Update

Holes 17 and 18

It was another busy week for the Sandpines agronomy staff.  We were able to get a little more fairway aeration completed earlier this week.  So far, holes 1-3, 9, and 12-16 have been completed.  That leaves holes 4, 6, 7, 10, and 18 (par 3's will be done with approaches) left to do.  Our oldest core harvester and utility vehicle combination required quite a bit of service work this week.  Hopefully, it will be ready to go again for next week. The majority of our time this week was spent on preparing the golf course for daily play and getting the course ready for the Club Championship this weekend.  If you played on Thursday you may have noticed a couple of innovative tee markers used on holes 8 and 9. For those that are curious, the blacks were marked with tops of old sprinkler heads, the blue were marked with irrigation flags, and the whites were marked with 2" PVC tees.  We actually had enough red markers, so no creativity was needed for those.  All the tee markers on holes 7, 8, and 9 were stolen Wednesday night.  We had some backups on hand, but not enough of each color, as there has been some theft of markers over the summer.  Tee markers were back to normal as of this morning.  I suspect the markers were probably "relocated" in the salal adjacent to the tees, but that is just a guess.  If you happen to run across any tee markers in your travels, please turn them into the golf shop.

Two bucks for a blog topic

2 bucks showing their stuff

One of the great things about working on a golf course is seeing wildlife on a daily basis.  I was lucky enough to witness the scene above on Wednesday.  The video below is the tail end of the show, but I thought is was worth sharing.

I have received a few of questions regarding bubbling in the pond located between holes 16, 17, and 18. The questions are usually followed by concern that there may be an irrigation break of some kind.  I decided to give the issue some blog attention, as I am sure there are other folks that are curious about what is going on.  The bubbling actually comes from our on course wells, which are used to fill the pond.  The water is then pulled from the pond to irrigate the golf course as needed.  There are five wells that have four distribution points in the pond.  Well use is rotated between the wells as needed, so the bubbling is not always located in the same area, or may not be present at all.  In case you have not seen or noticed the bubbling, check out the pictures below.

Update

A Sandpines resident inspects the fairway aeration process

We made some more progress on fairway aeration this week.  Holes 1, 2, 9, 13, 14, 15, and 16 have been completed.  Our focus will shift away from fairway aeration for a bit while we focus on catching up with other necessary golf course maintenance tasks such as fertilization, top dressing, and mowing.  Once we are caught up, we will continue with the fairway aeration.

Hanging out at the core pile

Update

View from behind 5 green this morning

The weather has been fantastic at Sandpines over the past week.  September and October often have the best weather of the year at Sandpines, which means the best may be yet to come.  The greens are also rolling very nicely.  So, if you are looking for a great time to play Sandpines, this is it.

Jerry aerating the fairway on hole 2

We started aerating fairways this week.  Holes 1, 9, 13, 15, and all but a couple of passes on hole 2 have been completed.  I am pretty happy with the progress so far.  The growing conditions are great right now, and the aeration holes will heal up quickly.

These fairway aeration cores could be your new lawn

Have you been wanting a new lawn?  Aeration cores are great way to establish a nice lawn.  We now have some stock piled.  They are $10 per tractor scoop.  Most pickups will take between 2-4 tractor scoops depending on the size of the truck.  For more information call the maintenance shop (541) 997-4530.