View from behind 17 green

It seems finding the time to blog has not made my priority list in a long time. I ran into one of our patrons recently, and he was telling me how much he enjoyed my posts. I told him I would make an effort to make a post soon.

Hole 5

The weather since December has been wet to say the least. The water table is currently pretty high. We have ground water in some of the bunkers and low lying areas on the course. That being said, when we get dry weather the golf course is still very enjoyable to play.

Jerry aerating 3 fairway

Thankfully, we were able to aerate all the fairways last fall, which has helped to increase the infiltration rate. Once the rain stops, we dry out fairly quickly in most areas.

Our resident Coug fans

There is nothing to spice up work life like an occasional bet among friends. Now and again, Jerry and I make a bet which involves the loser wearing a shirt with the winners favorite college team on it for a day. We have always been good sports and followed through with honoring the bets.

Thaddeus mowing 13 green

This past summer, we began using a "collar stick" when mowing green cleanup passes on edge. While this isn't a new concept for us, it was the first time we used the collar stick on a triplex mower. When I first arrived at Sandpines, we primarily walk mowed greens. At that time we outfitted our walk mowers with collar sticks in order to keep a more consistent collar width. The collar stick is inserted when mowing the cleanup pass.  The collar stick is a fiberglass rod has a zip tie at the end which is placed on the collar/rough transition line.  It isn't a perfect system, but it helps quite a bit.

14 green basking in the sun

As I am writing this post, it is raining like crazy, so it is nice to see all these pictures with fabulous weather that will hopefully be coming our way soon. I am definitely looking forward to some blue sky and sun.

View from the clubhouse putting green

This winter the right green surrounds on hole 18 was pretty soggy. We added some drainage trenches in an effort to dry the area out.  It has helped quite a bit. We are hoping to aerate the area next time we have an aerator in the vicinity.

Hole 9 on nice fall afternoon

Another recent project was the brush removal on the right of hole 8. The trees and salal had encroached the right of the hole quite a bit. It was beginning to affect tee shots from the right side of the tee boxes. Brush was removed from the tees all the way to the green. An errant shot right of the green has a much better chance of being found as well as kicking down into the approach.

Hole 18