Project time

   With a shortened Holiday week behind us and the addition of some summer help we will be digging into our list of projects for the summer.  We will be continuing our stump work this week with a final round of grinding and cleanup.  We will also be filling holes and prepping for sod.  We started some preliminary work on the banks of the tees and will continue our work to get those ready to be sodded.  We will also be adding some better soil to the tee tops to prepare them for seeding.  Irrigation needs to be altered on the tee on #8 and #7.  We will need to re-install irrigation in #3 tee as the old irrigation is no longer useable.
   This week we will also be making our first application of growth regulators to our fairways and greens.  This helps to keep growth consistent and under control so we can get a better quality of cut and reduce our labor.  With the peat soils in our fairways, any time we get rain we get a release of nutrients that causes a flush in growth.  Often times you can achieve good speed in the morning but as the day goes on growth slows them down.  Applications to our greens help in keeping green speeds consistent throughout the day.
   Finally, with the loss of our Mechanic we are doing our best to keep the golf course conditioning at the level you have come to expect.  We will have set backs here and there but are committed to keeping the golf course conditions and your golfing experience our top priority.  We will do our best to complete our projects in a timely fashion and with the highest workmanship possible.  We appreciate your understanding.

Spring Is Here

As courses cleared of snow cover this spring many courses in the Metro area were faced with the death of some of their playing surfaces (greens, tees, or fairways). Dellwood was not immune as we found varying degrees of damage. While our tees and fairways came through the winter in good shape our most notable damage was to the 6th and 16th greens. Most of the damage on these greens seems to have occurred where the water drains off. To speculate on how it occurred can be challenging as these areas were under snow cover for a good 4.5 months. The damage could have occurred as a result of rain back in November, prolonged ice cover, or from a thaw/freeze event in the last 6 weeks.




As we can not change the weather events of this past winter it is of utmost importance to have a recovery plan. As the damage on these two greens was extensive and found throughout the green I felt it necessary to re-seed these areas. Our nursery sod supply is limited which also played a part in deciding to seed. We have gone into these greens and vertical mowed in three directions. This removes some of the dead tissue and creates a seed bed for the Bentgrass seed. Next we seeded the greens in two directions and followed with a brushing. We followed that with a sand/peat topdressing and another brushing. To finish we fertilized with an organic slow-release fertilizer and a soil amendment to aid in establishment of the seedlings. In order for the seed to germinate it requires two things, moisture and warm soil temperatures. Moisture is the easy part of the equation as our irrigation is already charged and operational. In order to achieve the soil temperatures we need we must cover the greens with a greens cover. This is a woven, breathable blanket that will create somewhat of a greenhouse over the surface. It is green in color and will absorb sunlight and warm the soils. Unfortunately it does very little to heat or retain heat in the soils at night, but there use could be the difference between playable surfaces by the middle of May or the middle of June.

We will be taking the greens out of play and using temporary greens while the grass is re-established. Although Bentgrass is a very tough and resilient grass type the seedling stage is very fragile and does not handle traffic. Our plan is to cover these greens until the seed germinates and gets to the point of needing to be mowed. This will most likely take about two weeks depending on the weather of course. We appreciate your patience in helping us achieve the best possible outcome, which is to have our greens back to normal playing condition before summer arrives.



Growing the Game of Golf

I'm sure we have all thought of how to grow the game of golf and how to make our club more healthy financially.  I recently came across this article in the Wall Street Journal that is out side of the box but is worth pondering.  Check it out:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704132204576136270684216848.html

New Look to #3 Tee

This past Friday we were able to get all the soil hauled in (and rough graded) that was needed for our project on #3 Tee.  We are splitting #3 tee up into 3 tees by elevating the middle third of the tee 18" and the back third 36".  This is being done to break up the "Runway tee" and to allow sight lines to the pond from any where on the tee.  The final grading, irrigation installation, and seeding will be completed this spring and the back two thirds should open for play by early summer.
We will also be adding a new blue/black tee for #12 and a new forward tee to #7.  All of this was done with the money that was donated by Stan Hollen and Mike Hilliard.

Clearing snow from the existing tee surface.

More snow clearing and attempting to strip top soil (it was too frozen).

Staking, hauling soil and shaping the middle third of the tee.

View from the 12th tee box.

Finishing the shaping of the middle third and staking the back third.

Finishing the shaping of the back third and hauling in some top soil for the both back tiers.

View from the 12th tee.

Willow on the Corner #8

This video is of the removal of the large Willow on the edge of the pond on#8.  It is taken from the tee so it is a little harder to see than I expected.  It didn't help that it was so cold I was shaking.  Hopefully as I get accustom to adding video we can make a few tweaks to make it better. 

Tree Competition

This series of pictures illustrates what happens to trees that are planted too close to one another as they mature. 



In the first picture you can see trees that are bending (this would have been even more apparent if I had taken a picture more in line with the ground). These trees are seeking light which is necessary to produce the food the tree needs to survive. This is a group of trees to the left of the 11th green.   

These trees are to the left of the 3rd green.  You can see the 2 trees on the right are growing to the north and one of the trees on the left is growing to the south.

These are two trees to the right of #3 green.  Here again you can see they are growing slightly in opposite directions to increase their light intake.



These trees are too close to each other and you can see some strange branching that could be have happened in response to needing more light.



In addition to staying busy removing trees, Jeff, Kerry, Eric and our faithful member volunteer Gordy Eicher have been chipping brush and burning our brush piles.

Chipping brush #4 Green

It took three of us two days to chip most of the brush from the trees that were removed on the north side of the railroad tracks.

                                                                               



  

                  The burning of the brush piles in our 3 collection sites took us about 8 days to complete.  You may be able to see the reason for how long it took us in the photo below.  There was anywhere from 1-2 feet of snow on top of the piles.



Burning brush to the right of #4