Mink Meadows Turf Maintenance Department

Weekly update last full week in February

2012-02-25T07:52:00.000-05:00

This off-season is flying by. It seems odd week after week to have such nice weather. We continue to plod along here doing our normal winter practices. Will has progressed through the equipment fleet doing his preventative maintenance and is now running through the fleet carts. Kevin and I spent the week tying up some lose ends: I cut expansion joints into the concrete slab for the material storage area, Kev continued breaking down benches and ball washers, as well as raking bunkers. We both worked the area around the pad to prep for the addition of the blocks that will make up the bins. The grade of this area needs to match the slab perfectly to keep the seams of these blocks correct. This required much of the same: check grades with a laser, add material compact, measure and string out bins. Seems like we have done this dozens of times in the last month and actually we have as the grade and layout has changed we just repeated this process over and over. With the pad in place we have a final grade to work off and are closing in on wrapping up this project.

Me cutting in the expansion joints with rented saw

bench legs and ball washers in shop for prep and paint

Will is off on vacation for the next week so this is the perfect time to utilize the heated shop to paint ball washers, benches and maybe even tee markers. Kevin and I started a project yesterday of running the irrigation system to the sprayer mix and load pad. This will alleviate the need to put a high hazard back flow/anti siphon on the town water feed we currently use to fill the sprayer. This became necessary after we installed the clean load system last Fall. The system will help in the mixing process and reduce the exposure to the operator but adds the risk of back flow contamination on the water supply. This is not an issue for the irrigation system.

Mix and load pad with new water line from irrigation system

looking back towards source on golf course

black apparatus is the clean load. End point of new water line

The other added benefit to using the irrigation system is we ran a full 2" line and system pressure is 115 psi so we should be able to fill the sprayer in no time with this capacity. It was a great day being sunny and 50 degrees. At one point 4 military cargo planes flew over at once. An odd site and hope it was troops returning and not leaving. The weather turned on us today with rain predicted but it started as snow.

winter wonderland for a little while anyway

Material Storage....concrete slab finally

2012-02-16T18:38:00.002-05:00

We have poured several concrete pads or slabs since I have been here: the base for the chemical storage building, the base for both pump houses, the mix and load area, the base for one of the cold storage buildings and the base for the fuel tank. Some we have had help and some we did solo. Usually the help has been from my brother Chris who has a concrete form business in RI and also dabbles in flat work or slabs. I wasn't sure if we would be able to time it right to bring him out this time but our delays helped out the schedule so he came out last night and helped us manage this part of the project. Concrete work is a specialized field and as you add chemicals to speed up the curing process in colder temperatures it adds and added stress to getting it done in a timely fashion. It can be very tricky this time of year playing the weather game: will it drop below freezing at night so you have to protect the concrete as it cures by adding hay and tarps for insulation etc. We timed it perfect where it will be warm tonight and we added just enough chemical accelerator for the pad to be firm enough by nightfall so that the rain predicted tonight will not ruin the finish. It could end up looking like the hood of your car after a massive hail storm full of pock mark dents.

getting started: first of 3 trucks

Notice the steam coming off on the right side

1 truck done. Chris starts the finish with first bull float

last truck. see the finish taking shape

to put the "finish" on concrete you first run a tool over it called a "bull float". This pushes the gravel down and brings the cream up to the surface. This cream is what you would trowel to a smooth surface on a smaller area or an area that requires a smooth surface. They make powered trowels for large surfaces like this one. We do not need or really want a smooth surface so we will bull float and then run a tool called a "fresno". The fresno is steel and seals the surface as opposed to the bull float which is magnesium and does not seal the surface. It is important to seal the surface for structural integrity and weather proofing. I tried to insert some videos showing the fresno and broom finish taking place but to no avail. The following pictures will have to do:

applying the final finish by dragging a brush across top

close up of brush finish. notice fiber strands instead of steal reinforcement

1/2 and 1/2 waiting for surface to be ready for final step

Chris applying finish edge to a section brushed

finished product from office window

We will give this concrete a week to cure before placing the blocks on top. We will attempt to cut in expansion joints tomorrow depending on weather.

