Golf Course Update - December Version

 Leaves, Leaves and More Leaves

As is the case every year, the course has more than its fair share of leaves waiting for removal.  With 2.76 inches of rain falling over the last two weeks it has proven nearly impossible to get the equipment off the path in order to clear and/or remove the leaves.  The Irving Park course always proves more difficult to deal with each season because unlike the Farm there are no places to blow the leaves to, not that the Farm course staff doesn't do more than their fair share of vacuuming up leaves. Instead, at Irving Park every leaf that falls has to be sweep up and hauled off site. As soon as the courses dry up enough to get the large equipment off the path the staff will quickly play catchup.  The leaf situation is always the worst in late November throughout the biggest part of December with the final cleanup usually taking place in mid-January.

 

IP Practice Green

We are getting a lot of questions as to when we will be opening the new practice green at Irving Park.  We are currently mowing the green at about twice the height of what is expected to be our final mowing height and it will take several more months for us to get that height down to where we can provide acceptable green speeds that are comparable to the remaining greens on the course.  The fall and even the winter months are an important time for this new grass to mature and establish a full set of roots.  With that said, we expect to have this green ready for play by sometime in mid to late March next year in conjunction with the onset of the busy spring golfing season.

New Practice Bunker at the Farm

As most of you know we lost the fairway practice bunker at the Farm when we constructed the Teaching Pavillion.  In response to member feedback asking for a replacement bunker to be constructed we did add this project to our Irving Park range reconstruction this past summer, The bunker was opened in late summer and is located on the back tee of the range, and we encourage anyone who wants to practice long bunker shots to utilize this new feature.

      

Cart Path Repairs

We have recently made several repairs to the cart paths on the Irving Park course in areas where we had damage to the asphalt, most of which was a result of tree roots.  We normally make these repairs in the summer months, but with the extensive number of resources we had to dedicate to the range restoration project we just couldn't fit this work into the busy schedule.  We have a few remaining areas to add to the list, but the rainy weather has us in a holding pattern.  One thing we did include in these repairs was a new turn around for the newly routed path at #3 tee.

 

Replacement of Plants on Farm Hole #12

We recently replaced the plant screen material on hole #12 at the Farm where the previous trees were destroyed as part of the DOT Horsepen Creek road widening project.  The same material that currently exist along the left side of the hole was used to fill in the gap and in just a few short years the busy road should once again be gone from the golfer's view.

Leak Irving Park Hole #5

We have been dealing with an unusual leak on #5 on the Irving Park course.  It has taken several months to trace out the source of the leak, but we are now very close.  The source of the leak has been determined to be from a city water line that is underneath the sidewalk on Country Club Drive.  Evidently the leak found its way to a nearby sewer line that was originally terracotta pipe but was lined with plastic pipe several years ago.  The water was getting into the juncture between the old clay pipe and new plastic pipe and traveled across the street and all the way across #5 until it found a crack in the clay pipe.  As this relates to city infrastructure it has taken much longer than normal to identify and fix the issue.  But now that we think we know the source it shouldn't take that much longer to fix and finally get this large eyesore to disappear.

Farm Bunkers

We, on more than one occasion, get complaints on buried lies in the Farm bunkers.  We have several bunkers that are more susceptible than others.  Certain greenside bunkers are positioned perpendicular to the green and balls that come in with a lot of loft and spin can and do plug in the face of these bunkers.  The staff is currently working on ensuring the face of these bunkers has the proper amount of sand and adjusting where necessary.  Once the sand depth is proper then they use our plate compactor to firm the faces even more.  Later on, this winter we will be measuring the depth of all the bunkers and adding new sand, mostly to the bottoms, where the sand is thin. 

Irving Park Range Restoration Finally Underway

 After months of delays, the construction crew from Medalist Golf finally arrived on site this past week to begin the process of putting the Irving Park practice area back together.  While the shaper has been here several weeks the 4 man crew responsible for constructing the features, installing new drainage and irrigation and finally re-grassing the area arrived last week and have been making steady progress.

