Pond Dredge Update, Trees & More

Irving Park Pond Excavation Project
The time has finally come to begin excavating the excess sediment from the pond on hole #13 on the Irving Park course.  Next Week (9/23) the contractor will begin mobilizing his equipment that will be required to perform the work.  The first phase will begin by building a construction entrance off of Sunset drive in front of the teeing area on 13 for dump trucks to get close enough to the pond to be loaded with the sediment.  The sediment will then be trucked off site.

What to Expect:

• We do expect some traffic disruptions along Sunset as this work is being conducted with the slow moving trucks entering and exiting this site.  The contractor is responsible for ensuring and maintaining a clean road surface along Sunset Drive while this work is being performed.  
• While the work is being performed we will be playing hole #13 as a temporary par 3 with a large teeing area mowed out on the green side of the pond.  We will attempt to stage equipment in an area out of play, if possible, while work is not being performed to allow for play from the regular teeing areas (weekends).
•  While the work is being performed there could be an anaerobic smell from the waterlogged soil that will dissipate quickly once the work subsides.
•  The project is planned for 4 weeks but is very dependent on dry weather.  If the current dry weather pattern continues we expect to be finished inside the 4 week mark but rainfall throughout the project will only serve to delay the work.
•  The project is budgeted to remove 4,000 cubic yards of sediment, which is a depth of 3 feet of soil for a finished depth that will average somewhere around 4-5 feet below the full water level at the conclusion of the project.

No one more than myself is looking forward to the day we shovel out the last scoop of muck and see the last truck drive away.

Pond Dried Out and Ready for Excavation

2019 Gentleman's Member-Guest
All the summer improvement/cultural projects such as aerification, drainage, sodding, cart path repairs, tee construction, etc., have all been finished and we expect the staff's hard work will show up this fall in the form of two really well conditioned courses. Next week marks the kick off for this year's Gentleman's Member-Guest and the courses should be in excellent shape for members to show off to their guest. The long range weather forecast looks good next week with dry conditions and average temperatures.  We began extending our work schedule this week and we will continue the extended work schedule next week in an effort to make the two courses look and play their very best.

The Difficult Par 3 - #3 Farm

Tree Program
As many members of the club are fully aware we have been on an ambitious tree thinning and removal program for the past decade and actually going back to my first official day on the property, when I was greeted on a Saturday morning in May, 2000 with a straight line wind storm that took down close to a hundred trees.  The formalized program actually began several years prior to the Farm course renovation with a vision to improve its overall aesthetics by balancing trees and turf to produce a course that is both beautiful and delivers high quality turf playing conditions.  A great many trees have been removed due to natural causes or safety concerns but a great many have been sacrificed to reach that perfect balance that exists between trees and turf.  In recent years the primary focus has been to get adequate sunlight on the new Bermuda greens at the Farm. The focus on the Irving Park course began to ramp up several years ago when the club developed an Architect based long term master plan for the course.  That master plan identified a lot of significant issues with the course and the vast majority of those issues are best dealt with during a renovation/restoration process.  But part of that plan also included a large number of trees that need to be removed for this historic course to reach its true potential.  The vast majority of the trees included in that plan, and are not part of design changes, have already been removed in-house or with the assistance of a tree removal contractor.  None of the trees that have been removed to date were strategic to the playability of either course and all the removals have benefited both the playability of the courses and their overall beauty.  The trees on that list that we felt would be the most contentious were placed on the end of the list and we know find ourselves at the end of that list.  The tree that was recently removed on hole #16 on the Irving Park course met with a lot of questionable feedback from the membership, so we have temporarily paused out Live Tree removal program on the Irving Park course until we can re-discuss the issue at the committee/board level and determine how to best move forward with the last few trees that are recommended for removal prior to a large scale renovation/restoration process.