August 13....grow-in continues

I brought me son out to the course the other day to check things out and he had this look of boredom on his face, so I asked him why the sour face? He said, "it's not fun out here anymore now that the big machines are gone." I just grinned and thought "out of the mouth of babes." The construction phase of the project was a lot of fun; I mean who wouldn't like to play on a bull dozer for a while!

On the flip side, now we are doing all of the little stuff to get the course ready for play. There is no longer daily tangible evidence of progress as it's hard to quantify grass spreading compared to watching a bull dozer shape a hole. Yet, I can tell you....the grass is spreading, and quickly. These days we are planting landscaping, setting sprinklers, fixing a few wash outs, fertilizing the whole course twice a week, and mowing a lot of grass.

The following is a hole by hole visual on the course's grow-in progress, starting at the practice range and moving on to hole 1 through 18. Some holes are about 99%, while others are still far away from even being mowed.


The range, last to be planted


the new putting green by 1 tee


#1 tee


#1 middle fairway


#2 from the white tee


#3 from the blue tee


#3 from middle fairway


#4 white tee


#4 middle fairway


#5 blue tee, better hit it straight


#5 middle of the fairway


#6 tee, welcome to "EMERALD CITY"


#6 green


#7 tee

#7 middle fairway


#8 tee


#8 middle fairway


#9 blue tee


#9 middle fairway


#10 gold tee


#10 middle fairway


#11 blue tee


#11 middle fairway


#12 white tee


#13 blue tee


#13 1st landing zone


#13 2nd landing zone


#14 white tee


#14 middle fairway


#15 white tee


#15 silver tee


#16 blue tee


#16 middle fairway


#17 white tee


#17 middle fairway


#18 white tee


#18 middle fairway


As you can see, we have every phase of grow-in going on; from almost ready to play to barely having some green showing through the dirt. Well, I'm off to watch the grass grow :)

July 31, construction is over!!!!!

This blog post is going to be short and sweet. CONSTRUCTION IS OVER!!! It is true, construction is over. We sprigged hole #1 on Wednesday and finished the 4 month process on Thursday with the grassing of the practice area.

Here is #1 being planted


Here is the back of the blue tee on #1 looking across the new putting green to the range tee


Here's a pic of the contractor laser leveling the range tee. It took a couple of hours to move all of the dirt around to make the tee perfectly level.


Here's the new range bunkers being filled with sand


Then we sod the bunker complexes and sprig the rest


All of the tees on the course, including the practice tee, were "hand shook" instead of machine planted. We do this to ensure the new perfectly flat teeing ground isn't disturbed by the big tractor dragging the sprigging machine. The range tee took a couple of hours


The chipping green area


As a side project, not directly related to the project, I had the area along Solona Rd stripped and regrassed with Celebration.


Next week I'll do the hole by hole pic show again, but right now I'm going to just relax this weekend. It's been a lot of fun, but I'm glad that part of the project is over.

July 26, almost there

Two areas left to grass, #1 and the range. This past week was a whirl wind of sod trucks, sprig trucks, and tree trucks. We laid 12 semi truck loads of sod in 4 days, sprigged 2-5, and planted two truck loads of trees. If you could use the phrase "controlled chaos" in a sentence and not sound as if you are ready for a trip to the looney farm, that would be a good one to use!

Adding to the confusion, an additional project of increasing the cart staging area out side of the golf shop was added at the 11th hour. A new cart staging area is being created on the Clubhouse putting green side of the old pavement. This will allow golf operations to stage more carts by the Golf Shop. Additionally, the area alongside the Clubhouse where Tony's guys already stage the carts will be converted to paver bricks. So, like all other improvements to the course, my staff & I had to go in and move all the existing infrastructure. Here is a pic of us moving the irrigation for the putting green.


In this pic you can get a sense of the new changes. The new cart staging area will be created from the blacktop to where the new irrigation line is being installed. The whole area (where the big machine is) from the Clubhouse to the outside edge of the new staging area, and extending from the existing pavers by the new outside dining terrace going towards the pool, up to the end of the building, will be converted to paver bricks. Additionally, the paver bricks will curve around the putting green by the pool and extend all the way to the 1st hole by the red tee. This will enable those playing the forward tees to have a nice path to walk if they so choose.


One of the landscape enhancements I think everyone will really enjoy is at the practive facility. We removed all of the old landscaping that required constant prunning and limited access to the tee to prepare for the new landscape install.


Then we installed these new oaks along the cart parking area. It has really given the range a "rich" and mature feel as these oaks are 25 feet high and have a 6" diamater. These oaks are a special variety that are called "High Rise" oaks. High Rise oaks only get half as wide as they do tall. Traditional live oaks that many of us are familar with get almost as wide as they do tall. I have also included in the plan to have flowers around the base of the trees when the course opens.



Here is a pic of #3 green complex after it has had the slopes sodded.


All of the sod scraps are saved and we use them to fill in thin areas on the course. The staff cuts them in by hand where needed. Notice the areas around the drain, it was just done.


Believe it or not, its time to start verti-cutting the 1st set of greens, 6-13. They are at about 70% coverage and we need to start working towards being able to play them. Whether you are growing them in or just maintaining them, verti-cutting is essential to a quaility playing surface. Right now we are using the verti-cutting to thin out the bumps from the clumps of sprigs and to cut long runners. Cutting the long runners promotes "branching" of the plant. It takes one long plant and turns into multiple plants growing in different directions, thus increasing ground coverage time.


And just like every other time we verti-cut, we topdress. Lots and lots of sand applications to the greens right now is very important. Remember what I said about the bumps caused by the clumps of sprigs and verti-cutting and trying to remove them? The concept is to try and remove the clumps by verti-cutting (going down), and keep adding sand to bring the bottom up. The two practices are critical to produce a smooth putting surface.


Here is the new #1 tee complex ready for grass on Mon


Here is the practice facility with its new irrigation running. As long as the weather holds out for us, we will be grassing the range on Tues and Wed of this week.



Two more areas to grass next week and then the construction phase of the project will be completed. I am expecting to show up at work tomorrwo and have sod trucks for #1 and the range waiting to be unloaded. Then a little more finish grading and we'll be ready to sprig the remaining areas on Tues and Wed. I have the remaining Mini Verde for holes 1-5, the Clubhouse green, the chipping green, the new range putting green, and the new nursery green coming in on Thursday to complete our grassing 100%.

I was asked the other day when we should all start the rain dances as we have only has 3 rains in June that were more than .25" in total. I reality, the lack of rain has been a blessing for our project. Had we received the rains we were getting last yr at this time, I'm guessing we would be an additional 3 weeks behind. Although we wanted to be completed by July 15th, we really are only a week behind due to construction. Last week we were ready to finish the project and had the holes ready, but we were unable to get grass as the sod farm hasn't had a shortage of rain. In fact, we had 3 times where we were unable to get grass due to the farm being under water.

Lastly, I want to remind everyone of the golf course tour that will take place on Friday the 31st at 3 pm. Me and Marshall will be taking those interested around the property and showing everyone the amazing work that has taken place over the last 4 months. Please call Diane in the office to reserve a spot on the tour, and then also please consider staying for dinner as Shawn has set up a wonderful meal directly following. See eveyone on Friday.