Bathroom upgrade

Brrrrr rabbit it was cold today. We finished under brushing the left and right sides of 14 today. Some tree limbing also took place on 12 and 13. Also, the deck is complete on the bathrooms by 9 tee.

Under brushing 14

Today we started taking out all the saplings and under brush left of 14 fairway. All that will be left will be the mountain laurels and rhododendrons.

Draining the irrigation system

Today we shut down the pumps and drained the irrigation pipes. There are 13 drains located throughout the golf course on low lying areas. We won't bring the system back up until march. We are also pulling the 25 h.p. jockey pump and having it rebuilt. After 16 years of hard work , the impeller is showing signs of wear. We will take this down time to rebuild the pump and reinstall before the season starts.

Practice facility

We are pouring a concrete pad for artificial mats to be installed. This will allow us to keep the range open while we reseed the teeing surface. Below are some pics of the staff pouring and prepping the mat area .

Sky valley way

The view coming down to the golf course on sky valley way has been lost due to tall vegetation. We are cleaning up the hillside on the right of 8 fairway. This view will be much improved and allow residents and guests to see the golf course.

Bathroom upgrade at 9 tees

We are giving the bathrooms a small face lift. The wall in front of the 2 doors has been removed, and a long step will be constructed. 6x6 posts will be installed to give it a better look as well as new decking.

Topdressing fairways

With all the old sand coming out of the bunkers, we are topdressing some the wetter fairways that hold water on the golf course. This should allow carts to get on fairways a little quicker after a rain storm. Below is Luis yerena topdressing 6 and 8 fairway, also 7 approach looks good with a coating of sand.

Rain day

Today we took the opportunity to wax all of the equipment and put it to bed for the winter. We also finished up the chemical room expansion and was able to remove the sand from the green side bunker on #5.

Recycling the old bunker sand

All of the sand we take out from the front nine bunkers will be used for topdressing. We are doing all the approaches in front of the greens as well as the tees. We will also topdress some of the wetter holes like 13,14,16, 17. Topdressing the approaches will allow you to bump and run your ball with out plugging. It will allow a much firmer surface much like the greens.below is a pic from 3 and 5 approach .

New bunker sand

Today we started taking out the sand in the front nine bunkers. We will do all green side bunkers first and then do the fairway bunkers. We have 2 1/2 weeks left till the crew is laid off till march and we are going full steam trying to complete as many bunkers as we can. What we don't get to we will finish in march. We are taking out as much of the old sand and putting in the new sand and compacting to 4". All of the sand must be taking out with shovels, a machine would damage the bunker liners. We are only able to complete about 3 bunkers per day.Below are some pics from 3 green. The back right bunker is complete and what a huge difference the sand has made. If you have noticed, all the sand on the front nine is different from the sand on the back nine. Somehow during construction they must have changed sand suppliers. We have really not been able to rake these bunkers properly. I think you will notice a huge improvement .

Hole 7

We cut the last ugly pine on 7 today. This wood will be recycled and used for siding to finish the maintenance barn. With this tree gone, it has really opened up this hole.

Barn update

We are getting a little closer to finishing the siding. We also took this opportunity to enlarge the chemical room. With all this warm weather we are having, we have made great progress on the maintenance barn and with aerification to the golf course. The fairways should be finished this week.