Audubon Certification and construction update

Sorry for the lack of content lately. We have been busy the last few weeks or so.

Last week we received notice that we are now a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary. We have been working very hard over the last couple of years to achieve this certification. This certification is very important to both us and Billy Casper Golf.

"The Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf is an award winning education and certification program that helps golf courses protect our environment and preserve the natural heritage of the game of golf. By helping people enhance the valuable natural areas and wildlife habitats that golf courses provide, improve efficiency, and minimize potentially harmful impacts of golf course operations, the program serves as vital resource for golf courses."

 

You can learn more about Audubon International at www.auduboninternational.org.

As far as construction goes, the wetlands that are being piped and filled on the new nine holes are being done now. We have a meeting with the contractor set up on Thursday to go over details and get a start date. After this meeting, the contractor will be able to start mobilizing equipment and get started whenever they are ready. Hopefully the weather will not be what all of the long term forecasters are calling for this winter! It would be nice if Mother Nature would cooperate, but I am not holding my breath!

First frost!

It looks like the fall/winter season is here. We had our first frost of the season on Monday. The rest of this week looks like we will be on a frost delay as well.   Now we can start complaining about how cold it is and wishing it was summer again! I will be the first to complain. I hate winter!

With the cold temperatures, the bermudagrass on the course will begin to go dormant. Last year we experimented with some turf paint on #1 fairway and it was a success. This year we are going to paint all of the tees and bailouts with this turf paint. The paint will give us the definition on the course that was intended with the design before the conversion to bermudagrass in those areas. It will also help those areas come out of dormancy quicker in the Spring. #1 fairway is normally one of the last fairways to green up in the Spring. Last year, with this fairway painted, it was the first to green up by almost a month. We are hoping for similar results this coming Spring.

Have a great week and keep warm!

A visit from Nicklaus Design

What a week! We started the week being as dry as we have been all year. It seems that we are back to this years "normal". We have received almost 2" of rain in the last two days and we could see a little more in the next couple of days. The rains seem to have brought fall along with it. Leaf cleanup is now a daily task and will continue for the next month or so. The bermudagrass is starting to go dormant and we have probably made mowed tees, fairways and rough for the last time.

The architect and agronomist from Nicklaus Design spent the day with us on Tuesday. For the first half of the day, we toured the existing ten holes. The second half of the day was spent on the new eight holes. They wanted to get one last look at the property before we put the project our for bid. We will be making a decision on who will be doing the construction very soon and then we start moving dirt!

Successful aerification

Aerification was a success. This year we tried some things a little different than what I have done in the past. First of all, we went at a much later date than I am used to. Normally I would have aerified at the end of August to the beginning of September. We wanted to stay away from some of the problems that we had last year with the weather. We are in a much better place this year.

We also used a different aerifier this year. We used a tractor mounted machine called a soil reliever. The Pro Core that we normally use is a great machine, but the soil reliever goes 5"-6" deeper. You can eventually build up a layer that our roots can't get past by going the same depth time after time. This helps us bust through the layer that has been built over the last few years. This machine also has a flicking motion that breaks up any compaction that we may have.

Here is a video of the process.

 

All greens have been topdressed and all of our fertilizer and soil amendments are going out now. With the weather that we are having, the healing proccess should be quick. Have a great week!

Renovations on 4 and 5

Number 4 is finished! McDonald and Sons made quick work of the bunker project on #4 and have moved on to #5. #5 should be complete Wednesday. Here are some before, during and after pictures of #4. Please do not play from or walk on the roped off areas!!!

 

The architect from Nicklaus Design was on site Tuesday to look at the work on #4 and #5. He also made a trip back on the new nine to double check the golf course boundaries. We are going to start hauling some soil back to the wetland crossings so we can start piping and filling those areas. We are full speed ahead now! Pictures of #5 green surround will follow soon.

