Construction and grow in update

What a summer! The past month and a half the turf care crew has been going non-stop.  We have made huge strides with the grow-in.  With the exception of the driving range, construction is complete!!!  The driving range should be wrapped up by the end of next week.

I have attached some pictures showing the progress of the grow-in of the golf course.  We have mowed all of the bermudagrass at least once and greens are being mowed on a daily basis.  

2 tee

 3 tee

 4 approach

 5 approach

 6 approach

 7 tee

 8 tee

9 tee

The chipping and pitching greens still need to be seeded and that will be done this week.  The entire short game area has been sodded and looks great!  When the driving range is complete, we will have one of the best practice facilities in the state!

Green grass and army worms

Very exciting times the last couple of weeks!  We have one hole left to sprig and that should be complete next week.  We have bentgrass germination on 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 greens!  Six and seven greens will be mowed for the first time on Monday. 

6 green. Almost ready for its first cut!

Close up of 6 green

Our bermudagrass sprigs are doing pretty well.  All of them took and then we had a minor setback.  There has been a pretty significant army worm infestation.  Fall army worms have shown up on all of the new holes, but they have really enjoyed eating the sod on #7.  These worms can do a significant amount of damage in a very short period of time.  They go through an area and eat all of the leaf material off of the grass.  They especially like newly establishing sod, so we have been a never-ending buffet for them.  Within three hours, almost the entire green surround on #7 had been damaged.  It's certainly a scary site.  The good thing is, they don't normally kill bermudagrass.  Everything that they have damaged, is starting to recover.  We were able to act quickly and make a pesticide application. 

This little worm works very quickly!

 





You can see the damage on the left.

More army worm damage

Luis is making our insecticide application

 

 







Sprigs!!!

Big week for our construction!  The first sprigs have hit the ground!  Six and seven have been sprigged, hydro-seeded and the greens have been seeded.  Now we get to make grass grow!!!  Next week we should have 4, 5 and maybe 3 sprigged and greens seeded. 

Video taken from the sprigging machine

 

Hydro seeding #7

A view of the sprig installer

Lots of water once the sprigs hit the ground

 

Luis is using the knobby tires on the bunker rake to dimple the green after we seed

 

 

To get sprigs, the machine that installs them, takes a roll of sod and shreds it into very fine pieces.  Once it hits the ground the installer has a set of discs on it that cuts the sprigs into the gound.  As soon as the installer is done with an area, we take over and water, water, water.  In a couple of weeks, we will see green grass and it quickly takes over the the entire hole.  We plan on finishing the sprigging process by the end of the month. 



Course update

Last Thursday the course received 3" of rain and another .25" on Sunday.  With all of the exposed dirt from construction, I was expecting really bad things.  To my surprise, I was able to ride the entire course Friday morning and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought.  There is some repair work that is taking place, but I think it could have been much worse. 

 

This bunker was completely filled with water

 



Before the rains, we were able to get final approval on 5, 6 and 7 greens.  We are still on track to start sprigging this week and we will also start seeding greens and "native areas".  Irrigation is almost done on the course and we will move right into the driving range and short game area. 

Final touches on #6 green



Last week we were able to vent all greens.  Venting greens helps relieve some compaction and helps get oxygen into the root zone.  These ventings are one of the most important agronomic practices that we will do all year.  Our greens, just like you and me, need to breathe.  Opening them up with these solid tine aerifications really allow our greens to breathe.

We also had a little fun last week.  Our friends at the Timmons Group came out with one of their quad copter drones. We were able to get some footage of the existing course and some of the new construction.  We should have everything edited this week.  As soon as it's ready, I will post the video for everyone to see. 

The Timmons drone taking flight!



Bunkers, concrete, grass and irrigation!!!

We are moving right along on the construction.  We now have irrigation on 4, 5, 6 and 7.  It has been started on 3 as well.  The main line should be completely looped around the course by Wednesday!  Bunker construction started on Saturday along with some grassing.  The last two greens on the course have been approved for drainage, gravel and mix.  These will be completed this week.  The Nicklaus architect will be back out for three days on the week of July 23 and will start floating greens.  Once the greens have been floated, will will start seeding and growing them in.  The plan is to start spigging tees, fairways and rough this week as well!

 

Here is the 1st bunker in the construction process. Sand should be finished today

 

New path on #7

 

 

Last week, we also started our tee and collar conversion.  Collars should be finished by Wednesday and tees within the next two weeks.

 

Existing grass being stripped from 3 tee surround

 

 

Stay tuned for another update in the next week or so.  Have a great week!





Construction update

We have had a great couple of weeks! Irrigation has been installed on 6 and 7 and started on 5.  We should be done with 5 this week.  Once the heads are installed, a box is built around each head, similar to a form used for concrete.  These are used as a template to get a 4" layer of topsoil around each head.  This helps the person spreading the rest of the topsoil stay away from the heads.  Topsoil is being spread as I am typing this.  They will work backwards from 7 with topsoil.

Topsoil on #7 before it's spread

 

Topsoil around an irrigation head

 

Wire set up on the irrigation trailer, ready to go

 

 

Last week we had a visit from Chris, the Nicklaus architect.  The weather held out for us and it was a very productive meeting.  We were able to mark the grassing lines on 5, 6 and 7.  The fairway bunkers on 4 were laid out and we have since rough shaped these bunkers.  Chris was able to spend some time on 2 and 8, as well.  He gave us his idea of what he wants on those holes and the rough grading has begun. 

 

Deciding where the fairway bunkers are going to on #4

 

 

I believe Chris will make another visit next week and we should have bermudagrass on the ground by the second week in July.  This morning we made a lime application in preparation of sod and sprigs and water should be turned on the beginning of next week!



 



Construction update

We have finally had some good construction weather!  Twelve of the last fourteen days and been dry and it shows with the progress being made on the course.  Five, six and seven greens all have drainage, gravel and mix in them.  Drainage, gravel and greens mix are being installed on three and four this week, as well.  Storm drainage is complete on five and seven.  Six will be complete this week.  We will also begin installing irrigation this week.  The Sanders irrigation crew arrived last night and this should really get things moving.

As far as grassing goes, we are waiting on turf farms.  They all seem to be three to four weeks behind because of the cold winter and wet spring.  Once the farms are ready to start harvesting sod and sprigs, the irrigation will be in the ground and we will be ready to start growing some grass!!

On the existing holes, the crew has been working very hard over the last couple of weeks to get the bunkers in great shape.  All bunkers surrounds have been mowed and we are in the process of edging all of the zoysia grass.  We are also making sure that all of the sand depth is consistent.  So far they look great!