SOME NOTABLE CHANGES

The club did retain the services of Golf Course Architect Keith Foster to aid us with the new design of the entire area.  A committee that consisted of Mark Davidson, Rick Ramsey, Ralph Allen, Kevin Gunter, David Egerton and staff members has worked along side Keith to reexamine the use of the area, the spatial layout and the flow of traffic.  In the beginning all options were put on the table.  Some of the options that were considered were to go back exactly like before with a path between the green and tee and a path from 18 back behind the practice tee.  Another option that was considered was to convert the range area to a large and mostly flat event space.  A third option was to flip the first tee to the right side and the practice green to the left side.  A fourth option was to convert the range area into a short game area but concern for safety did not allow that design to proceed.  In the end, the option that everyone agreed worked best with the reduced space that we were left with due to the clubhouse and pool expansion was the one we decided to put in place as outlined below.

NUMEROUS CHANGES

• Practice Green Size and Useable Area has Increased Significantly - The old green was around 4,500 sf with about 50% of that deemed usable.  The new green will be 6,200 sf with around 95% of the area useable for practice putting gaining the club around 4,000 sf of extra useable putting surface.
• Cart Staging Area - The cart staging area will be shortened but widened and limited to the area just behind the new first tee.
• Practice Tee - The practice tee will be 8,400 sf and include 12-13 artificial mat hitting stations behind the tee.
• In addition to the steps that lead to the lower practice tee a walkway will be shaped out around the practice green for easy access.
• The range itself will measure 140 yards from the front of the tee to 155 yards from the hitting mats.
• The range will be widened by removing the path currently going up the right side of #1

COURSE RESEQUENCING AND CART PATH ADJUSTMENTS

• Hole Resequencing
• Hole #1 stays the same - Cart path will be located on the left side of the new tees.  We will be experimenting with a limited path design on this hole.  The new path will end just on the other side of the creek and won't pick back up until closer to the green.
• Hole #2 will be current #18 - Paths will be added
• Hole #3 will be current #16 - Path will be added
• Hole #4 will be current #17 - Path will be added
• Hole #5 will be current #2
• Hole #6 will be current #3
• Hole #7 will be current #4
• Hole #8 will be current #5
• Hole #9 will be current #6
• Hole #10 will be current #7 - Better for #1 and #10 starts.
• Hole #11 will be current #8
• Hole #12 will be current #9 
• Hole #13 will be current #10
• Hole #14 will be current #11
• Hole #15 will be current #12
• Hole #16 will be current #13
• Hole #17 will be current #14
• Hole #18 will be current #15 finishing in the parking lot at the clubhouse
• Snack/Restroom house will be situated on new hole #5 and New #13 (old #10)
• New Par - Front 9 par 34 Back nine par 37 (inverse of current layout) 

*** New paths will be installed wherever needed to accommodate the new sequencing

SCHEDULE

• Open the first tee and practice tee - Expected Mid-August
• Open the new practice green - Spring of 2023 (seed in late August - early September 2022)

Blum Headquarters

New #1 Tee

Drainage Being Installed in New PG

Gravel Bed in New PG

Walkway to New Practice Tee

Pond Work Completed Just in Time for Spring Rains

 Ski Lake Spillway Renovation

The spillway pipe structure on Ski Lake (#1 Pond Farm Course) has been successfully replaced.  The original Galvanized pipe had deteriorated to the point if could no longer be trusted on what is the club's only high hazard dam.  The project has been in the works for several years with the permitting process taking well over a year for the approval of our engineered plans.  The pond had to be dropped over 10 feet to conduct the new construction work.  Once the work began it went very smoothly and finished on time despite a few heavy rains slowing us down.  The work is now officially over and moving forward  we just a need a few good rains to get the pond back to an acceptable water level before we start using it again for our course irrigation.

Farm #14 Pond Level

Our repair of the spillway structure last year resulted in the wrong final elevation of the pond level.  This was due to leakage in the pipe over a long period of time, which gave us a faulty survey reading of the true lake level.  As such, a new riser was added to the new system this year at no additional cost to the club to bring the lake water height up to it's proper level.  The pond on #14 had to be lowered several feet to add the extended structure, but that work is now complete and we expect once the pond is full this addition will result in a much more attractive pond and a lot more water, which is important as this pond also serves as a primary irrigation source.

