Help Wanted

Your help is needed.  There is a major irrigation leak on your course that hasn't surfaced.  We've been hunting for this break for over a week.  Please inform the golf shop or grounds crew personnel if you see water bubbling to the surface during your round.  Leaks of this magnitude are generally found in a matter of days.  Hampering our search is Mother Nature's 15 inches of rain over the past couple of weeks leaving puddles of standing water everywhere.  The large pressure surges to 140 PSI required turning the pumps off.  Our troubles began after power was lost during the thunderstorm that knocked out power to the community.  Without back pressure in the irrigation system when power returned all pumps fired creating a large water hammer situation.  To date we have repaired one six in main break and a broken tee on the Tri City course but have yet to discover the break here at Bull's Eye. Let us know if you see anything suspicious.  Thanks.  _Mk

On Course Updates- August 2014.

The "Crows Nest" adjacent to the first tee has been rebuilt.  The patio surface and retaining wall had settled overtime due to the continued decay of the original pressure treated retaining wall buried beneath it. The "BECC" lettering, an adornment that few noticed, had cracked to the point it could no longer be used and was eliminated from this design.  It amazes me how the removal of a mere four letters required the purchase of many more blocks than four to fill in the lobes.  The twenty plus year old blocks used in the original design build were obsolete and could not be found to fill in the concentric rings of the design.  This is the third time we've rebuilt this feature and each time we've added a new twist to eliminate settling.  Time will tell.  I think it looks great!  Thanks men!

The shortest regulation length golf course in Wisconsin is about to get a little shorter. (Editors Note: I was once told of this fact from Gene Haas, retired Executive Director of the Wisconsin State Golf Association. I do not know if it is still valid.) Construction of the first of five forward tee boxes at Tri-City has started.  The work will be done in house using materials already stock piled.  Soils on site will be recycled to create the mounding.  Recycled and composted aerification cores will serve as top mix.  Tee boxes were located between sprinklers so no additional irrigation heads, piping or wire needs to be installed.  While not architecturally correct, tee boxes are being built directly in front of the original tee boxes to save on irrigation costs.  The only costs for construction will be for the seed and starter fertilizer and labor.  While not a planned part of PGA's "Tee it Forward" initiative, should the shorter tee's keep a graying population of players playing, it will be worth the work at any cost. _Mk.

#17 Drainage Project.

In Agronomy 101, the first rule of growing good turfgrass is drainage. Your green section staff, taking advantage of dry weather, set to the task of retrofitting catch basins to an existing drainage network this week on the Seventeenth hole.  As you know, the smallest of rain events can make this fairway unplayable for days.

We used high pressure water and a sewer clean out tool to make sure drains were running free and clear.  Copper wire was attached to the clean out tool and feed down the tile with the water hose to help us trace the tiles path.  When we found an obstruction, the tile lines were dug up, inspected and repaired as needed. 

Most of our troubles were found where drainage tubing intersected irrigation piping.  Repairs such as these should have been made by the irrigation contractor back in 1994 when the system was installed. As you can see above some where missed.

Three catch basins were added to the existing drainage network and will serve us well in the future as the network is expanded into adjacent poorly drained soils.  We know of several "weeps" that need to addressed.

The water has already filled the bottom of the trench. Our trench cut through a small saturated zone of sand.

PLEASE NOTE:  OUR WORK WILL NOT SOLVE ALL DRAINAGE ISSUES FOUND ON 17! While our additions will not address all drainage needs, it will go a long way in drying up a troubled fairway and rough.  Multiple drainage laterals need to be added.  Future work needs to be funded.  $1,000 is a start, but it does not go very far these days.

PS: In a perfect world, this fairway should be capped with four to six feet of soil elevating the fairway surface above the "gumbo clays" that are so slow to drain.

PSS: It's 7/24/14 with temperatures in the 90's the past few days. As if we needed a reminder of how cold our winter was, a large ice chunk found in the pea gravel used to surround the tubing.  These are just a few fragments of ice as proof.  _Mk

Golf Spike Evolution? It's Come Full Circle.

