Sept 21

The word of the month has been PROJECT!!! We have been working on the Clubhouse landscaping primarily. A late addition to the scope of the project, the Clubhouse landscaping needed a good overhaul. We have installed new palms on the East side of the Clubhouse in all of the open spaces.


And we have cleaned up the porte-co-chere area. Before, you couldn't see the Club's logo from the road.


Now we have removed all of the overgrown materials and accented the columns nicely with the new palms


The south side of the building has been relandscaped. The hibiscus bushes shown below that were around the south entrance have been transplanted to #12 behind the green.


In their place, I installed Christmas Palms. The idea was to increase the verticality to reduce the building's elevation impact.


The west side of the building has bee relandscaped too. We removed all of the overgrown bushes and palms. You can see on the left side of the pic the old palm that has bent out and has grown up above the eve of the roof.


And replaced them with new material. I added a palm on all of the columns and fresh ground covers.


We have also dressed up the south end of parking lot by adding some landscaping on the Cypress Point side.


The entrance off of Solona is in the process of getting revamped also. Everyone should know by now that we have installed the new golf course grass on the north side of Solona where it used to be all weeds. To compliment the newly grassed entrance, our Golf Course Architect and I came up with a new landscape plan for the sign area. We built a new rock wall around the old sloped flower bed, so that we can "raise" the bed above all of the new landscape grasses we are going to install. You'll also notice that we removed the two black olive trees (transplanted them to the course) and installed some new royal palms. The idea being to have the sign area represent what you will see on the course. Once the grasses are installed around the sign, I'll upload a new pic.





Out on the course it was time to dress up the island between #7 and #9. As promised, the north side was covered with 5 different varieties of bougainvillia. We installed some on the little peninsula on #16 too.



FPL has finally been on site to remove the overhead power line on #16 tees. Now I have to get an electrician come in and run power underground from the pole to the comfort station.


Long before we started with the project, I've been working with the County to see where and what could be improved drainage around the neighborhood. As many of you know, we replaced the old rusted metal street drain pipes that cross the golf course. I was also successful in getting the County to clean the drainage ditch between my building and RP's golf maintenance building, thus draining the box culvert along Solona quicker, and subsequently Burning Tree quicker. Additionally, I was able to get the County to grade the slopes of "the ditch" along Burning Tree Drive, from Cypress Point all the way to Solona. After the County graded the slopes, I installed new sod for erosion control. Now the "ditch" looks a little more respectable.




The coolest thing happening right now on the golf course is the separation of the roughs from the fairways. Folks, it's here.....the golf course is here. First, I paint out all the perimeter cut lines, notice the faint orange lines.


The perimeters are cut first...


Then we mow em just like any other day. PRESTO....you have a fairway. Here you can see the new Silver tee. My plan is to cut the fairways as close to the Red tees as possible so there is not a long carry to the "short grass."





This week we are finishing up on the majority of our projects outside of the golf course. Our next big push is to start dialing in the details. By that I mean, defining all the differnt playing surfaces, getting the greens tuned in for play, leveling bumpy areas, mulching areas, finish planting a few landscape beds on the course, etc. Very, very busy still.....you think there's any chance we could push back opening two weeks? Just kidding!!!

Sept 5

I'm happy to report today that we have a golf course. I know that seems like a silly statement, but it's really there!!! This is the time of the project where you can really see all of the seeds of the construction, grassing, landscaping, and all the sweat and tears starting to bloom into the final product.

The new drainage and contouring have been an unbelievable success, even better than I had hoped for. This week we had what my Dad would call a couple "frog strangler rains," and the course handled them with ease. We still have the occasional clogged drain that we clean out, but for the most part the drainage works perfectly.

This new celebration grass is aggressive! When I take off on a weekend and come in Monday, I can see a noticeable difference in ground coverage. Its funny, now I really am getting paid to watch the grass grow :) Seriously, we have the rough and fairways on holes 6-18 completely grown in and the greens are very, very close to being completely grown in on those holes also. Remember, we planted the greens in three different sets so they are on a bit of a different pace. Set 1 (6-13) are 99%, still working on some perimeter areas. Set 2 (14-18) are about 80%. Set 3 (1-5 & all the practice greens + the new nursery) are about 60%.

We are still working on "ironing out" the ripples caused by the excessive amount of water needed during the grow-in. We will start separating the fairways from the roughs, where we can, in a couple weeks as a I need to get the course ready for ratting. The ratting team will need to know where the teeing grounds are, where the rough cut is, and so on.

My big push these days is to get the landscaping finished up. Here is a new landscape bed between 4 tees and 3 green. The plant is dwarf fire bush, it gets covered in a bright orange and yellow flower.


Here is a pic off of #4 blue tee. You can see how we have used landscaping grasses to consume large areas to reduce the mowing requirements. All of the bahia grass on the slopes around the littoral is in the process of being killed and then will be planted with the same landscape grasses as in the foreground. I sodded a lot of the landscape slopes with bahia grass for erosion control once the rains started, with the intention of killing it once it was time to plant the landscaping on the slopes. The bahia grass was actually cheaper than specialty erosion matting.


Here's another pic of using the landscape grass to consume areas where we used to mow. This one is between 2 tee and 3 tee.


Here's a pic of hole 2 from the tees, 2nd to last being planted.


Here's #1 from the white tee. #1 and the range were last to be planted


The range


Here is a pic of the new putting green in between #1 and the range. It's coming along very well.


Here's the Clubhouse green, still the 3rd set. It looks a little white since we just top dressed it heavy.


In comparison, here's a pic of 17 green, the 2nd set. It's a little farther along than the practice greens.


Here's a pic of the new cart staging area at the Clubhouse green. Turned out very well.


Remember what I said about the celebration being aggressive, well I wasn't kidding as you can see. This was taken on #10 fairway during a regular mowing.


A couple of other things are going on behind the scenes too. This is an example of a tee plate that will be ordered and installed in the ground at the official measuring point of each tee; all 5 sets. A HUGE thank you goes to the Foundation for graciously dontating these markers for the golf course. This plate is just a sample from the manufacturer, not one of ours.


In addition to the new tee plates on the teeing grounds, the Foundation also agreed to purchase these new 12" x 12" granite yardage markers for the middle of the fairways. All of the Par 4's & 5's will have a marker signifying 100, 150, & 200 yards from the middle of the green. I will also have the numbers painted the traditional colors.


I can't say enough about the wonderful support the Foundation has shown towards the Club. They have also purchased some new signage that has been placed around the Clubhouse grounds to help direct people.



Again, I want to say thank you very much to the Foundation, they are really stepping up when we need them!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you :)

Lots going on these days and we are still just as busy now as we were when we under construction. It's been a long race, but we are in turn 4 head for the finish line....running wide open & in high gear!