Material storage update

2012-02-14T18:45:00.002-05:00

We have one more day until we pour the slab. Will wrapped up the forms today and I back filled them and spread a load of fill to bring up the yard and two bins not on top of 6 inches of concrete. Tomorrow I will spread the surface material and compact it. This should wrap up the prep work and make the area around the pad firmer and easier to walk and drive on after a rain event. We started the forms last week and thought we would be done but the Building inspector was not happy with the proximity to the road. So over the weekend I went back to the original layout and drew it to the scale Fred used 1/4" = 1' and squeezed the bins into the dimensions we have prepped. It shrunk a couple bins but I think will work in the end. It made the pad a rectangle instead of two intersecting squares so that should be an improvement.

latest and greatest. this one is 1/8" = 1' scale so it would fit 8x10 sheet

Last Friday with forms started in top corner

Will constructing the forms today

view from the side of the Winter tee

looks like a great bocce court

Ready for concrete

NERTCS and Mink Update

2012-02-12T12:16:00.000-05:00

Was a slow week at the course as Kevin and I were away for most of the week. Will has no problems staying busy however and tidied up the fence/gate issue and started forming up for concrete.

beginning of form construction for concrete pad

result of gate swap. this side now has a gap

with woods on the other side this was the solution

Our solution to the gap created in the gate swap, for the mat. storage area, was to mount a section of fence to the closed gate. From the outside it looks like a solid fence. One gate had a pin in a sleeve and for the other Will buried a post to keep it from swinging in the wind. Another fun event this week was a get together at Walt's house.

Fred Pekari provided the nights entertainment. Ellen dodged the camera

Walt, Will and Kevin

Kevin and I spent some time in Providence, RI attending the New England Regional Turfgrass Conference and Show (NERTCS). This was the 15th anniversary and is always a fun time. I covered the show in depth last year and you can visit the post here This year it was my turn to take pictures with the keynote speaker: former Boston Bruin and NHL Hall of Famer Raymond Bourque

Me telling Ray of the time I saw him play in Colorado for the Avalanche

When I was visiting my Sister-in law in Colorado we went to an Avalanche game. Their National Hockey League team for the non-hockey fans. Anyway We were able to get his autograph on Josh's ticket, he might have been 9 or 10 yrs old. It was a thrill and at the time I slipped Ray a business card inviting him to play. I told him this story and again delivered a card. He is an avid golfer playing 5-6 times a week at three courses on the north shore of Boston, as he told us in his address naming each of the Superintendent's. I heard he used to have a place on the Cape so he knows his way down, so if you see me acting like a school girl this summer fawning over a guest you will know the story even if you do not recognise the player. The show was not all fun and games and I had to sit through several talks and even a couple of 1/2 day seminars on Monday. It was an interesting show for me because this was the first one as a full Board member of the Foundation. Kind of neat to have a year's worth of meetings talking about the show and prepping and then seeing it happen. Being the 15th anniversary we wanted to make it special and recognise the many sponsors and vendors who have been at all 15. We were asked to hand deliver plaques to 4-5 booths and present them and thank them for their loyal support.

me presenting plaque to Fred Murray from Tom Irwin Co.

I was also asked at the last minute to moderate the last educational session when someone woke up with a fever. Always fun to stand up in front of hundreds of people and have to introduce people without messing up their name. This years test was Dr. John Inguagiato from Uconn. It is pronounced 'In gwee shato'. Needless to say I am sure I messed it up at least once and he made the mistake of telling me his friends or students call him "Johnny 5" so I had to call him that as well.

ice sculpture in trade show booth

ice sculpture at opening reception

Ray during the Q & A portion of keynote

A new fundraising initiative was kicked off this year called Tee Up New England. The premise is simple: clubs donate a round of golf to the foundation; we then take those rounds and set up a week long auction where YOU the golfers bid on them. The proceeds go to turf research. A perfect way to get the end user, the golfer, to pay for research to improve the conditions of the turf. Keep an eye out for more details as they come. The auction is the week after the Masters 4/9, I believe. The links are not yet in place but I will post about them here. I think this is a great idea and hopefully we get good participation from clubs all over NE. A unique opportunity to plan a golfing trip off-island!

Another Winter Week

2012-02-03T14:56:00.000-05:00

Will has been making good progress on the preventative maintenance of the equipment fleet. Kevin and I kept ourselves busy puttering around the material storage area as well as course check, potholes on roads and deadheading hydrangeas. We again had some spectacular days with temps in the high 40's and even low 50's one day. Mike finished waxing the trucks during his work study hours as well as dragging goose excrement off the first fairway. They are still never being seen yet covering the fairways with droppings.