Clack, Clack, Clack.  If you're a Baby Boomer or older like me you can still remember the sound of metal golf spikes crossing asphalt or concrete paths.  There was nothing better than the feeling of spikes sinking into warm sun beaten asphalt pathways.  I can still feel and hear the crunch underfoot on tournament parched greens. For your own safeties sake, you always remembered to take extra precaution when making your way across the locker rooms tile floor because if you didn't you would find yourself on your backside.  AND you can still see the damage to wooden bridge decking, steps and carpeting if you look closely.  I can still see the bruised and battered turf, a perfect doughnut around the cup.  Those were yesterdays days right?  NO!  I'm talking about the problem that I see daily brought on by today's golf shoe construction.

As a (over) seasoned golf course manager, I'm always asked if yesterday's outing caused any damage to the turf.  Well yes there is damage, but it's away from the course you'll see today!  It is the principle reason hole locations are constantly changed.

The picture above is the damage caused by spikes around the cup location.  Usually there is a six inch ring free of damage as people stop short of the hole to bend to pick their ball from the cup.  The damage seen came on the "heal" of the largest golf outing of the year that proceeded one half hour after a 2" rain event had passed.

In this photo above this "tricky" tournament hole location produced two points from which putts were taken above and below the hole.  Those area's are to the right of the blue ball mark tool just right of center.

As I began to put together my thoughts for this post, I became unusually aware of the damage not only around the cup, but to the generalized area of the green hosting the hole location for that day.

 

Looking closely, you can see the imprints of both styles of shoes.  My knife covers the replugged closed hole.  I wish I had a dollar every time the comment was made, "how come the greens are 'bumpy and slow'."

I'm not picking on Foot Joy, however, they're not alone in this game.  They along with the other golf shoe manufacturers are not good for the game if the spikes they use to sell their products cause damage to putting green turf.  Damage requiring costly inputs of chemicals and fertilizers to outgrow spike damage are expenses paid for by you.  I'm aware of courses that have banned this aggressive spike.  Maybe it's time we jump on the bandwagon too?  MK

"Sand Vally," A teasers view.

Here's a couple of pre-construction photo's taken down at Sand Valley.  The logging and stump clearing is in progress on the tentitive routing plan for several new golf holes.

 

There's a lot of work to be done in the days ahead.

 

A Pet named Peeves.

Call me a "grumpy old man," (I admit, I can be that from time to time,) but as this Blog is for entertainment I thought you might get a kick out of a few "Pet Peeves" of mine.  As golf is a game played by humans, it is humans that cause me the most angst.  This list is not all inclusive by any means, nor is it in any particular order.

When signs are posted that clearly ask that bug sprays be applied over hard surfaces and not the turf.

 When equipment operators have been told time and time again not to dump grass clippings in a pile in nature area's or in shaded places.

 Ball marks the size of the Planet Uranus.

"But we checked the air pressure in all the tires before sent them out." (Yup.)

 "But we know were to drive!"  Just wish I could find a photo of your wheel ruts to post."

What ever happened to keeping Carts 30' from the green?  My all time favorite is when someone pulls off the cart path onto the green bank to leave room for other carts to pass on the path. Makes me wonder why we spent so much money building them in the first place and baffling to me as to why I must always ask for moneys to build more.

And my #1 all time favorite is the Beverage cart!  (Not the girls.)  It amazes me how many times these noisy contraptions can circumnavigate the golf course in 30 minutes!  You can hear their approach three holes in the distance and it's a given just as you are about to make a swing they'll poke their obtrusive nose out from behind a tree or a  bunker bank right where you want your ball to land!  I get a kick when they're on an empty back nine when all the play is on the front.  It would be fun to place a GPS on one, the graph would look like like a spirograph I made as a kid.  (More to follow.....)  Mk

Lending a helping hand.

1.75" inches of rain fell overnight coupled with the largest golf outing of the calendar year scheduled to shotgun off at 11AM reminded me of a photo I wanted to share with you as to what goes on behind the scenes when trying to make it an enjoyable day on the course for members and guests in events like this.

In the picture above members of the BECC greens section staff traveled to the Dell's to assist the crew from Trappers Turn in shoveling up bunkers washed down by 3.5" of torrential rains prior to the annual Andy North Celebrity Golf Outing hosted there a couple of weeks ago.  Golf was postponed for a few hours to allow the course to dry a bit but the event was held.  Super job guys.  _Mk