Week of April 10th
- matthewbehl
- Apr 14, 2023
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 16, 2023
With the dry conditions the irrigation system has to be our main focus right now. Unfortunately, we are plagued with the saddle leaks that take up a huge percentage of our time each spring. I have not put a tally on the number of saddles we have fixed this season, but between the contracted work and in-house work we are in the neighborhood of 50. To put that into perspective the average golf course will pressure up the irrigation system and will generally experience between 2 to 5 problems. I am hoping by the end of next week all the current saddle leaks will be repaired. On a positive note since we have started changing saddles out in 2019 not one of the new style of saddles has failed.
Along with irrigation repair, a good amount of time was spent irrigating. Conditions are so dry that we were forced to start green, tee, and limited fairway watering. Usually we are not pulling hose this early, but it seemed non stop this week.
Work on 3 was continued this week. Two large areas were prepared for seed/sod. More work will continue to three next week and will be ongoing. Many other stump holes were also prepped for seed as well. Seeding to some areas will start next week.
Staff update:
We are still operating with an extremely small crew and struggled with finding staff in the early going. For most of the spring we have been a crew of 7 and that includes myself and mechanic. We are just now starting to fill positions and build the agronomy team. With that being said I still have a lot of work to do on the staff side, but feel by mid May we will have a very strong agronomy team. My core crew is excellent and the amount of hours that have been put in by the staff and assistant Michael Curtin has been above and beyond.
Member Surveys:
I appreciate all of the feedback received opening week. I can assure you I read each and every survey. In fact, I share many of them with my staff. I simply can't respond to everyone doing a survey, but truly value the feedback.
It was a quiet week for wildlife on the course, but the warm weather had the turtles on the move.