Additional Storm Drainage #11 Farm

Water flow from the additional road widening on Horsepen Creek road has added to our storm flow demand on the left side of #11.  This actually has always been a problem going back the 2009 renovation but the roadwork definitely added additional storm flow and siltation.  We have hopefully alleviated this problem by catching the the water as it comes onto the golf course and not allowing it to travel all the way to the singular basin in the low area at the turn of the dogleg.

Preparing for the Spring/Summer Season

Both courses have received preventative treatments for spring and summer weeds.  Both courses are now working on installing mulch in all our landscaped areas.  In total the staff will put over nearly 1500 yards of hardwood mulch between the two courses.  Nearly 3,000 bales of pinestraw will follow this in May.  The Irving Park greens were aerified in early March and are now nearly 100% recovered.  The Irving Park staff recently completed the large task of adding nearly 200 tons of replenishment sand to the bunkers.  Of course all this work and much more is done in conjunction with routine maintenance of the two courses for daily play.

Irving Park Range Renovation  - Tentatively Start Repairs May 2

We are tentatively scheduled to begin putting the Irving Park back together on May 2nd.  This of course is very dependent on the clubhouse contractor completing enough of his work, so that he can get range area cleared of trucks and materials.  Once the work does begin we expect the renovation work to last approximately 6-8 weeks.  The scope of the project currently includes redoing everything from the first tee to the practice green to restoring the range area.  Everything will be put back together very similar to what is was before construction damage with the exception of the practice green which we expect to be significantly larger and more usable.  

Fall Golf On GCC's Courses

 Leaves and More Leaves

You can't discuss fall golf without mentioning leaves.  Despite the mild weather thus far this season the leaves have finally began falling and keeping up with them is no small task for the guys on the crew.  We will dedicate 80-90% of our manpower over the next 8-10 weeks trying our best to keep the course as clean as possible.  There of course will be days where we lose the battle, but whenever we fall behind just know we will work extra hard to catch up all in an effort to make everyone's golf experience as enjoyable as possible.  

Frost Delays

Fall is also the time where early morning tee times are often delayed by the formation of frost.  Golf course turf is normally resilient to traffic, but when ice crystals form inside the plants, they become brittle and vulnerable to damage. Walking or driving over frost-covered grass may rupture plant cells, leading to dead turf. Or the plants may be weakened without immediately showing the effects. When this does occur the golf maintenance team will work closely with the Pro Shop staff to communicate the length of the expected delay to the membership. Golfers should be aware that when temperatures are forecasted to be within 2-3 degrees, or lower. of freezing frost is possible.  The later we get into winter the colder the soil temperature becomes, which typically results in longer delays..

Fall Overseeding and Minor Repairs to the Cool Season Turf

                                     

Above - A long overdue repair of turf underneath the large hardwoods on Farm #6 dogleg

                                                                           

Irving Park #7 Right Side Convert Mulch to Grass

We Have Also Been Working On A Few Landscaping Projects

New Hollies on #16

#15 IP

First Phase Landscaping Starting at Clubhouse

Uninvited Guest

I know many of you that live around the course have seen our unwanted guest this year.  I have been in the business for a good number of years and seen all kinds of wildlife on the course and more importantly how some of that wildlife affects the course.  Geese have historically been our biggest nuisance when they choose to feed on the greens and leave behind the spoils of their feeding.  Deer can occasionally damage greens and their winter feeding habits will certainly defoliate plants they seem to enjoy.  Groundhogs and musk rats cause their fair share of damage along creek and lake banks.  Crows occasionally damage the turf while feeding on worms and grubs.  I've seen beavers cause flooding on a scale I couldn't believe was possible.  

But the guest I am talking about is our neighborhood fox or foxes, I really don't know how many.  For well over a year now we have seen damage to our greens and bunkers on what is a nearly daily occurrence.  Damage ranges anywhere from scratching the surface on the greens and bunkers to digging holes large enough to sleep in.  They seem to like the greens and bunkers because they are easy to dig in.  We have even had, during the middle of the day, a fox walk across the fairway and steal one of the members balls.  This summer we had to use part of our Bentgrass nursery to allow us to constantly be plugging out the damage on the greens and when we went to re-seeded the nursery this fall it didn't take long for the newly seeded area to be destroyed by that same animal.  We've treated some of the areas with hot pepper spices but it only seemed to work for a few days and when we put it on the greens it burned the leaves.  We did hire a wildlife expert to come in and attempt to trap and relocate but after a month or more of traps being set around the course and a lot of invoices for their services we never had one single trap set.  So, not only is he/she destructive but he/she is fairly smart too.

A few Pictures out of 100+ I could have taken

Final Greens Aerification of the Year

Next Monday-Tuesday (8/23-8/24) we will undertake our final greens aerification on the Irving Park course.  

Aerification is an important cultural practice. Through aerification we; 1) extract excessive accumulation of organic material; 2) improve soil gas exchange; 3) stimulate new root development; 4) stimulate microbial activity; and 5) improve the plants ability to withstand biotic and abiotic stresses.

Having said that, there are still plenty of golfer skeptics! Aerification is one of the most despised cultural practices when it comes to the golfer as it disrupts the playing surface; is usually done during the prime playing seasons; and according to most golfers has no redeeming features other than to decrease green performance and raise one's golf score. On the other hand, aerification is likely the most important cultural practice that a turf manager can perform. Why? Simply put to maintain a root system under the target plant. The plant's response is to maintain density enabling it to tolerate traffic, and resist ball marking; maintain a deep effective root system to withstand limitations on water quantity and water quality; and to maintain healthy plant growth to tolerate biotic and abiotic stresses. 

Bermuda Versus Bent

The biggest difference is Bentgrass, being a cool season grass, grows best during the spring and fall months.  On the other hand, Bermuda is a warm season grass that grows best during the summer months.  Ideally we seek to annually achieve organic matter removal in the 15%-20% range of the total surface area for highly manicured surfaces such as golf course greens.  We also schedule aerification either during or just prior to ideal growing conditions to enable the plant to take full advantage of the process and to maximize recovery time.

Bermudagrass is a much tougher plant than Bentgrass and can withstand a much more aggressive aerification process than its Bentgrass counter part.  So with only one true growing season for Bermudagrass and it being a tougher plant we only schedule one aerification on the Bermuda where we aggressively verticut the entire surface multiple times over and then double aerify the green, effectively seeking to hit our goal of surface disruption (organic matter removal) all in one shot.  

Bentgrass is a somewhat more delicate plant with three completely different growing seasons.  Each time we aerify the Bentgrass we use a somewhat less aggressive level of surface disruption where the cumulative effect of our three aerifications adds up to the 15%-20% goal.

Total Full Recovery time following an aerification procedure:

Bermudagrass - 5 weeks

Bentgrass - 4 weeks x 3 = 12 weeks

 

Farm Course Closed for Aerification Week of July 12-16 

Irving Park Course Closed July 19 - 21 for Fairway Verticutting

As with any large scale aerification procedure our objective next week will be to remove and manage excess organic matter. Organic matter is a combination of living and dead plant material found in soil – e.g., roots and stems. While some organic matter is good, especially living organic matter, high levels of dead organic matter can cause problems. The water-holding capacity of organic matter in most mature turf is almost five times more than the water-holding capacity of sand. When heavy or prolonged rain events occur, soils with high levels of organic matter will hold water longer and are slower to drain. This in turn makes for softer greens, fairways, tees and roughs. Wet areas that are slow to drain will restrict cart traffic and impede maintenance activities like mowing. Wet areas are also much more prone to diseases that can lead to turfgrass thinning or loss. When the pore space of soil is filled with water instead of air, roots will suffer. Roots need oxygen and if they die, the turfgrass will die. So, continued removal of organic matter is necessary. When we aerify the greens sand topdressing helps to dilute what is not removed while facilitating drainage and delivery of oxygen to roots. Balancing the water-holding capacity of a soil by incorporating sand gives the grass access to both water and air within the soil, and creates a firmer playing surface. Sand enhances playability in addition to diluting organic matter.

New Forward Tee Constructed on Farm #7

A new forward tee was recently constructed and sodded on the 7th hole on the Farm course.  The new tee will measure approximately 340 yards.  The 9th and 12th holes are the only remaining holes where the tees are in place but a teeing area has not been constructed.