Construction on #4 & #5

We are set to start construction on #4 and #5 on Monday Sept. 16. We will start with #4. This should only take 1.5 to 2 days. On #5, we have decided to not rebuild the entire green. All that we are going to do is shave the mound down just off of the left of the green. This project isn't going to take more than a week to finish. This means that next week we will not have a driving range. The current practice facility will be used as an actual hole while we have the other two holes shut down for construction.

This will be good practice for the construction of the other holes. Have a great weekend!

Busy upcoming fall

This fall is going to be very busy at Westham Golf Club. We are well into the planning phase of the construction of the other eight holes and practice facility. We are also getting ready to rebuild current #5 green and do some work on the green surround on #4. This work will start within the next two weeks.

Work will be completed on #4 first. We are going to fill in some of the left side bunker and soften the slope in between the green and bunker. This will make the green a little more receptive. #5 will be a complete rebuild of that green. The left side of the green will be lowered and the right side will be raised a little. The mound off of the left of the green will be lowered as well. Again, this will make this green a little more forgiving and your approach shots that land left of the pin won't roll off into the bailout on the right.

While all of this work is going on, we will be using new #1 as an actual hole. This means that there will be no practice facility until we open the actual driving range. We are currently looking for options for a temporary range, but as of right now we will have to make due without one. I will keep everyone informed of the progress being made on the existing nine and the future nine holes.

Rain, green speeds and the death of weeds!

We had another 8" in the month of July. That puts us to right at 40" for the year! Thankfully the temperatures haven't been too bad this summer or it may not be a pretty sight out here. Overall, we are in pretty good shape. The greens are still looking good and with the cool nights that we have had and we are forecasted to have, they should start looking even better.

Last week we put out a granular fertilizer to help the greens recover from all of the traffic. The fertilizer that we put out has really got the bentgrass growing. This, combined with moisture from the inch of rain we got last week, has really slowed them down. Monday morning we will be venting the greens to help dry them out. They should be a little quicker with the weather that we are having this week.

You may have seen some yellowing of some weeds and the bermudagrass on the course. Last week we went out with our second application of herbicide for the crabgrass that has come up in the last month or so. In the early spring we put out a herbicide to prevent weeds from coming up. Because of the wet year, we have had quite a bit of weed breakthrough. The bermudagrass will bounce back in a week or so. The crabgrass has just begun its slow death.

Fertilizer and growth regulator being sprayed on fairways this week. Trying to get rid of these seed heads. 

Seems to be a trend

This rain will not stop! We received another 2.25" last night! This puts us over 4" for the month of July and over 31" for the year. The average annual rainfall for Richmond is 43.91". I think we will get there.

All of this rain puts a huge strain on the turf and the turf care team. Not only are we unable to work when it is raining, but once we do finally dry out, our labor hours are used for cleanup or bunker work. After this round of rain comes through today and tonight, we will have had to fix wash outs in the bunkers three times since the first of the month. This equates to about 240 man hours spent on repairing bunkers. That slows down all other maintenance work that needs to be done on the course.

 All of these washouts need to be repaired by hand

 

Another thing that we had to do is vent greens twice in the last two weeks. The first time we used solid tines just to open the greens up a little. This week we pulled 1/4" cores. This process helps us dry out. It also helps get oxygen to the roots. When the greens are this wet, the roots will begin to suffocate. By opening up the surface, it helps the plants breathe again.

This is what the greens look like after venting

 

 

Have a great weekend and try to play some golf in between rain drops! It has to stop eventually, right?!

Rain, rain, go away!!!

We have been extremely wet this spring and the last few days have been no different. We finished June with 8.5 inches of rain for the month. Two inches came down Sunday to finish the month off. Apparently we are going to continue this trend in the beginning of July. We got another 1.5 inches yesterday, with more coming today and tomorrow.

All of this rain has gotten us a little behind on a few things. It has been too wet to mow. With all of the rain, we have had some weeds breakthrough. As soon as the course dries off enough to get on it, the mowers will be out in full force and these weeds will be sprayed out. The bunkers have taken a beating over the last couple of days, as well. There is a full crew working to get them back in shape right now. This may take a couple of days to finish, as this is bad as I have seen these bunkers wash.