Rusty Hitchings with mock-ups for display frame angles

Model of Mink Meadows Association layout from the 60's

I inherited the storage of this diorama or model of the property. It is almost the size of a sheet of plywood and heavy. It has tremendous detail with every house location the proposed yacht basin all to scale with correct topography. It is actually pretty neat and gets many comments from people in my office. Bert jumped on the lexan dust cover one too many times and it collapsed. This prompted me to get it the hell out of my office and in a spot where people can enjoy it instead of collecting dust as it has in my office for over a decade. The best/only spot I could come up with was in the basement. So the picture above shows Rusty and I picking the angle to make the stand. This thing is over 40 yrs old and very fragile. Hanging vertical is not an option. We will attempt to get it cleaned up and secured and see how well it is received in the clubhouse.

Part of the "puttering' was to install the sections of fence removed last week

view from TMF yard. Fence used to be to the left of tree ending with a gate

view from tee side of closed gate with fence addition

back fill behind mat storage area to keep water out

close up of the back fill material

Kev compacting the relocated burm in the entrance/exit to TMF

I put Fred Pekari on the mat storage project. While drawing up yet another version so we could dial in the correct layout it occurred to me that a drafting table and the correct tools would make the job easier. As soon as I thought drafting table I remembered Fred still had one and spent his career as a draftsman in the airplane industry. I called him up and solicited his services. When he wraps up the plan we can set the forms and move this project forward. Who knew it would be so hard to lay out a simple material storage area? Sometimes it just doesn't pay to do everything yourself. Each time we discuss the area we think of some other facet that needs a solution. I guess that is a good thing and hopefully by the time we actually pour the concrete we will have thought of everything!!!

Material Storage update

2012-01-27T07:09:00.000-05:00

After conversation with Bobcat it appeared we would be down for at least a week. Their service technician came out Wednesday, we thought to remove a part and take back to their shop to rebuild and return next week to put back. It ended up being something he repaired on the spot in a couple of hours. So we managed to get back to prepping the area for concrete. First we helped load the sawmill guys with the pines cut down Friday then we shot some grades to see how the area of the new configuration looked.

Steve from Bobcat. wishing we had a bigger shop

four seals and our bobcat leak is repaired

Will's contribution to figuring out how many blocks we will need

Pretty sure Will's son Henry helped in this project

logs being loaded for trip to sawmill

The original layout was two bins right behind the gas pump entered from the green side with three bins parallel to the fairway. We have flipped them to the opposite side of the area so now they will have the back side to the green. This gave us more room as I mentioned and allows better flow through the area. Now that we have the overhanging trees gone we can check the grades and dial that in before setting the forms. Three of our truck loads of hardener later we should have the grades close. If things would ever dry up we could actually move the material around and compact it. Mud neither compacts or shapes very well. woke up yesterday to a dusting, see picture, today to another mosh pit with .36" of rain falling overnight with more predicted today.

I guess it is still winter

pulling gate & fence post cemented together

compacting new post location

un-used gate on other side of bldg. notice shrubs, growth behind

moving gates from one location to the other

new gate in new location. open position, fence removed

We went ahead and swapped gates from the other side of the building. This gate was not in a good spot and never used. It was however larger so helped us in this new location. We took down 4 sections of fence to widen the entrance into the mat. storage area. This fence will go to the right of the gate behind the telephone pole in picture.

Crazy Weather

2012-01-25T11:33:00.000-05:00

I was going to add a few pictures to the last blog post talking about snow but never got around to it. We had a snow event from 7am to 7pm sat. Received about 10-12 inches. It snowed all day and the roads were awful. Sun was in the 30's and Monday 40's and then rain Monday night. Yesterday was in the 50's and the snow is gone. Kevin and I did a loop and he is cleaning off the greens, changing the cup and opening them up for play. Foot of snow then greens open in a couple of days, crazy.

deck looking over cart barn

Golf Club Road behind TMF

TMF yard

Fuller rd entrance

from the road looking over 15g towards 7T

Ellen sent me this from her phone as she blazed a trail

Winter wonderland

2012-01-21T10:42:00.002-05:00

We finally are having our first real snowfall of the season. This will bring out the cross country skiers, sledders and what ever other winter activities snow stimulates. Most of these are not members, golfers or have a clue the possible damage they can do to a course. To off-set this Ellen has agreed to blaze a trail in her x-country skies which hopefully the others will follow. She can then avoid the greens and major played areas. Kevin recently attended a wedding in up-state NY where he ran into a golf course with an interesting sign. A very nice sign worthy of showing here:

perfect sign. Says it all.

