Crew Landscapes Entrance in Time for the Summer Pool Seaon

Swim & Tennis Entrance Landscape Improvement

The Farm golf course maintenance team lead by GCC Horticulturalist, John Glebus, recently finished a landscape renovation project along Carlson Dairy Road. The entrance area that leads to the swim and tennis facilities had a stone entrance sign installed in 2009 as part of the Farm course renovation project. Unfortunately the installation of the sign with it's large footer damaged the mature white Oak that dominated the triangular landscape bed. The tree went into decline last summer and had to be removed this past winter.

Site Clearing, Grading and Irrigation

New Topsoil and Zoysia

Finished Product

    Rather than look upon this as a negative the staff quickly went about taking advantage of the new growing conditions devoid of the large tree. The first step was to remove all the old vegetation. The next step involved grading the site and removing the large mass of roots from the Oak tree and the Junipers that were removed from the bank.  Next irrigation was added to the area to ensure the new plants would thrive in this highly visible location. Once the irrigation was completed and the site was leveled new top soil was brought in and mixed with the existing soil to support a large number of flowering shrubs and perennials.  While all this was going the landscape plan was being developed and when a consensus was finally reached on the plan the plants were tracked down and picked up.  The concept for the design was fairly simple and it focused on having a colorful, but not overly showy, area to to greet the summer-time pool guest and maintain color for the fall season tennis members.

Irving Park Course Undergoes Complete Verticutting and Aerification

The Irving Park course was closed this week (June 24 - 27) for an extensive effort to manage compaction and thatch accumulation.  The Farm course finished a similar process two weeks ago.  For the Irving Park course, all the short cut areas of the course, which includes greens, tees, fairways and approaches were aerified.  In addition to aerification, the fairways were also verticut in an effort to remove additional thatch.  The goal of all this work is to improve both the playability and health on these critical areas of the course.

Verticutting

Aerification

Plug Processing

Finished Green

Few who have played the Irving Park course would not argue the need to improve the playability and more specifically the drainage aspects of the short cut areas.  Few would also argue that anyone likes aerification.  Not the members, their guest or our staff who work sun up to sun down to complete this work over a period of just a few days.  With that said, most of those who have been enlightened on the subject do accept it is necessary and that it is our best chance towards improving these areas without significant resources put towards infrastructure and materials. Over the years these playing areas have been allowed to become grainy in nature and despite the perception of the average golfer our cultural management techniques have been moderate at best.  Our efforts towards controlling both grain and thatch this year was increased by aerifying with larger coring tines and verticutting in two different directions.  The end result was we were able to remove significantly more organic matter from these areas, which will ultimately improve the playability of these areas. Another effect will be a slower recovery time due to the increased disruption to the playing surface.  We estimate the fairways will take an additional two weeks before they return to "play it down" quality.  If you have never worked on a golf course maintenance team then it is hard to appreciate the amount of work that goes into a week like this but our goals to provide the membership with the best possible year round product clearly outweigh any of the short term negatives associated with these cultural management procedures.

New Drainage Projects at the Farm

New Drainage Additions 

The staff on the Farm course has begun the process of installing numerous new drain lines throughout the course. All totaled we hope to install nearly 1,800 feet of new french drain lines and numerous new catch basins throughout the course.  The focus of our efforts will be primarily in our fairways where the Zoysia has shown itself to be more sensitive to wetness.  

The process will primarily consist of the following:

1) Removing the sod in the area of the new drain line

2) Trenching the lines

3) Placing gravel on the base of the trench

4) Install HDPE double wall coregated slit pipe 

5) Cover pipe with gravel

6) Back fill remaining portion of ditch with sandy mix

7) Cover trench with water proof geotextile to prevent washing prior to final sodding

8) Sod trench with new sod

As most would agree, drainage on a golf course is a never ending endeavor.  The good news is the new Farm course has some great infrastructure to work with, which will make our efforts much easier than prior to the renovation.  Also worth noting, is that due to the fact the majority of this work will be in the fairways please be considerate of our staff while they work hard to make these valuable improvements. 

Existing Drain Swale

New Drain Basin

New Drainline

Drain line protected from washing out until sod can be installed

Bunker Washouts Never Easy

Irving Park Receives 3 Inch Rainstorm

An all too common occurrence after last night's big rain on our Irving Park course. An event like the one last night will require a minimum of 50 man-hours to make the necessary repairs. The silt has to be cleaned off the surface of the sand followed by large amounts of sand which are then pushed back into place. 

Farm Course

The Farm course generally fares much better after a large rain event due to the Billy Bunker construction method. These bunkers were constructed with not only a series of french drains but the entire base of the bunker was covered in a 2 inch gravel layer, which was separated from the bunker sand with  geotextile fabrics.  The construction contractor was also very careful to shape the bunkers to divert storm water around the bunkers to largest extent possible.  Our repair labor on the Farm course after a very large rain event adds only 1-2 hours to the normal hours required to rake these bunkers.  Contamination to the sand itself is also very limited during washout events.