Hopefully next week we will be venting greens again. This time we will be pulling out 1/4" cores. This process will help open the greens up and dry them out a little quicker. We used these tines on the practice green and the holes were pretty much all healed in three days.

What a storm...

Last night we had a pretty severe storm come through. The rain didn't amount to much (just under .25"), but we had very strong winds. Enough to blow over a couple of trees and leave debris everywhere. Today we were able to get everything cleaned up and playable. We were even able to mow, do setup and rake bunkers.
This week we will be doing a lot of prep for member/member. The course should be in great shape for the weekend. Hope to see everyone next weekend!

Busy, busy!!

We have had a very busy couple of weeks here at Westham. Grass is growing and the weather has been pretty good so far this Spring.

Last week, we verti-cut the approaches and bail outs. The main reason we did this is to continue with the Bermuda grass conversion process that began last year. However, it also helps to remove some of the organic matter that has built up over the last few years. Once everything is cleaned up, the slits create a perfect seed bed. After the seed is put down, we follow that with a very thin layer of sand topdressing and finally the water starts flying. After about two weeks, we should start seeing some of the seed germinate. Then, we fertilize and watch it grow.

 

 

We also started our tee project last week. All of the grass was stripped off of select tees. They were then re-sodded with Tifway Bermudagrass. This project will be wrapped up by Thursday. In about a week, we will start mowing them down to our normal tee height and begin playing off of them shortly after. McDonald & Sons were hired to do the intallation and have done a fantastic job so far.

 

 

We have also started making some progress on the new nine! The wetland areas, which were the only areas that weren't cleared, have started having trees removed. Once this is finished, the architects can then come out and get a look at the entire hole without having an obstructed view. It looks like this will be finished within the next couple of weeks.

 

 

 



I would also like to give a huge thank you to the turf care crew here at Westham! There have been a couple of long days and a lot of hard work the last two weeks. Have a great week and look forward to seeing everyone on the course!





The Other Nine

This past week some work in the other nine has started. Not much, but it's a move in the right direction. So the architects can see things a little better, we have started bush hogging the corridors that were previously cleared. There is a lot of tall grass, weeds and even a few rogue pine trees that have started to come up. We need to cut them down so that they don't get too out of hand. The next step is to start clearing the wetland crossings. This had not been done before because of the fear of erosion. Once all of this is done, the architects will really be able to see what they have to work with on each hole. I have taken a few pictures to give you an idea of what everything looks like once it's mowed down.

As for the exsiting ten holes, we are looking very good. It's a great time to come and play. I will keep everyone up to date on everything as we move along. Have a great week!

 Here is a view from what will be the white tee on 3, a 232 yard par 3. 

 

This is a view from the black tee on 4, a 490 yard par 4.

 Here is your approach into the green on 4.

 

Your tee shot on 5, a 600 yard par 5.

 

Busy week and congrats!

We have had a very busy week this week. On Monday, we started removing some dead and unsafe trees from behind #7 green. This will also help us get quite a bit more sunlight on that green as well. There were five trees removed from #7 tee as well. These trees all hung over the tee boxes and were killing the turf on them. This should be a much better year for those tee boxes.

There were also two pallets of bentgrass sod put down on three greens. We repaired areas on #5 and #7. Also, the back of what will be #1 has been repaired. All of the areas on that green that have had plugs removed in the past have now been fixed and there is 100% coverage on #1.

 

 

Finally, the most exciting part of the week! I would like to welcome Holden Levi into the world. Congratulations to Chad and his wife Cari! They had a very handsome little boy on Wednesday, May 1, 2013!!! Everybody is happy, healthy and should be going home today. I am sure Lucas and Easton are both very excited to have their new little brother home to play with! If you see Chad when he gets back to work, make sure you congratulate him. He also could use another Monster energy drink!!

