Day 29 and 30 - "Finish Grade" and Tee Work in Full Force!!

Now the real work begins!! Yesterday the putting green drainage was complete and the mix is being installed as I type this. Below is a photo of the putter with the drainage and gravel complete. Remember, this green has been expanded from 6300sqft to 8500sqft.



With the "heavy lifting" on the greens now behind us, we began the finish work on Friday on last week. One of the most important steps of this process is making sure the rootzone mix has been installed to correct depth and properly compacted. Below is a photo of the lengths we are going to make sure these greens are constructed properly.



In this photo you will see a number of flags that were placed on the green in a grid fashion. The gentlemen in the photo is a CCD employee and he is checking the depth of the greens mix and each and every one of these flags - nearly 400 locations on one green. Any inconsistencies are immediately report to myself and then I inform the contractor and architect of the areas that require additional attention.

Between Friday, Saturday and Monday we now have the 18th, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th 12th and 16th greens in the finished state. There is a minor tweak here or there and that work will be completed today. Tomorrow, we will take delivery of the first truck of bluegrass sod to place around the green surrounds on the holes noted above. Once complete, the greens will be ready for fertilizer applications and SEED!! As I have noted in earlier posts, we will attempt to wait for as many greens as possible to be ready by the 20-25th of August, at which time we will hopefully seed all the greens at once.

The other really exciting thing that is happening right now is the tee placement. With the extra bodies that were sent here by MacCurrach last week, we have seen the pace of tee project triple. The location of the 2nd, 3rd, 18th, 4th and 17th tees have now been defined, "cored-put", and sub-grades have been laser leveled. They even began installing the drainage on some of these new tee boxes yesterday. Below are a couple of photos.



The new look of the third hole. The forward tee is difficult to see in this photo, but it has been shifted to the right to get it out of the tree line.



The above photo is the laser level box blade that is used to get the sub-grade of the tees exactly right. Notice the yellow laser in the background and the yellow receiving unit near the top of the box blade. The two units communicate with each other and allow the red box-blade to automatically adjust itself. The operator simply has to drive around in circles until the box-blade is no longer moving earth. At that point, the grade is set and the process moves on to the next tee box.

Day 26, 27 and 28 - Drainage is Ready to Cross the Finish Line!

We have reached a critical point in the project. All 18 greens on the course now have the drainage and mix installed. The new practice putting green is being drained and should be completed by Monday afternoon, including the mix installation.

If you have not seen the new area, please stop by the club and check it out. The old practice green measured 6300sqft and the new green has been expanded to 8500sqft. It is quite an impressive sight and very fitting for a majestic club like ours. I think it is worth noting that this practice green will allow you to work on virtually every putt you may face on the new greens. There are areas that will allow you to practice a wide variety of putts including: down hill, side hill, up hill, and of course flat ones. I hope all of you will be as excited to use this new green as I am to get it opened for your use.

With the drainage portion about to finish, the MacCurrach group is shuffling bodies to begin the "finish work" around the new greens. This process includes water settling the newly installed mix, packing all the edges, trimming away the excess plastic liner, matching the grade of the new green with the existing surrounds, and most importantly checking the depth of the mix. I had hoped to post some pictures today, but I am without Internet service in my office and am doing this from home where I forget to bring my camera. Look for photos over the weekend or early next week.

This finish work will move quickly (The 2nd and 18th greens were completed just today) and we should be prepared to start laying the bluegrass sod around the first 6 greens by Wednesday. At that point, the only thing left to do would be to rake out the surface one final time and plant the seed. Given the pace of the project, we will wait for all the greens to be complete and seed them at one time - sometime between Aug 20th and Sept 1st.

One other item of note is that MacCurrach Golf recently sent five additional staffers to the club to begin cranking out the tee portion of the project. They arrived yesterday and have made an immediate impact. The location of the new tees on 2, 3, and 18 have been finalized and staked out. It will be interesting to see how quick the new tees come together - I suspect it will be very fast.

Again, sorry for the lack of photos. Hopefully my internet will be back up and running on Monday and I will get some photos out ASAP!

Day 23, 24 and 25 - And Then There Was One!!!

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.

Day 22 - Fairway Renovation Work Begins

Having given the Glyphosate application enough time to effectively work, we have now begun the process of prepping the fairways for re-seeding. This process is dusty and very time consuming. In the last three days, we have only been able to prep the 15th, 14th, 6th, 12th, 7th and 11th fairways. Removing as much of the old dead tissue as possible is a critical step towards the success of the fairway project. What we hope to accomplish is the removal of as much thatch as possible in order to achieve a better seed to soil contact ratio when we slit seed in the new bentgrass variety.

The process of accomplishing this renovation will be as follows:

1. The area treated with Glyphosate is double verti-cut. This process will rip much of the dead tissue out.

2. These areas are then blown off using large tractor blowers.

3. We then mow these areas with a traditional fairway mower set down to a height of one-quarter inch. This is roughly half of the normal fairway height you play on daily.

4. Again, the fairways are blown off using the large tractor blowers

5. All of the debris must be cleaned up and removed.

6. Start over and do it a second time when the first go around is complete.



This photo is showing the mess created by mowing the fairway down to half of its old height.



Here you can see two tractor blowers trying to get all the old material to one central spot to be easily cleaned-up.