tee renovation update and other news

The tee renovations are all complete and the sprigs are growing.  Growing so much so that we are already mowing the newly planted grass.  To ensure that the tees are level when they open for play and not all clumpy like they are now, a lot has to be done.  The basic principle pretty simple, take the top down and bring the bottom up at the same time...along with some verti-cutting and other things.  As the cut is lowered it will purposefully scalp off the mounds of grass, and sanding every week will fill the voids giving a smooth surface for the grass to grow on.

Fresh planted 

Little over a wk old

The purpose of the tee renovations was to increase the available teeing ground to accommodate the golfing demands of the club.  In 2009 when the course was redesigned we were only playing 25,000 rounds of golf so the smaller tee sizes worked.  Now that the club is full, or nearly full, we are playing over 30,000 (probably closer to 35,000) rounds and the smaller tees were not able to spread out the wear enough.  What was left behind essentially was perpetual divot during the winter months, not much different than the range tee.  Too much use and not enough area to spread it out. 

To solve the problem I consulted with the golf course architect, Gordon Lewis, about making some adjustments and we came up with the current shape and size of the renovated tees.  These very large teeing grounds should give ample room to spread wear out and provide sufficient time for the grass to recover during the winter golfing season.  Remember, these are par 3 tees and most people are taking large divots which require time to heal.

Although the vast majority of the changes to the new teeing grounds are completed, there are a few items left to do to wrap up the projects.  The new teeing ground on 6 still needs to have some landscape grasses added at the bottom of the new tee slopes to tie into the existing landscaping.  On hole 12, I will be adding a few trees between 11 fairway and 12 tee.  Not many as I don't want to create a shade issue again, but some to give just the slightest hint of separation between holes. 

The range tee is healing in quickly and should produce a fantastic hitting surface.  The tee is basically in a grow-in mode. There's lots of new growth filling in. 

Day after leveling

Today

In other news, it has been raining constantly! The constant rain has played havoc on my plans to complete some of the items that would normally be done during the closure week - like sanding fairways.  The ground is so saturated that it is becoming difficult to even mow, let alone drag a loaded sand trailer around.   The only good thing about all the rain is that it is showing us where we need to do a drainage project, or two, or six.  This next intermission between aerifications will be concentrated on landscape trimming and leveling of sprinklers and drains.  Fortunately none of that work requires machinery so the soggy ground should not be an issue.