 

I hope everyone has a great weekend! Come play some golf!



 







Big news for Westham!!!

On Saturday April 20, it was officially announced that Westham Golf Club will begin construction on the unfinished nine holes!! Construction will begin in March/April of 2014 and we will be set for a Grand Opening in May of 2015. Late this year we will begin the expansion of the existing pond to ensure that we have enough water to make it through the grow-in. Bermudagrass will probably start going down in June. This will give us plenty of time to grow in the bermudagrass before it goes dormant. The greens will be seeded around August 15 and will be ready for play the following spring. 

This is very exciting news for all that are involved and we have been eagerly awaiting this day. I hope everyone has a great week!

Aerification recovery

We have almost completely healed from aerification. This picture was taken on Apr 9, 2013. Once the weather warmed up a little, we finally started to see some grass growing. The greens have grown through all of the sand that was put on them and we have started lowering the height of cut. Within a week or so we should be mowing daily at our normal height of cut.

Also, along with this warm weather we have started seeing a green up in the bermudagrass. This year we did a little experiment. We used a turf paint on #1 fairway. The true reason we did this was to add a little color as you drove down Magnolia Green's main entry. What we found is that the paint has helped that fairway green up much more quickly than the other fairways. This happens because the dark paint helps keep the soil temperature a little warmer than the dormant bermuda normally would. The pictures below were taken on April 15. The difference is pretty drastic. I think we are going to have to figure out how to come up with money for the other nine fairways this year!

We are gearing up for a great season and hope you are too! Enjoy the rest of your Spring!



Spring is here

Spring is here! The only problem is we had close to white out conditions Thursday morning and possibly more snow coming Sunday. It didn't last long, but it was long enough!



The greens aerification at Westham was scheduled for Mar 25. Because Mother Nature is being difficult and we are possibly getting more snow on Sunday and Monday, we decided to start aerifying  this past Tuesday night. We were able to finish up everything Wednesday afternoon. In the coming days, we will go out and topdress some of the holes that were not filled with our initial sand topdressing. We will also be applying some granular fertilizers and lime. The fertilizer will hopefully get the bentgrass moving and help us have a rapid recovery. The only thing else we need to do is to pray for some warmer weather.

 



None of this could have been done without the help of the great crew at Westham! Thanks to Chad, Luis, Josh, and Andrew!! Also, a special thanks to Wayne Carter for coming over from Hanover Country Club to lend a hand. I know he wishes he hadn't left Westham! We are looking forward to a great season!

Course Etiquette

Course etiquette is a very touchy subject for myself and many other superintendents. Poor etiquette is something that is going to happen, I understand. Some people just have no respect for others and normally they are the first to complain about things.

I don't think there is anything that makes me more mad than the picture above! Not only is there a divot, it is right next to an unfixed ball mark!!! Also, Chad sent me the picture of this bunker last weekend. He mentioned that if we had just one more rake in this bunker the golfer probably would have raked his way out. Not sure if you can see it or not, but there are three rakes within arms length of the area that he or she apparently used an excavator to hit this shot! I do realize that the green rakes are difficult to see up against the dormant Zoysia grass, but come on!!

In case you didn't pick up on it, there is some sarcasm in this post. These are just a few things that bother the staff and myself here at Westham Golf Club. Please do your part and clean up after yourself.



Spring Preperations

I think I have been slacking a little recently. It's been a while since I have posted. For the last week I was in Florida for our annual meeting. I was lucky enough to play a couple of rounds of golf on the way down. The weather was beautiful and I was not excited to get home to a cold rain!

Spring is almost here! Right now we are in the process of spraying out any winter weeds that have popped up in the dormant bermudagrass. We should be done with this process within the next week or so. That is if we aren't under a foot of snow after the storm that is supposed to hit us Wednesday. We are also applying a pre-emergent herbicide to control any new weeds from germinating.

