Week of March 11 - Course Preparations Continue

Overall we had a productive week on the golf course despite losing some ground with the heavy winds experienced Monday and Tuesday. Wind has really been the most problematic weather we have experienced this winter. Monday and Tuesday's wind took down more trees, limbs, and a good amount of additional debris. We did have a chipper rented for the week and our labor tracking software recorded 89 man hours of chipping work.

A pile of storm damage debris prior to chipping

Some pictures of the chipping process:

While we had the chipper this week we finished the sunlight/airflow project to 14 green. Shade and lack of air movement was starting to lead to an environment that favored poa annua (annual bluegrass) more then bentgrass (the desired species). We had done a lot of work already this winter, but ran out of room in the area to stack trees and brush. The remaining six pines in this area were dropped and immediately chipped to finish the area.

Here is a video of the new view from the green:

The chipping this week did take up a lot of our course preparation time. We did switch back to more agronomy related tasks Thursday and Friday. Greens where rolled on Thursday and the winter fuzz was mowed off them on Friday. During this process any exposed green liner was cut using a sawzall and all of our cut outs for winter drains were replaced.

Assistant Michael Curtin's haul of greens liner he removed

The agronomy team also started bunker prep this week. This will be ongoing until we open and work will continue after we open as well. There will be a lot of sand added to bunkers in the coming days, weeks, and throughout the season.

A gallery of the bunker work: