10-26-19

 

Good Morning,

This past week gave us the opportunity to complete a lot of outdoor projects.  We mowed greens and some other low mowed turf for the final time of the 2019 season.  We will still mow rough and mulch leaves as the weather permits.  The cups were also changed on Thursday, ball washers removed from the golf course, as well as the remainder of the amenity items in preparation for the cold temperatures in the near future.

Colder morning temperatures allowed us to continue maintenance and continue to service our equipment.  There has also been a list created of repair work that needs to be completed in the off season.  Since we are done with reel type mowing the reels will be removed from each machine and prepared for the off season sharpening.

The largest project we have going on right now is tree pruning and removal.  There have been several trees removed from the golf course and about 20% of the pruning has been completed.  This project will continue next week.  The tree stumps will be addressed at a later date.

We will also start removing the plant material from all landscaping areas of the course.  The landscaping grasses will not be pruned back for the Winter.  I will also be developing some new flower designs for the landscaping beds starting in 2020.  I would like to explore the possibility of adapting flower beds for some of our golfing public to help manicure.  We already have a few holes where this takes place.

As I stated last week the new tile was installed around #16 green.  We completed some clean up work in the area this week.  The soil was pushed back into the trench and piled high in order to settle over the winter months.  The area with tall grass has definitely dried out significantly but we haven’t been able to push the majority of the soil back into the trench.  This process will be completed by the Street Division in the coming days.

Sod work was one of our priorities with this nice weather.  We finished off the tile drain area in front of #16 green and repaired an irrigation head in the area.  Next, we added sod to the area in front of the green where water always puddled.  The remainder of the area will be finished in the Spring once the tile repair areas have settled.  Then sod will be laid to repair the turf damage.

We also were able to complete sod work on #10 fairway and #14 fairway.  The area on #14 was a large wet spot about 40 yards in front of the green.  The areas on #10 were mostly pot hole type areas (more work will be done on #10 on Monday).  We cut the sod from the front of the driving range tee box, added fill material to the low spots, leveled the areas and placed the fresh sod to complete the project.

I set the 2020 tournament and event calendar.  Adam Coates and I visited to ensure there were no conflicting dates between the Country Club and the muni.  You can visit the website to see the list of future events.

10-20-19

Good Morning,

Early in the week we completed the fertilization of the greens, tees, and fairways with granular products.  These applications will help provide a healthy turfgrass heading into the off season and provide the essential nutrients in the spring.  It was a very nice process to complete with no issues.

At the end of the week we completed the tile repair work in upper Waterway Park.  Also, the new tile was added to the green surrounds on #16.  There is still some clean up in the park as well as some additional work to be completed “in house” on the golf course tile.  The tile is in place and the majority of the back filling has been completed.  The wet soil conditions decreased noticeably within hours of the tile addition.

The golf course tile addition also exposed some damaged clay tile directly north of #16 green.  This damaged tile is the cause of the extreme saturation in this area.  There will be pea gravel added in this section of new tile to easier allow this damaged area to drain into the new tile.  We also need to add a drain in front of the green where the tile begins.  This work will be completed this coming week.

The irrigation issues reared up and gave us some challenges again at the start of the week.  The pond level was much higher than normal due to some debris in the outlet of the irrigation pond hindering the overflow.  This caused the intake screens, in the pumphouse, to be under water and allow debris into the pumps.  This caused a plugged lead pump impeller and some plugged irrigation heads on the course.

We removed the pumps, cleaned them out, and cleaned sprinkler head screens in the field.  This eliminated the debris and allowed proper flow from each pump.  The debris was mainly from muskrats chewing up cattails.  The muskrats will be removed from the golf course next month.

Once the overflow was cleaned out the pond overflow went into our streams and waterways at a very high volume.  This caused some high water on hole number 10 all the way to the driving range.  After irrigating that night and the drains had time to catch back up, the water levels were all back to normal by the morning.

Our irrigation technician also came down from Wisconsin to complete some updates with the software in the pumphouse computer.  The computer kept rebooting itself and providing false information causing the flow and pressure to be inaccurate on the control panel.  This resulted in nothing working correctly in the field.  The trip was covered under warranty and the computer is working properly at this time.

I attended continued education training in accordance with the aquatic portion of my pesticide license.  This training is held annually and usually provides great information to assist in pesticide applications.  I was able to learn a little more about aquatic vegetation and also gathered some online links to learn even more this off season.  I will keep you posted on plans for controlling aquatic vegetation in our ponds in 2020.

More equipment maintenance and as much mowing as time would allow completed the remainder of our work week on the grounds.  We are hosting a makeup golf tournament this morning.  The number of participants dropped significantly from the original date but we’ll make sure those who play today have a great time.

Please contact me with any comments, questions, or concerns so they can be addressed as quickly as possible.  Enjoy the remainder of your weekend!

10-17-19

Good Afternoon,

The tile contractor arrived on site this afternoon.  They are currently working on repairing the tile in upper Waterway Park.  The tile damage has been located and they are digging in this area and will replace the broken tile.  It is too early to tell how long this portion will take to complete but they feel confident it will not take all afternoon.

Once they finish in Waterway Park they will move to the golf course and add new tile around the 16th green.  We have located our irrigation lines and wiring and have hand dug these areas so they are exposed.  We plan to add a drain in front of #16 green and wrap the tile around tying in with existing tile.  This will help eliminate the standing water issue in the area.

One concern is the water table is naturally very high at this current time.  The addition of tile will definitely help remedy the situation moving forward into the future but it won’t control the high water table issue 100%.

