Sunday, August 30, 2015

New WOTUS rules on hold for now...


Federal judge halts WOTUS ... for now

A federal judge in North Dakota has put the brakes on implementation of new EPA rules governing the Clean Water Act, at least temporarily.

Ruling on a suit filed by 13 states seeking to block the rules, broadly known as the "Waters of the United States" (WOTUS) rules, Judge Ralph Erickson of the District Court for the District of North Dakota found that those states had met the conditions necessary for a preliminary injunction, including that they would likely be harmed if the courts didn't act and that they are likely to succeed when their underlying lawsuit against the rule is decided.

"Once the rule takes effect, the states will lose their sovereignty over intrastate waters that will then be subject to the scope of the Clean Water Act," Erickson wrote in his order. 

Exactly how broad this ruling is remains a matter of interpretation. In a statement issued following the ruling, the EPA indicated that it would begin enforcing the ruling as planned today, and that yesterday's decision only applies to the 13 states involved in the suit. Others, however, disagree, saying the ruling should apply nationwide.

GCSAA and its partners on the Waters Advocacy Coalition are seeking to clarify the breadth of this ruling, and will communicate that information as soon as it becomes available.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

The Honey-Do's never end

As promised, the tee renovations have started. The first phase is to strip the area of all the old grass so the dirt work can commence. 

Next we will haul in dirt to enlarge the tee's width and length. Then the tee will be laser leveled and grassed. 

The trees for 14/18 to replace the Poincianas came in and were planted yesterday. The remaining areas will be grassed to finish off the improvements. 







Monday, August 24, 2015

Curbing our habits

A little cart path improvement update, more curbing installed on 15 today. This will help tremendously with the worn out edges of the grass in late season. 

The path improvements on 10 & 18 are 99% completed. A little final grading is all that's left. 

Started with this 

And now we have this 

The trees are ordered for 14/18 area and should be here this week for install. While we have the mini excavator Trevor pre-dug the holes. 

The new grass grow-in on the chipping green is complete and it is ready for practice. I just have to let the two grass edges around the perimeter grow together. We intentionally kept them separate to make sure we didn't get any Celebration on the putting surface. 

Now that most of the cart path stuff is done, Trevor will be starting on the teeing ground enhancements. Look for the dust bowl to know where.

This week's closure marks the end of our summer invasive maintenance practices. I'm happy to say we were able to accomplish all of the summer's agronomical plans. Once the course heals up we should poised for a great winter golfing season. Lastly, the damage to the putting surfaces is healing very nicely. Trevor rented a large roller and was able to fix a lot of it by smoothing it out and pressing the pulled up sections back in place. While the grass heals we will keep up a little higher nutrition program on those areas to make sure they are not far behind the rest of the course. 



Thursday, August 20, 2015

Wanna know how it's done?

A few weeks ago I did a "how to" video with the marketing firm that promotes the Celebration Bermuda grass we have on the course. Not that my part was any good, but the video turned out pretty awesome. Here's the link so you can check it out. It explains our summer time maintenance practices pretty well. 



Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Who's Noah and what's with the Ark?

.8" of rain in 20 minutes today, that's in addition to yesterday's .4" of rain. Fortunately it came late in the afternoon and 85% of today's work load was completed. 

During these course closures I always feel like the Cruise Director, constantly working on making sure everyone is motivated and moving. I drive around with a cooler full of ice cold water bottles for the hard working staff and giving out constant "atta-boys." Today though, I played a little Grill Master as well and man were there some smiles. 

Beef, it's what's for lunch...along w/ cheesy potatoes and corn. 

It's a pretty good feeling when the guys come in for lunch like whipped lambs and go out like raging lions because they feel appreciated.  Lots more to do this week but don't worry, your hard working staff will get it all accomplished....they always do!  





3rd course closure and going like mad...

This week is our 3rd course closure of the summer. We have been working hard the past couple of days and the fruits of our early summer labors are paying dividends this go around. 

