Charlotte is that you???

I took the lid off the air release valve on #2 and look what I found living on the inside:

It's a black widow! You can kind of see the red hourglass on the back. It moved a little bit and it wasn't bothering me so I just put the lid back when I was done.



Mound on #16. . .

To the right of sixteen green ,where the walk on is there were three pine trees there. We could never get grass to go there so we cut the trees down and popped the stumps out. We had to cut into the mound that serves as a bunker face. The superintendent wanting us to reshape the mound so it slopped more natural into the ground:

Aurelio grinding one of the stumps from the trees cut on 16

Before we put the mound in

After we added the mound

From the mound back to the bunker we seeded with fine fescue. The rest we seeded with ryegrass.

Main Line Behind 1 Green. . .

When the Superintendent first got here he asked me if there were any major irrigation issues. I mentioned the fact that there is very low pressure running to hole #3. This is one of the biggest holes on the course and we need it to have full pressure so we can water more of it at once. Last Summer I could only turn about six fairway heads on at once, while on other holes I could turn ten on. So we consulted with Jim Barrett who designed the irrigation and he recommended adding an additional main line to run water from #1 backwards to number five to number two. It is hard for me to describe without being able to show the irrigation map. Here are the pictures of the digging and existing pipes:

Marking of existing tee 6" into 4"

Let the digging begin

The existing tee covered in concrete

Tee dug up reveals a Harco fitting

A Harco fitting is made from ductile iron and it has a gasket inside of each opening so when you push the pipe into the opening the gasket seals it from leaking. Obviously these fittings are a lot stronger than a PVC tee and any pipes bigger than 2.5" you should use a Harco fitting.

The tee is going to be moved down about ten feet extending the 6" part of the pipe , so the Harco tee will be 6x4x4. 

Where the new tee will be with the Harco fitting

Where the new line is going to run, it will tee into line on 5(where backhoe is)

Existing 4" main line running to #5(red/yellow mark on right is where new line will come in)

Harco 6" coupler

Unfortunately I was unable to get out and take pictures of them actually putting the pipes together. It's all finished and we are confident that it will increase the pressure to where we want it to be.

New John Deere Equipment. . .

We got our new John Deere equipment in minus the fairway mowers. John Deere had the best financing rate out of the companies that sent proposals so the company decided to go with them.

Greens Mowers

The above picture shows the greens mowers from John Deere. These have floating heads and are hybrid engine mowers. The gas engine moves the mower and also powers the electric motor that turns the reel.

Pro Gator

Nothing really special about this piece of equipment except that it's new. It has a manual transmission with a gas engine, and a hydraulic dump bed. At least this one has a choke something our older Pro Gator lacked.

Rough Mowers

We now have three rough cutting units. We also have a Toro Sidewinder that's ten years old. We have a lot of rough and have two more machines means we can cut it a lot faster. The independent heads on the mowers will help with mowing mounds and all the dips and valleys in the rough.

Air Relief Valves. . .

So when they installed the irrigation system in the decided to put these air relief valves in. There purpose is to let out air when there is water in the system so you don't have it blowing out your hoses or sprinkler heads. The valves should remain open when the system is active and closed when you are blowing out the system. Well they were all closed for years according to the old system because they were leaking. So my boss wanted me to remove them take them apart and clean so here are pictures of one of the six that are on the course:

First I removed the top lid to reveal this:

Top of valve

As you can see there is a bladder, much like the one on a toilet. All if these valves are supposed to be located at the high spots of the golf course. Air rises above water so therefore the air would escape while the water would not. Well most of them were in low spots so therefore the water would push this bladder up thus sealing the valve, and defeating it's purpose.

Bottom of valve

So I decided to take the bladder device off and clean it off and spray it with WD-40. I also cleaned the seal where the top of the bladder makes a seal.

Shiny! Top of the bladder that makes water tight seal

Rubber seal

Cleaned bladder back on the top of the valve

Two of the valves I removed had cracked and broken bladders so we are going to replace those. Hopefully these bladders will work better now. Unfortunately, I don't think they ever had a chance to begin with.

Tree work around chipping green. . .

There was a relatively big Pine tree that rotted out on the inside and subsequently fell. So I went out to cut it up.

The area where the tree fell is normally where we park our carts to work on the green. Golfers also park there. For these reasons it is important that we do preventive maintenance on these trees so we can eliminate any chances for accidents.

Here is a picture of my weapon of choice-A Sears Craftsmen 18" 42cc chainsaw:

While I was by the chipping green I decided to thin out the oak clusters. This is an example of what we are doing all over the course. We want to thin each cluster down to one tree so that tree can grow and become healthy.

This is a before shot:

Twenty minutes later, it looks like this:

You can see there is a big difference in appearance.



Winter Work. . .

Just a few more pictures of what the maintenance staff does in the Winter. Here is the process we use to cut  dead trees down. I would estimate that there are between 10-15 dead trees on each hole. That amounts to 180-270 dead trees on the whole golf course! The oak trees have been hit hard by the gall disease.

First we cut the tree down with a chainsaw. This is Rufino cutting the stump down on #12:

Then we will pick the logs up with the backhoe and then split them and use them for firewood. This is Steve Glynn performing that action:

Instead of taking the branches off site, we use the chipper and chip the braches into the back of the dump truck, and then dump the wood chips off site:

Finally we use the stump grinder to grind the stumps down.Here is Aurelio grinding a stump on #16:





Frozen Pond. . .

I just wanted to post this picture of the irrigation pond completely frozen. It is just a testament to how cold and harsh this Winter has been.

Shade on 16 Green. . .

We have had a shade problem with 16 green. The shade deprives the turf from the sun, obviously, but it is also impairs drainage. With water not properly draining you can have moss develop. I cannot show you the moss on this green but it is definitely the worse one on the course. The moss is really really bad for turf quality on a bentgrass green. So the Superintendent and I decided the best way to deal with this, was to eliminate some trees. Doing this will benefit the green in two ways,1.)It will get morning sun to the left and back of the green,2.)It will increase air circulation helping to dry the green out more. As I learned in school the most important light of the day, for grass, comes from the MORNING SUN! Here is a picture of the green with the tree line:

Here is a picture of it after we thinned out the treeline:

As you can see we took about 3-4 trees out there, which will definitely help this green be as healthy and as strong as our members expect it to be.

Powerwashing Equipment. . .

The number one question I get from family members, friends, etc. about my job is what do we do during the Winter? Well one thing we make sure to do is to powerwash the equipment. Winter is the perfect time to powerwash the equipment because most of it is not being used. We also want to powerwash the equipment to keep it nice and clean and make sure all the reels and moving parts are free from dirt and sand. Here is a picture of Edgar powerwashing some reels:

We also cut down a lot of dead trees in the Winter. I'll try to post some pictures of that task in the coming days.

Equipment Shed. . .

There was an existing equipment shed/overhang here and it seems that, when they built it, they never put any kind of roofing material on it. The roof was all rotted out and anytime we got even a little rain, it would leak. So we wanted to repair it so we could better preserve the equipment.

Here is when they first started repairing it.

The two previous photos are of the completed roof with the equipment inside.