Once we are done spraying out weeds, it will almost be time to aerify. I know this is a touchy subject, but we are going to do everything we can to help this process heal as quick as possible. By the time they heal we will be watching The Masters and not even thinking about what went on two weeks earlier.

I look forward to seeing everyone out on the course!

Audubon International

Audubon International is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to improving the environment. Westham Golf Club is currently a member and we are in the process of becoming a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary. The certification process starts with a Site Assessment and an Environmental Planning Form. Once we have a plan in place we then start working on these categories:

Environmental Planning

Wildlife and Habitat Management

Chemical Use Reduction and Safety

Water Conservation

Water Quality Management

Outreach and Education

We also have to do a Case Study. This study gets you to find a way to not only help the environment, but in most cases it helps the golf course financially as well. With our case study we decided to convert our bentgrass approaches to bermudagrass. In doing this, we have saved on fertilizer, chemicals, water and labor. This winter we will kill off what is left of the bentgrass and the bermuda will finish filling in this spring. Here is a picture of the approach on number one.

Here are some pictures taken by Kim Hatala of some of the things that we are working to protect.

Winter playing conditions

This is always a hot topic this time of year. We always hear "the greens are bumpy, the greens are slow." During the winter months, the bermudagrass is obviously dormant. The bentgrass greens basically go dormant as well. This time of year is almost as hard on greens as the summer. The big difference is, Chad, Luis and I are not dragging a hose around at 5:00 in the afternoon!

During the winter, all of the grass on the course basically stops growing. We may go out and mow greens once or twice a week, but all this is really doing is cleaning up the green. There isn't a tremendous amount of grass cut off of them this time of year.

So far this year the ground has been frozen more than thawed. When they do thaw and we have golf played on them, it doesn't take long for them to start foot printing. The thawing process makes them very soft and footprints form easily.

The biggest winter issue is there is very little or no healing taking place. Any thin area, any ballmark or any divot taken does not heal! I ask that everyone please be careful and be patient with any inconsistent conditions. The Masters is almost here! Azaleas, butterflies and prefect conditions will be here soon enough!

For some my more technical followers here is a link from the USGA. They go in a little more depth than me. Actually a lot more detail. http://www.usga.org/course_care/articles/other/winter_play/Politics-Religion-and-Winter-Play-on-Greens/

Virginia Turf Conference

Last week Chad and I were lucky enough to spend most of the week at the Virginia Turfgrass Conference. This is an annual event held in Fredericksburg, VA. There were three days of classes. We attended classes from budgeting and communication to fungicides for bentgrass and environmental golf design.

Everyone at the conference always enjoys the USGA Year in Review as well. This session tells a story of how golf courses faired throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. It also lets us know about the USGA tournaments are coming up this year. The US Open is going to be held just a short drive up 95 at Merion Golf Club.

We also attended the trade show which is a great place to see all of the latest chemicals, fertilizers and anything else that we will use in the coming year. This is also a great place for us to network and hopefully "borrow" some new ideas to bring back to use at Westham.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Winter Work


One thing that we are always asked is, "What we do in the winter?" There is always something to keep us busy. This winter one of the things that we are working on is thinning out some trees and clearing out the underbrush around the greens. This will help us with air movement and keep the greens healthier throughout the hot summer months.

Another thing that is necessary every winter is servicing all of the equipment. This includes changing all of the fluids and filters, grinding reels and bedknives and making sure that everything is greased. When the warm weather finally gets here and the grass starts growing we will be ready to go.

I am not sure about anyone else, but I am tired of this winter already! Groundhog Day is almost here lets hope it's cloudy!

First snow!

We had our first snow last night! Not quite the snowpocalipse that we thought it was going to be, but snow is snow in Richmond!
We definitely didn't need any more moisture after this week. We had about 4" of rain before the snow came down. Looks like this stuff isn't sticking around long though. We may be open for play Sunday morning with as fast as everything is melting.
I hope everyone had fun in the snow today. Looking forward to the next one!