Often when we stop skiers and ask them to please stay off the greens they will say: "what's a green" to which we all count to ten and bury the inclination to take a human life and try to explain to these people they are on a golf course, potentially trespassing and if they are really that clueless maybe they ought to stay indoors before they hurt themselves or some such speech. After years of this speech most of the regulars get the hint but there is always a new arrival every year. Thankfully we do not get a lot of snow nor does it stick around long. It is nice to give the course a break from divots and the like. Let's hope the winter users behave themselves and the course is back open soon for the diehards who must now find something to do with all their free time not being on the course.

3rd hole towards tee. morning walk w/ Bert

Update

2012-01-20T15:41:00.000-05:00

We had our first snow event last night. Was a mix and ended up with a dusting. Greens were white most of the day but anywhere the sun hit it melted away and we even had a few golfers. In the shade it is a nice ice coating. We discovered a hydraulic leak on the bobcat so that distracted Will for the afternoon trying to locate and diagnose. We tidied up a few things around the yard in preparation of the tree guys coming in to remove a couple more trees around the material storage area and also the forcasted snow tomorrow. Actually had to put the plow on, for the first time this season, with a prediction of 4-7".

Wife sent this one from Cape this morning, so we dodged another one

Island Timber setting up to drop a couple pines on the edge of pad

chipping up the first tree

Bobcat in the shop

1/20 first time. Not bad

Hopes to get this cement pad poured next week or even this winter are rapidly closing. There are a couple days of rain predicted next week so not sure we will get the forms built. If we miss the weather window next week we may not get another. March will be here soon enough. We shall see.

Material Storage area update

2012-01-19T19:33:00.001-05:00

The fill finally dried out enough to compact today. It froze up to approximately an inch last night. The roller was brought in this afternoon and after a quick repair on the vibratory switch it was rolled in two directions.

several ton vibratory roller

the film above cannot possibly clue you into how much this machine vibrates the ground. I went into my office and the place was shaking and making noises. The dog was whining trying to figure out what the heck was going on. After two directions this area should be well compacted and capable of pouring the concrete slab on. If you look at the picture below you will see the rectangle where the roller sat waiting for the mechanic to arrive. Just the weight alone of the drum is enough to bring up all the moisture from the ground.

dark rectangle is where roller sat

Kevin and I spent some time in the office today doing a mock up of the bins using pieces of paper. We then laid out our plan onto the pad. We have been unable to really get a good measurement onto the area because it was either not level and full of obstacles such as trees or stumps or the fill was too mushy to walk on. We discovered if we enlarged the bins from 12 feet wide to 14 feet it pushed them too close to the fairway. We then tried swapping the sides and putting the two bin side on the green side and we discovered that we could keep them at 14 feet and it was closer to the shop then the other way at 12 feet. This also allowed us to have access from the tee side which could prove beneficial for trucks. Overall it will be a better layout. We will remove a couple of trees that will now over hang the bins tomorrow and then we can proceed to build forms and hopefully pour next week.

new location for bins. opposite side of original thought

Current conditions

2012-01-17T09:37:00.000-05:00

After a deep freeze this weekend with temps in the teens we developed a few inches of frost in the ground. I cover this topic in a few posts from last winter. We do not have the degree of water on the course now as in these older posts but the information about why we close is still the same. With temperatures in the 40's and windy things should melt and firm back up quickly. Maybe by tomorrow we can get the greens back open. We are having the same issue with the material storage area. We scheduled a rolling for today to compact this area so we can pour the slab but the top is like soup and there is a frost layer down about an inch. When this frost breaks the fill will dry out and firm up enough to work with it.

as far as the Olympic Club repair tool will go. Site of the 2012 US Open

9 green. water has no where to go with frozen layer

Material Storage week one wrap up

2012-01-13T15:32:00.001-05:00

We managed to get the rough sub grade done today. Being Friday the 13th and only one incident we'll call it a success. The wind is picking up and the temp is dropping fast, so maybe it will be two and the boats will be cancelled. I have asked Keene's to come in at some point and roll this area with their 10 ton roller. That should compact it nicely. The one "incedent" is shown below:

why we remove the topsoil

Of the many trips onto the pad with this truck fully loaded I am surprised we did not get it stuck before today. All is well that ends well, it made me fix the entrance to this area. I took out two of our trucks of sugar sand and added rap so it is quite firm now. I added at least 3 loads of fill today and spread them to the level we need to have good surface drainage out of this area. Once we get it rolled we can start building our forms and pour the cement pad.

finished rough grade

finished rough grade. long week

Material Storage cont...