We are heavily verti-cutting the fairways again and it is going much faster this time. The increased pace is attributed to the tremendous job the staff did vertical-cutting everything the last go around. It is going to only take us 2 days to verti-cut everything this time, as opposed to 4 the last. 

Works continues on the cart path project on 10 / 18 area. All of the curbing timbers have been installed and cart path material is being hauled in and spread. 
The triangle area around the pole will be a new flower bed


It's going to take a couple of days to haul  all of the material in and spread it. Once the material is in place the crew will take a sand rake machine and smooth the surface. 

Unfortunately not all of this posting is good news. A few of the putting surfaces have some mechanical damage from an aerifiying machine that had a broken linkage part. It's not catosteophic or anything Trevor and the rest of my staff can't handle, but it's a deviation from the normally perfect aerification process the Club is used to. The greens will need a little bit more time than usual to heal and the maintenance staff will do things like additional fertilizations and plugging to speed recovery. 

Next week Trevor will begin to do the tee improvements for the summer. After consulting with the golf course architect, the greens committee and the golf committee the following areas will be enlarged....#1 blue and white tees, #12 & #13 silver, and if there's enough money left over #2 blue.  The focus of the enlargement process is high use areas, which is prodominantly the combo tees. Remember, when the course was redesigned by Grodi Lewis there was no combo tee games on the score card. Now, with a lot of play on very small tees 
we are having wear issues. The goal is to at least double, if not triple, the size of the tees being worked on.  

After the tee enlargement projects are competed, this year's landscape improvements will begin. The new trees on 14/18 will installed and other landscaping shrubs will be installed where they have died. It might actually be Fall on the calendar, but it's still Summer in Southwest Florida... and we're still going like gangbusters. 



Tuesday, August 11, 2015

The road to ....

Work continues on the cart path project for 10 /18. It's 90+ degrees and the rail road ties weigh a ton, and it's pain staking, exacting work. And if I'm the perfectionist, Trevor is an exacting-ist (is that a word?)

I read somewhere that the key to good leadership is to hire the right people, give them the tools they need to be successful, and then unleash them and let them fulfill your goals! That's Trevor. He is a man of many talents and he knows how to get the job done right. Anyone know what this thing is called (if the name wasn't printed on the tool)?

It's called a speed square, with it and a tape measure you can build a house if you know what all the markings on the tool are for. Most guys would be laying out the railroad tie curbing by eyeballing the cuts and hoping for the best. Trevor knows how to use the speed square and makes sure the miter corners are perfect.
 

Just in this one project we are installing approximately 75 railroad ties. Lots of curbing to install. Fortunately for the Club, the guys are as dedicated to a quality job as the members are in a quality facility. That makes my job a whole lot easier and one lucky boss on both sides. 


Monday, August 10, 2015

Fumigating for bugs

Today the course is being custome fumigated with a pesticide product called Curfew. The product is injected 12 inches deep as a high pressure liquid (similar to propane gas) that vaporizes quickly and then permiates upward through the soil.  The main targeted species of pest controlled are nematodes, which are microscopic worms that feed on the root system of the grass. Secondarily, the product also kills everything else in the soil except ants. 


You can see that the machines are very good at not tearing up the grass. However, in a few days you will notice the injection lines where the grass was cut by the insertion discs and where the gas escaped. The product itself is burning to the leaves, but the damage will go away quickly. This is another reason why this process is done so close to aerification week. Once the cut lines show up, we are open a few days and then we close for aerification and vertical mowing. All of the week long aerification practices will help eliminate the long lines in the grass from the Curfew. 








Monday, August 3, 2015

Earthquake at 18 green

Not quite an earthquake today, but I imagine the results to the asphalt would be similar. Today Trevor started removing countless layers of asphalt around the 10 tee / 18 green area to make way for the new aggregate cart paths. Part of the project is to increase the width of the paths from the old 6 feet wide ones to 10 feet wide. This will accommodate 2 carts being able to pass one another without having to drive on the grass.