Drainage

The staff on both courses have been busy installing new drainage this year.  The farm course has added drainage on holes #2, #5, #6, #13 and are currently working on a small spot on #4.  The Irving Park staff re-did an extensive amount of drainage on the #7 fairway and added additional drainage to the upper end of the fairway.

Sod Work

The staff has finished with the bulk of the sod work required for the year  on both courses.  in regards to early summer turf repairs this year's quantity was very average with no winter kill related repairs.  This year was a little unique in that we lost a measurable amount of Zoysia sod this year due to a very wet 2020 fall and 2020-2021 winter.  One of Zoysia's biggest weaknesses is that it has a very low tolerance to prolonged saturated conditions, especially during the winter months.  2020 was the second wettest year on record for our area, so some of the larger areas of dead turf we witnessed this spring in our low lying Zoysia areas was not unexpected.  Another thing that was unique was the cooler spring and early summer lead to a big delay in when the Zoysia was made available from our suppliers and that is why some areas didn't get sodded until July this year.

Spring Officially Arrives this Weekend and with it comes Another Weekend With Wet Playing Conditions

 

Storm storms passed through the area Thursday night but it could have been worse.  Tornadic winds were reported in the southern part of the county, so despite all our Irving Park bunkers completely washing we are very grateful we didn't arrive to a course with trees and limbs scattered across the property.  Unfortunately the guys will be working extra hard today trying to get the bunkers playable for the weekend and it looks like with another 1.5 inches of rain carts will be on the path once again, but what's new.

 Speaking of bunkers, the staff devoted a lot of time this winter adding new sand to the bunkers on both courses.  Over 200 tons of new sand was added to bunkers throughout both courses in an effort to get the sand levels back to the proper depth.  Nearly two thirds of the sand was devoted to the Irving Park course where the washing nature of these bunkers has resulted in not only lost sand but a sand that is heavily contaminated with fines that erode off the washed out clay bunker faces. The new sand will greatly improve the playability of these bunkers.

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  #2 IP Fairway Bunker with New Sand

Greens Aerification

The Irving Park greens were aerified on March 1&2.  Our early spring aerification is the slowest one to recover due to the cool soil temperatures that exist for this time of the year.  While we experienced a very nice period of weather last week we are still not expecting the greens to be fully recovered until the last week of March.

Once we get into a prolonged warmer period that results in consistent new warm season grass growth we will also needle tine the Ultradwarf greens on the Farm course in an effort to unseal the surface of these greens after a long winter.  The effects of a needle tine aerification only last a few days and are barely noticeable to the average golfer.  We expect this will occur sometime in early April if weather patterns are near normal for the next few weeks. 

 Bermudagrass Transition

 While the winter has been exceedingly wet the temperatures have been near normal and as such we are currently expecting a good spring transition on all our warm season grasses.  Due to their wet nature and the warm week we experienced last week the Irving Park fairways are already trying to break out of dormancy.  The temperatures are expected to drop below freezing this weekend (31 degrees), so begins the back and forth nature of Bermudagrass transitions in our region.  We do expect tonight's below freezing temperatures to knock the new growth back a little, but ultimately temperatures that hoover right around freezing will not hurt the Bermuda or Zoysia.

 

#1 IP Fairway Breaking Dormancy Mid-March

 

 Irving Park Pool, Clubhouse and Fitness Renovation

As everyone knows by now the IP renovation project is now in motion.  The project will have multiple effects with golf on the IP campus:

• The practice area, including the practice green, will be closed throughout the duration of the project
• Golfers playing 17 and 18 will need to be aware of construction traffic crossing these holes. 

• Golfers finishing on #18 will need to return to the clubhouse by crossing 18 fairway and proceeding to the left of the green.  From there they will need to proceed toward #16 and return to the clubhouse via Granville Rd or #16 tee if play is slow and no one is playing the hole.  The cart path at #16 tee is not wide enough to handle two-way traffic.  We do expect worn, damaged and muddy areas to develop along this avenue over the next year and will work to repair these areas in a timely fashion.

• The staging area for the project encompasses the majority of the range and significant time was spent lowering sprinkler heads, removing sprinkler heads, relocating irrigation controllers to allow for the gravel surface and/or the expansion of the clubhouse footprint.  The board is currently reviewing the extent of changes necessary to restore this area once the project concludes in the spring 2022.