2012-01-13T06:45:00.000-05:00

Easily could have been a washout with 1.26" of rain coming down today. Knowing it was coming I asked Steve Handy to come by with his excavator. He was able to stay out of the weather in the cab of his machine and pull the stumps in about an hour. It would have taken me most of the day with our bobcat and I would have been out in the weather. He also pulled down one more tree, stump and all. I used a chainsaw to cut it to length to fit in the truck. One load with his truck would have been several of ours, more time saved. While here I had him finish stripping and hauling the topsoil. Again quick work with larger machines.

view from my office window. notice stump tops just above fence

same view end of day

loading stumps that would have taxed our machine

full load

stripping topsoil. Pad is saturated showing the need to deal with water flow

end of day. Ready to add fill to get to rough grade

At the end of the day I had a meeting with John Keene. He owns the stump dump on the island, runs a excavation business as well as the materials business out of the pit. He is well versed in stockpiling materials and we also use him for deliveries so I wanted his opinion on the layout of the bins and accessibility of the area. It is critical to be able to drive large trucks in and out of this area. He agreed the guy wire on the pole at the entrance should be moved so we will have to see what Nstar has to say and charge for the service to do that work. He also suggested we heavily compact this area so the ground won't settle and crack the pad. We have tried to do that in layers but it might be worthwhile to hit it with a 10 ton roller to be safe.

Material Storage area update

2012-01-11T18:04:00.000-05:00

Day three of steady work towards prepping the site. The novelty of running a bobcat is long gone! I feel like I have been put through a ringer by the end of the day. Climbing in and out of the thing 50-100 times a day is exercise alone, bouncing around and bouncing inside it when you hit a root or rock and you come to a sudden stop jars every part of your body. Anyway we managed to cut down another 5 trees. As Kevin was feeding me brush in the back of the dump he mouthed "we need a chipper"! After 16 years we were finally going to swing some capital monies to a used chipper. Alas we are using that money to fund this new material storage project. That is a bitter pill to swallow as we cut trees and cut the brush by hand to try and fit as much as we can into a load. Another 4 trucks today to Keene's pit. Towards the end of the day Steve Handy started bringing loads of fill to raise the level of the area, making up for the removed topsoil and getting us to the grade we need.

how we drop a tree that needs some help in direction

later in the day. notice the oak stump right in front of bobcat

the pile continues to grow

look on top as Bert plays "king of the mountain"

dumping fill

squeezing in new entrance. not sure the fence would survive many of these

pretty much the end of the day

As a side note to all this work: we have our winter goose problem. They have adapted to our schedule and come in at night. Once I heard them at midnight flying over. Bastards. Kevin Blew this fairway yesterday:

1 nights worth of goose activity

Material Storage Bin area prep cont.....

2012-01-10T18:38:00.000-05:00

Day two consisted of a a couple more stumps being pulled. The pictures will show how large these pine stumps were. These were both flush cut to the surface. The one in the middle of the pad obviously on a slight bump of soil. As I removed the soil around it you could see it "growing" up out of the ground. I still had to dig around and cut the roots with the backhoe to get it out. One stump took up half the truck so again two was enough to fill it completely.

even out of the ground 4 feet it still had to be dug out

notice both stumps up out of their respective holes

1 stump in back of truck

We managed to get most of the topsoil removed and hauled farther down the right side of 1 where we stockpiled to use as a berm and back fill on the blocks. At least 20 dump trucks.

right side of 1. topsoil pile

The reason we are hauling this away is to get to a firm base that we can work with. You never pour concrete or create a road with topsoil as a base. This will hold more moisture and stay soft. It could cause the concrete to crack if it moves under the slab and ad a road base the heavy trucks would sink and rut up the yard and entrance road. So out it goes and we will bring fill back in to get to the grade we need. Tomorrow we will drop a few more trees, dig out those stumps and strip more topsoil. Thursday looks like rain but we will try to start adding the fill and see how it goes.

