Day 3: bombardment over, now switching to tactical

Today was a great day for the golf maintenance team. To my amazement, and even after a mid-day rain, the guys finished all the heavy aerification and heavy verti-cutting....that's all the greens, all the tees, all the approaches, all the collars, and all the fairways. I should of bought some stock in Goodyear because at our rapid pace, at the heavy settings we were going, we went through a whole lot of drive belts! 

Another great event at the Club today was a USGA sponsored field day featuring all of my maintenance practices, to share with and learn from all who could attend. It was awesome! Tony gave us golf carts and we caravanned around the course observing and discussing all the different maintenance practices going on. It was like having a giant practical application lab class. We tried some new stuff, had some new equipment demos and generally shared industry knowledge. 

 

So now that we are all done tearing the place to shreds, it's time to start sanding everything. First will thing we will do are the putting surfaces and green surrounds. This should take most of tomorrow morning. After that we'll move on to tees, approaches and fairways at the same time. 

Lots going on and so much accomplished. It's been brutal hot too. Some of the jobs that the guys do are not fun. Believe me when I tell you, I've done them all and some really stink. Yet, nobody on my wonderful staff complains, gripes, or shows any hesitation. They get their marching orders and hit the course everyday with a vengeance. So to say thank you to my hard working guys during these closure weeks I usually grill something for them to eat for lunch. Well tomorrow they are getting mother of all BBQ lunch specials, aptly called the "Bacon Bomb!" It's one of my favorites to slow grill at home so I left a little early today and went and bought all the ingredients and made them at my house for tomorrow. Each one of the "bombs" is made of 4 pounds of pork sausage stuffed with cheese, onions, sweet peppers, mushrooms, and some rib rub seasoning. It's easy, just lay the sausage out flat about 1/2" thick, put on your goodies and the it's rolled into a log and wrapped in 2 pounds of a bacon basket weave. 

It takes a lot of food to feed my guys. That's 12 lbs of pork sausage and 6 lbs of bacon. Ohhh, mama!

Here's what it looks like when done. 

Can you smell that? Oh, man does it smell good and taste even better. I'm so fortunate to have such a great staff. They deserve all the credit for how great the course is. Without them showing up everyday and rising to whatever challenge I give them the course wouldn't be the same. They deserve, and are worth, the extra effort.