possible to dig out the lake since as you can see it is almost completely dry. Here is a pic of the "test" dig to see what he could do.


In the end he was able to excavate about 4 feet down, right to solid rock. Here is a series of pics showing the process. Careful, these are messy!!!!





One of the major objectives on 16 in the project was tee enlargement, which we did, and cutting down the front of the fairway to make it easier to make it over the lake. We also needed dirt to make a haul road out into the lake so we could reach the remaining unexcavated portions. So, I had the contractor take this big bull dozer and just push the dirt out into the lake on the cut line. Then, as the excavator finished digging out the lake, it just dug out all of the haul road too. Here is a series of pics to show the process.





Then once the material is excavated, the lake edge looks like this. Also in this pic you can see the new rock wall that is being made right at the top of the high water mark. We will still have that "ramp" look up to the fairway as promised. The top of the wall will be 3 feet below the top of the fairway.


Here's another pic of the wall, just a little higher.


Back on the front side, its time for some new landscaping on the holes that are about to get grass. Specifically, time for the big trees. Remember back in January when I root pruned all of the big black olives and oak trees. Well, its time to give them a new home. If properly root pruned, transplant is a snap. As long as you can pick up these beasts that is.


Here is pic of some new palms added between 7 & 8. Last week I had 100 palms planted on 7, 8, & 9.


Add a nice big black olive....and now you have instant seperation between holes.


Here's another pic of some new tree landscaping around 8 tees


Here the contractor is spreading out all of the new dirt on 18 fairway


And here is the contractor picking out the rock from the fill dirt on 18. Holes 13, 14, 16, 17, & 18 have all the rock.


Here the contractor is digging out the old "elephant burial ground." This area's dirt was not suitable to use on the course, so it being buried to generate good material.


Notice the cut in elevations from the excavator to the ground below. The whole area will be cut and planted in marsh grasses.


A couple of loads made it out to the course, so I asked the contractor to scrap it up and haul it to the bury pits. Notice how dark it is compared to the pile in the background.


If you are a resident in Big Cypress on the north side of the Clubhouse, you're going to be glad I replaced this old pipe. It used to drain the streets into the pond on 13 tee. I think it got a case of metal termites!!!



Stay tuned, more to come.