October 9th

Ever hear the saying "the difference is in the details?" Right now, that is the mentality for the remainder of the project. The golf course is done, and 98% grown in, but there is still a tremendous amount of stuff to do. We still need to install ball washers, put back benches, spread mulch, level depressions in fairways, level sprinklers, establish fairway cuts, install some sub-surface drainage in wet spots, just to name a few "to do's."

But I have to tell ya....the course looks AWESOME! You're going to be blown away when you see it for the first time. Here's a quick update of what's going on.

As I said before, details, details, details!!! Everyday there are at least 5 guys going over every inch of the "short grass areas" checking to make sure there isn't a bad seam line or an irrigation head too low. When they find an area, they cut off the sod, regrade it, and then put the sod back.


Even with our new super efficient drainage system, we still have a couple of wet pockets of soil. I had the staff out putting in some sub-surface drainage lines to wick away the water to firm up the playing areas. This one is right in the landing zone on hole #1.


Here, one of my staff is checking the grade with a laser transit to make sure everything drains as planned.


All of the immature landscape areas are getting mulched


As well as all of the tree rings


Tony had a new range net installed for all you long hitters


Here is a pic of the Clubhouse green showing the new flag pole donated by Mr. Studley


A last minute addition to the project as a result of a newly identified problem is this drainage mainline install through Mr. Finigan's yard on hole #9. Now that we have an excellent drainage system to get the water off of the golf course and into the lakes, we discovered we couldn't drain the lakes on the front 9 fast enough to keep up with all of the water being added from the golf course due to a small pipe size restriction at the discharge point. The small pipe size was causing water to back up onto the golf course during periods of heavy rain. To correct the problem we installed an additional 18" drainage mainline into the system of pipes that carries the water to the lake on 13 tee where it is discharged into the Gordon River Basin. By installing this pipe, we increased the drainage flow out of the front lakes by more than 50%. A super huge, enormous, tremendous thank you goes to the Finigans and their neighbor to the north, the Metcalfs, for working with the Club to allow us to do what was needed to correct the problem. As you can see, we had to literally thread the needle with this pipe to get it into the drainage easement between the two houses.




As you can see, it's detail time. Marshall used to say, "It's time to put the make-up on the pig." Now, it's time to put the make-up on the beauty queen. I hope everyone is as excited as I am, can't wait to play it!!