Fall Projects

There is a still a lot of golf to be played this year and for the Grounds Department, there are still a lot of projects we want to have completed before the covers are placed on the greens. This year aeration is scheduled for the week of Labor Day. On Tuesday the 7th the course will be closed. We will begin the aeration process on Tuesday the 7th and it will continue throughout the week.

Aeration Schedule
Sept 7th-Deep tine aerate greens, roll, topdress and fertilize.
Begin solid tine aeration of Fairways
We will also be core aerating high poa populated areas on fairways and over-seeding these areas with creeping bentgrass
Sept 8th-Deep tine aerate approaches, roll and topdress
Sept 9th-Solid tine aerate tees, roll and topdress

If the weather cooperates and we have no major equipment issues we should be able to complete the entire aeration process by the end of the week.

6 Tee Stone and Timbers

The old timber edging, timber steps and Pillsbury stone along the 6th tee walk path will all be removed and replaced starting the week of September 20th. West Lake Landscape from Hopkins is the contractor who will be working on this project. This project is quite in depth and will take at least 4 weeks to complete. But once complete this will be the last of the timbers that need to be replaced on the course. Nine years ago we set out to have complete consistency with our landscape throughout the course. This is the last area on the course to have the timbers phased out and the lannen stone phased in.

Drainage

As we work toward increasing our creeping bentgrass population on the fairways we are working hard toward increasing surface drainage wherever we have areas where water stands following heavy rains or extended periods of rain. This past spring we added drainage to fairways 5, 9 and 13 as well as the approach on 16. The next area we will be working is the 18th fairway. First there is an old steel irrigation pipe that's very shallow and needs to be removed before any drainage can be installed. We have good bentgrass in this area of the fairway, but its difficult to maintain firm conditions during periods of extended wet weather, so adding drainage to this area will greatly improve the quality of this fairway area.

Bunker Repair and Maintenance
Due to the excessive temperatures we experienced this summer we have some areas on bunker edges and bunker faces that will require some additional attention. The second week in August we recorded greens surface temperatures reaching 130 degrees, soil temperatures close to 90 degrees. Plants don't function well in those conditions. Those were greens surface temperatures, I have no idea what the temperature was in the bunkers. Turf growing on bunker edges suffered, in some areas more than others and repair will be required.

We have struggled with the quality of the turf on the bunker faces on the left fairway bunker on 16 as well as the first fairway bunker on the right of 16. These are south facing bunkers and additional irrigation is needed. We will be pulling pop-up irrigation heads onto the shoulders. This will allow us to supplement these faces with additional irrigation as needed.

1 Tee Sod Job

The back right corner of the first tee receives a great deal of foot traffic throughout the season. No matter what the maintenance practices are it's difficult to maintain quality turf. On a given round there are typically four players and anywhere from 2-4 caddies that congregate in this area. Last week Rick Krause sodded this area. We will keep it roped off for a number of weeks until the sod has completely knitted and healed.

Following Labor Day we will begin working on these projects and do our best to have them all completed this fall and I'm sure there will be a lot more we can add to the list.