ready for fill on this section

quite the hole but progressing

"entrance" taking shape

We also made a dump run today. There was a bunch of scrap lumber piled up behind the gate just rotting away. We checked the entire yard and came up with a full dump truck to take to the transfer station. This will allow us to take the fence down and move the right hand gate. the 'entrance' pictures show the right hand gate and fence. We will move the fence towards the telephone pole expanding the yard to include the material storage area. This area behind the fence was someones dump as we pulled out old wire and guy wire and anchor. My guess is when this pole was replaced they scrapped the old stuff in the woods. remember the piece of telephone pole in the early pictures?

New Material Storage Area Prep

2012-01-09T16:59:00.001-05:00

I mentioned in the previous post that we were going to move the material storage bins from the end of the first hole to the beginning of the first, essentially right behind the fuel storage. As a preview a picture of the old bins:

old bins to the left of the 2nd blue tee

We constantly have contamination issues when the tires spin as you scoop up a load of sand or whatever. We have tried many remedies but nothing has worked well. With this new move we will pour a concrete pad and place the blocks onto it. We will also expand the two bins on the right of the above picture so they can handle a large truck delivery. We will also add one additional bin. Hopefully the weather cooperates and if we get the site prepped we can pour the pad this week.

Lots of work: rocks and concrete to move, trees to cut, stumps to pull

Will taking care of several trees. Rocks & concrete gone

not all the trees to be removed are in good shape. lucky to get this one before it fell on someone

Me pulling the stumps with backhoe attachment on bobcat

Kevin with last of 4 trips to Keene's. Just 2 pine stumps filled this load

eventually the gate will move to the right towards tel. pole "before"

"during" Trees and stumps removed at the entrance

All in a days work. Tomorrow a few more trees and stumps and maybe even start dismantling the fence. the piles of soil and compost will be hauled away temporarily. Wednesday haul in some fill and level out to the grade we want, compact and build forms. Thursday or friday pour the slab. At least that's the plan right now.

Time flies when....

2012-01-07T09:15:00.000-05:00

Many members have been gone for months, some are just leaving and still others are here year-round and playing the course. We should be in the dead of winter dealing with snow and freezing temperatures etc. This week we had our first real brush with winter. The temps were in the teens and things really locked up. It allowed us to start machinery preventative maintenance and catch up on year-end paperwork. but thankfully was short lived; yesterday was in the 40's and breezy so many greens thawed out on their own. Night time temps above 35 and predictions today of 50 so the beat goes on with this wacky mild winter.
We have had a tree company on property over the last couple weeks doing work for landowner views. Sometimes we get lucky and a tree that they are topping or want to remove will benefit us as well.

pines near yellow and white machine

pines were just to the left side blocking water

new location for material storage bins notice bright stumps

The pictures above do not do the view justice but you can see the light colored stumps in the photo showing the new site for material storage bins which we will move from the end of the first hole. This is being done over the coming weeks and will be a great improvement to the storing of materials. The current bins do not have a hard surface (concrete) under them so we constantly fight contamination of stones migrating up into our bunker sand, topdressing and divot mix. Some of the bins now are too small for large deliveries and we end up contaminating them just moving them into the bin. This new area will be close to our shop area and farther away from neighbors and the course itself. We were right on top of the second tee in it's present location. So now I am hoping this weather holds out long enough to allow us to prep this area and pour a concrete pad.
While the tree guys were here we contracted them for one day to clean up a couple trees on the edge of the roads that had become hazardous after a storm. We also took down some limbs on the right side of the first green. Odd to type "limbs" without a visual to appreciate this little project. Looking up into the air they are limbs hanging over the bunker and blocking the right half of the green on approach. Picking up the firewood left behind and needing the bobcat to lift them and filling the dump truck a couple of times gives a better indication as to the size of these "limbs or "branches".

look right behind worker in bucket. this is "before"

cleaning up the right side approach to the 1st green "During"

