Its been a little over a month since we have grassed the first part of the project, its time to introduce some more routine maintenance back into the mix. One of the hardest things to do after installing new bunkers is to get them to play like an old one. The key is lots of water, compacting, and working the sand so it starts to settle. Here you can see, we have already started to rake the bunkers a couple times a week to "condition" the sand for playability. About a month before we open, we will take a plate tamper and run it over all of the bunkers to compact them as best we can. Even with all of this effort they will still be a little fluffy come opening day.
Also part of the process in preparing the greens is to roll them often. I know many of you understand this process to be a function of making the greens smooth and fast once they are playable, but it is also done to do the same thing while they are growing in...well, more for smoothing than for speed. The rollers help take out all of the little bumps and creases to give the grass a smooth surface to grow across.
Everyone thinks that in order to control weeds on a golf course you just spray them, right? Not really true in today's world, especially on a new golf course. On new golf courses, while the grass plants are very immature, the primary weed control method is hand weeding. On average, we have 3-4 guys pulling weeds everyday.
Mean while, on the front the work on the final couple holes is closing out fast. Part of the process is to redo some irrigation work. Here is the "wire trailer" for installing new electric heads. After the trench is cut and the pipe is laid out, every time a sprinkler is installed one of the wires on a spool is grabbed for that sprinkler. Then its on to the next sprinkler, and another wire. Once you have all of the wire spools being used on the trailer, it is driven to the controller where a little extra wire is pulled off and cut. Then its back to the next sprinkler in line and the process continues until every sprinkler has a wire that runs all the way back to the controller.
Once all of the heads are installed and the wires are run, its time to test the system. Here one of my staff is checking rotation and making sure any debris in the lines did not clog the nozzles.
I was asked the other day how am I going to make sure the golf course is ready by winter. Well in the summer its an easy recipe, sun....water....and lots of fertilizer. Each one of these trailers has somewhere between 15 & 20 tons of fertilizer in them. Each trailer also has a different kind of fertilizer in it. The process will be to fertilize the course twice a week until it has 100% coverage. Grow baby, GROW!!!!!!!
I thought I would end with a couple of pics of how far some of the grass has come so far. The first couple of holes are not far out from 100% coverage.
Here is a pic of 6 fairway from the green
Here is 6 from the tee
Here's a close up of 6 fairway
Here is #15 right after sodding the green's complex. Notice how low the rock wall in the front is.
Here is 7 from the new blue tee
#7 from the first fairway bunker
#8
#9
Next week we will grass holes 5, then 4, and maybe 3 if we have a good start to the week with only a few fires to put out. Hole #1 & the practice facility are left to install drainage on. I have trees coming on Monday and Tues for the new landscaping to separate 3 & 4. I will not be installing any landscaping on the Moorings Park fence on holes 4 & 5 until the "construction" phase of the project is over. right now I am concentrating on getting to the areas that need new landscaping where we would be disturbing the new golf course turf by waiting. Don't worry, promise to get to it.
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