Wow! It's hard to believe that we only have one green left to install drainage and gravel on. With number one complete and 17 nearly finished, we are only left with the practice putting green to complete. We began the removal of the old putting green yesterday and will complete that work very early tomorrow morning. Brian Slawnik of RGD should be shaping this green by the lunchtime hour and the tiling and gravel installation will immediately follow - probably Thursday!
We have installed the new rootzone mix on all the greens except the first and seventeenth greens. Number one will be completed tomorrow and 17 should be done by Thursday at the latest, if not tomorrow afternoon. The irrigation is close behind with eleven greens now complete and the 12th beginning first thing in the morning.
So, where do we go from here?
The MacCurrach team has 5 additional staff members arriving on site tomorrow to begin the process of "finishing' the greens. All of the edges of the greens have to be sufficiently compacted, soil needs to be added to the outer edges to "tie-in" the greens, bluegrass sod has to be placed around the green surrounds and all the rootzones have to be probed one last time to confirm depths. If all goes as planned, we should be laying sod by Tuesday of next week around the first 5-6 greens. At that point, the only thing remaining to do would be to seed the greens. We hope to accomplish this sometime before September 1st.
The next agenda item will be to push the tee portion of the program forward. With the drainage component on the greens complete, MacCurrach will re-direct many of the greens laborers to start hammering on the tees. With any luck, they will "rough" shape two to three complexes per day for Brian Slawnik of RGD to approve. It is amazing to spend time with the architect and see his thoughts for the tee placement and "look" it will present after completion.
A special thanks from me to the 150+ supporters of the this voluntary portion of the project. You have provided the cherry on top of the sundae for this most extraordinary project. I think and hope all of you will be as excited as I am as this portion of the project starts to take shape over the next few weeks.