Also, the golf course was entirely fertilized yesterday and I started filling the irrigation system early in the afternoon.  We found some contamination in the wet well that plugged the impellar on the lead pump.  There was also computer issues in the pumphouse.  I worked over the phone with the technician until the end of sunlight yesterday.

Early this morning I started working on the issues with the contamination in the pump.  We removed the pump and cleaned out the impellar along with a couple irrigation heads that had debris in the screens.  Everything was back to normal on our end outside of the computer issues.

The contractor flew in from Wisconsin and updated the programming and corrected the issues on his end.  The software was updating itself and plugging in the wrong settings.  As of now the programming is working properly and the system is back functioning 100%.

The computer repair process was covered under warranty so there is no bill for services on this end of the process.  Our end of the process cost us $10 for a new gasket and a lot of my time.  It was a very inexpensive fix in the end considering.

Enjoy the remainder of your day and keep a smile on your face.  I’m still smiling and look forward to irrigating the entire course heavily overnight.

10-13-19

Good Morning,

The weather has definitely turned for the worse as we close out this week.  The clubhouse closed early on Friday and remains closed through the weekend.  We will be open for regular business hours starting on Monday.

The past week staff and I played catch up trying to complete all our daily maintenance practices after battling rain and saturated soil conditions.  The golf course received around 5″ of rainfall during the various storms.  This left our sand traps and golf course looking like one big lake.

The high winds helped dry out a lot of the standing water issues.  Now the weekend temperatures left a thin coat of ice over any wet areas on the golf course.  It’s definitely been a golf season filled with poor weather conditions from start to nearing the finish.

By the end of the day on Thursday, we had the sand traps repaired and raked and the majority of the golf course mowed and in nice shape.  We also started our tree pruning and removing some of the smaller dead trees.  Add in a lot of equipment maintenance and it was the end of another week.

The golf course was very busy on Wednesday as everyone tried to squeeze another round of golf in before some flashes of Winter arrived.  The 2019 golf season has seen the lowest total of season passes sold as well as a decrease in the amount of green fees sold.  I’m hopeful for an early start to the 2020 golf season and some busy clubhouse activity this off season.

The temperatures look to warm back up next week.  Staff will be concentrating on mowing practices, fertilizer applications, herbicide applications, tile work, and starting to remove some of the larger pine trees.

Enjoy the remainder of your weekend.  Please let me know if you have comments or questions that need to be addressed.  I will see the golf board members on Monday evening for our monthly meeting.

10-6-19

Good Morning,

A week that started off with a high of 89, followed by cold temperatures, lots of rain and high winds has finally come to a close.  The clubhouse closed early a couple of days and the Glow Ball tournament had a lot of cancellations Saturday night.  But in between all of it we had some die hard golfers.

Last night the After 5 Kiwanis held their first glow ball tournament.  The weather was not very nice to start off the evening but soon after dark the wind died down and it was pretty decent outside.  There were only 24 golfers participating but they all had a great time.  The course was lit up very nicely outlining the tees, fairways, hazards, and greens.  We plan to meet and evaluate the plan for the event in 2020.

On Thursday the staff and I completed the aerification of the greens.  We partner with the Country Club on this project.  They use our tractor and their machine to do their greens and then we complete the same process at the muni.  The greens were aerified to a depth of approximately 9″.  This helps with the elimination of compaction, better water penetration, and deeper root growth.  The greens were double mowed after the aerification was finished.

Root depth is a very important part of turfgrass maintenance.  This year has been very difficult to achieve much root depth due to the heavy rainfall in the spring.  The heavy rainfall makes it unnecessary for the turf roots to grow in search of water since it is so available right at the surface.  Lack of root depth develops a weaker turf plant that becomes susceptible to high temperatures and disease pressure.  You could see some of this evident on our collars and a couple spots on some greens this year.

There was also a lot of equipment repair and scheduled maintenance tasks completed.  We serviced a handful of mowers by changing oil and filters, flushing the radiators, and greasing each machine.  Also, small repairs were completed at the same time.

I have spent a lot of time working on the irrigation system the past couple of months.  We have definitely not needed the system much as of late, but it is working the best it has in a couple of years.  The majority of electrical issues have been addressed, damaged valves replaced, and other PVC issues addressed.  There will still be a few small issues to deal with but overall it is night and day compared to earlier in the year.

The tile project was scheduled to be completed this week.  For two plus years this has been an ongoing problem and the rain never seems to give us a break when it is finally set up and ready to happen.  I am hoping to have Matt Hagedorn on site sometime in the next two weeks to add more tile around #16 green and make some repairs in upper Waterway Park.  Stay tuned.

Mowing has been a never ending process the past month at the golf course.  The grass has been growing at a rapid rate.  It was extremely challenging getting the course mowed by the time the weekend arrived.  Thankfully the staff and I were able to work some longer shifts to get everything under control just in time for the storm on Saturday morning.  The course is looking very nice outside of all the additional water features.

Next week I plan to start the Fall herbicide application.  This will be more of a spot treatment as compared to the Spring application covering the course wall to wall.  I will also treat Waterway Park with herbicide.  This will help control the weed population when the 2020 season arrives.  We will still battle dandelions that show up from all the surface drainage on the course but it will be better than if no application was made this time of year.

We will also be fertilizing greens, tees, and fairways with a granular application.  This will help take the turfgrass into the winter months with some health and hopefully make it less prone to stress.  The past few winters the biggest issue has been ice damage in the low areas of greens and around the golf course.

Also the removal of dead Pine trees and tree pruning will be conducted in the upcoming weeks.  There are about 15 trees that need to be removed from the golf course.  If time allows we will also removed the stumps left behind.

This concludes another week at the Muni.  Please contact me with any comments, questions, or concerns.  I will see each of you at the Golf Board or City Council meetings on Monday evening.