July 21 - CONSTRUCTION IS 99.99% OVER

It has been another crazy week of changes. In the last 7 days we have only been able to get two truck loads of sod due to tremendous rains at the sod farm, putting us slightly behind our grassing schedule. Good news this afternoon though, tomorrow we are supposed to get 4-5 truck loads of sod, which should be enough for us to sod green and bunker complexes on at least 4 holes. Its going to be sod slinging mayhem the next couple of days to get ready for sprigging on Thursday and Friday.

Yet over the past week or so, we have managed to do a lot of the busy work that gets side tracked by the "gotta get done now" work. Part of the process has been installing more landscaping between 3 and 4. Here is a pic of how it gets delivered. We have to pick it off the truck, separate it into plant types and sizes, then mobilize it out to the field. This truck is just 1 of 3 full truck loads that got planted between holes 3 and 4.


Here is a bunch of pics showing the progress of planting between 3 and 4.






Here is the new putting green next to #1 tee. The green's mix has been added and the irrigation has been installed. All that is left is to grass it. The tentative plan is to grass the remaining greens (1-5, clubhouse, chipping, the new range putting green, and the new nursery) next Thursday.


On the greens that have already been grassed, a constant "rouging" of celebration is being done. Here is piece that I picked off of #8 green today. With all of the grass flying around during planting, it's impossible to keep 100% segregation. In order to manage the celebration in the mini verde, I have a crew of guys walk each green every week. In addition, I personally walk every green every week looking for "out of place" celebration.


I have to say, now that #5 will play along the lake instead of Mooring Park's fence, its a magnificent hole.




The only eye sore that was left on hole 5 was the back of the driving range. The old weidelia lake bank looked horrible. I had the contractor recontour the bank and then had it sodded. Now it looks crisp and fresh, just like the rest of the project.




Now that the earth moving is over, this is a common site at the practice area...its bath time before being shipped back to the rental company.


I'm going to finish this blog with a hole by hole pic montage I took today, in the order of construction and grassing.

Hole 6;


look from behind the #6 green to the tee


hole 6 fairway, almost ready to play


Hole 7 tee view


#7 mid fairway to green


hole 8 tee view


hole 8 mid fairway...sorry, its a little blurry


Hole 9 tee view


#9 mid fairway


Hole 10 tee view


#10 mid fairway


Hole 11 tee view


#11 mid fairway


Hole #12 tee view


#12 fairway


Hole 13 tee view


#13 @ 1st fairway bunker


#13 green


Hole 14 tee view


#14 mid fairway


Hole 18 back tee view


Hole 18 red tee view


#18 mid fairway


Hole 15 back tee view


Hole 15 white tee view


Hole 15 red tee view


Hole 15 silver tee view


Hole 16 white tee view


Hole 16 red tee view


#16 mid fairway


Hole 17 tee view


#17 mid fairway


Hole 5 back tee view, don't worry...i'll move the palm


#5 mid fairway


Hole 4 back tee view


#4 mid fairway


Hole 3 back tee view...hold on to your socks, this baby's like 460 from back here!


#3 mid fairway


Hole 2 white tee view


#2 fairway view, as you can see bunkers are ready for new sand


#1 tee view, wetting the soil for final grading

#1 mid fairway, final grading taking place


One last pic to show. If you had any doubt about our beneficial environmental impact with this project, check this out. This crane couldn't even wait until the guys planting the new aquatics were done before he went hunting! The wading bird population on and around the course has exploded with all of the new lake enhancements and aquatic vegetation. It's nothing to see ducklings, egrets, cranes, belted kingfishers flying around the course. I even saw an osprey the other day hunting our lakes.

July 10

We are officially off of the back 9 with construction and grassing. Today we finished grassing the greens on 14-18 to complete the back 9 revitalization. Work is progressing rapidly on the remaining holes, the order of which will be 5,4,3,2,1 & then the practice facility last.

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.

July 2

I want to apologize to everyone for having the long delay between posts. I meant to do this posting this past weekend like usual, but as I sat down to get blogging I realized I forgot my memory card with all my pics at work, and about the same time of my revelation my son shot me in the head with a Nerf gun and it was all out war after that. So sorry for the delay, but here we go....

It has been a tumultuous couple of weeks! The crew has a little competition going on to see who works the least amount of hours in one week. Last week's winner came in with mid 60's on the time card. Today when I got home, I didn't even take my clothes off before showering I was so dirty, just turned on the water and stood there trying to rinse off a couple pounds of dirt from my cloths before it got into the washing machine....and I was the cleanest one on the crew. I don't want to make it seem all bad. The crew and I are having a great time, it's just at the hardest part and seems like when we see light at the end of the tunnel, it's another train coming at us. Yet, when we feel a little over whelmed we cruise the first 6 holes, see what we have accomplished, grin a sly grin of achievement, and then go get back in the hole we were working in.

A quick update on the construction before we start with the pics...
*all drainage is in on the entire course except 1,2, & the range and working well. We had 4" of rain in two days and had no standing water
*all shaping on the course is done except a few targets on the range
*all earth work is 99% complete

On with the show, so here we go

The grass on 6,7,& 8 is at about 60% coverage in a month. Prior to mowing though, we drag this 5 ton roller around to smooth out all of the creases, and smoosh down any bumps.


We will start mowing everything at 3/4" and when we have coverage, we will let the roughs grow up to 1.5" and lower the fairways and tees to 1/2"



On the flip side of ready to mow, here's a pic of 18 from the Gold tees right after planting


Here's a pic of a boulder the size of a cart that was pulled out of 18 that was about 3 inches below the soil. Good thing we found it now.


Remember all of the lake enhancements to the lake on 3 tee / 4 green last posting? Here is the new view behind 4 green looking at 5


Here's the view from 4 green looking at 3 tee


If you think that's amazing, here is the view from the new white tee on 13. When this fills in, I wanted it to look like an everglades river of grass.


Plans are moving forward with the new putting green. Here the new look from the big tree behind the clubhouse to the range


Here's the new green roughed in. The plan is to have the green's collar the same height as the white tee on #1 and kind of blend into the tee so it can all be cut as one area the same height. The back of the tee will look like it wraps around the putting green. It should be pretty unique and visually will tie the green into the "starting complex" very well.


Remember the huge grass area between 14 tees and 18 green? Here's what it looks like now. We used this area to generate dirt, as well as dramatically enhanced the view from 14 tee and coming into the finishing green.


Here's the before on 16 tee


Here's how it turned out. From the new back tee, its one hell of a hole!! Plans are in the works to bury the power wire so the view will be unimpeded.


Same tee, looking down the hole


Here are the old tees on 4...now you see them, well part of them


Now you don't


Part of the project was to get rid of the old well that was next to #1 red tees. Here the contractor is pulling out the pump part that was down in the well. He had to raise it up, put a collar on it so it wouldn't fall back into the well, and then cut it off 3 times. The well "box" and old pump is officially gone.



When the contractor got to the range and started shaping it, we still needed dirt. Knowing how dry Mary's Pond gets, the project team decided to have it enhanced a little. We were able to dig it down another 5-6 feet and enlarge the pond a little bit, taking it all the way to the cart path.


Even after digging out Mary's Pond, we still needed a bit more dirt. Here's a pic of the area on the left of the cart path as you drive up to #2 green. The new littoral generated just enough dirt to finish out our fill requirements.



Again, sorry for the delay. Promise to not forget the memory card again.