Good Morning from The Muni,
Our daily maintenance practices consumed the majority of the work schedule on the grounds. We have limited irrigation to our fairways due to issues with our well casing and pump. The main focus has been to irrigate our greens, tees, and approaches. Once we get into the month of October we will remove the well casing and pump to see what our next step will be in the repair process. In the meantime, the golf course is hanging in there pretty well.
The past week started off with a broken intake on our lead pump in the pumphouse. These two suction units pull water from the irrigation pond, through the pumps, and lastly out to the golf course. If the intake is damaged or loses prime it will not pull water out of the pond. This leaves the system at 50% operational in hand mode operation only.
I was able to come in the early AM hours for a couple days to irrigate the greens with the lag pump in hand mode. The pumps absolutely have to be monitored if operated in hand mode in order to prevent damage to the system. If there is an issue the pump will not shut off while in hand mode. In automatic mode the system has several safety switches that shut everything down if there is an issue.
Staff completed the repair process on Tuesday afternoon. After waiting 24 hours for the glue to completely harden we returned the intake into the wet well. The system was filled and pressure tested. Irrigation operations went back into automatic mode on Wednesday night.
For the past couple of weeks there has been a lot of damage around the golf course as well as on the grounds of Waterway Park. The Iowa DNR was contacted so we could handle the problem properly. We then hired All Seasons Animal Removal to assist us with the problem. First, a fox was captured and safely relocated to another area away from the golf course. However, the damage still continued and actually worsened.
Early in the week we captured a badger on a trail cam setup on the property. Each morning we hoped to safely capture this animal and relocate him somewhere far away from the golf course. This morning it finally happened. The badger has been safely captured and taken to a more suitable environment. Thank you to Eric Ring for his professional help. We will be repairing damaged areas the next couple of days.
We have open golf all day at The Muni today. Monday we start our fall golf special $30 for all day golf with cart included. You can still purchase your 2023 season pass or pay cart storage fees now which covers the remainder of 2022 and all of next season.
Enjoy the remainder of the weekend. It looks like a beautiful day to play some golf. Please contact me with any questions or further information on topics.
Brian C Mohr
Director of Golf Operations
City of Spencer
101 W 5th Street
Spencer Municipal Golf Course
Spencer, Iowa 51301
712-260-5370
Spencer Municipal Golf Course 