Again the pictures do not do the change justice. For anyone who has been on the right side of the fairway trying to get close to a pin on the right side of the green you will thank me the next time you play. Of course you may have forgotten this shot because you have spent the last few years avoiding the right side at all costs due to the degradation of that bunker and the awful lies you would get under "the lip". I believe the two changes (see here) will make a big difference as to how the first hole plays.
A couple of other exciting events over recent weeks was the delivery of two new mowers to test drive. Our business is unique in that we can take delivery of a piece of equipment worth anywhere from $10-$50,000 and keep it for a few days to run on the course and see how it performs. Try to get a BMW and Mercedes for a week to run them through their paces. We ran a straight up "Bobby Flay" style throw down where Kevin took one piece going backwards and I took the other going forwards. We met in the middle and then switched reversing directions so I cut the same things again with the other mower. I was impressed with both machines and found things I liked and disliked on each. Never an easy decision and one we do not take lightly when spending around $30,000 for a mower we will have for at least 7-10 years.

Deere vs Toro for green/tee surrounds

Another change to our equipment fleet came when Kevin's beloved Yamaha work cart gave up the ghost. I say Kevin's because we have switched to Clubcar Carryall maintenance carts but Kev asked that we keep one of the old Yamaha's as he finds them more comfortable. Luckily for Kev We had the last of the personal golf carts kicking around that it's owner, Gray Bryant, donated to turf maint. when he was required to get rid of it a few years back. We had been letting Chet use this cart as a beverage cart on the fourth hole the last couple summers. Will mounted the bed and decided to keep the sun roof on so now Kevin can limit his sun exposure as well as stay in his comfy Yamaha.

Will adding the bed to "Gray's cart"

On a personal note the word from Burlington VT, where "the boy" is continuing his employment with Nectar's this time in the original nightclub and not our famous MV locale (former Hot Tin Roof), is that he must be doing something right as he was named employee of the month. Many of you have watched Josh grow up so I thought I would take this opportunity to embarrass him while I still can. And since the picture they used on the poster is in front of the clubhouse deck during the first Obama visit.

Josh liven the dream

Quick update from Cape Cod

2011-12-30T12:00:00.003-05:00

I am on vacation this week. Spent some time in the great white north over Christmas. Was nice to see snow and even nicer to come back to the Cape and have none. I hope everyone had/has a great holiday season. I will update on some goings on at the course soon but Kevin asked me to post about course conditions since he wanted to close a couple of greens today. So I took a break from my yard work and added the "course conditions" box as I did last year and will update that daily if anything changes. See below for a brief explanation:

No surprise it is our shadiest greens which are building frost and then getting mushy during the day. Remember the Winter rules for green play:

Frost Free or Fully Frozen

We have had a good stretch so far and I anticipate many more great days and the greens being open most of the time but as we transition into colder weather we may have to live with an odd temp here and there.

Thank-you for your cooperation.

Scary coincidence & Mowing the "Tenth" Fairway

2011-12-20T16:45:00.002-05:00

The post below is from the website I belong to called TurfNet. Once a week they sample member blogs and compile a few in an email. We have been featured a couple of times. An interesting one from our sister island is related to a post I was going to make this week.

Brushcutting and tree removal...

Frank Duda, asst supt, Miacomet Golf Club, Nantucket, MA:

"It is really hard to believe that it is almost the middle of December and the weather is still so pleasant. While we all know that this run of good weather must come to an end at some point the maintenance staff has taken this opportunity to accomplish a great deal of work. The tasks we have completed will ultimately land us in a position where we are set to come out of winter and into the spring of 2012 in really good shape.

We have begun the daunting task of tree and brush removal on several of the holes.

"Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and Tuckernuck are home to 90% of the world’s sandplain grasslands..."

By removing any woody plants and some trees we hope to encourage the growth of both native plants and grasses. Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and Tuckernuck are home to 90% of the world’s sandplain grasslands, and our intent is to keep them as such. The Nantucket Island Land Bank is in charge of maintaining a majority of these sandplain grasslands, which they preserve by either mowing or burning the area yearly. Miacomet follows the same protocol as the Land Bank when it comes to maintaining these areas.

Little Bluestem #6 Tee

If an area is left undisturbed some of the woody plants that begin to appear are considered invasive species by the state of Massachusetts. In particular, Japanese Black Pine Trees are very aggressive growers and dominate once vast sandplain grasslands if given the opportunity. By removing invasive species we are allowing areas to return to a healthy balance of native species.

One particular area on the golf course where you could see the transformation of a sandplain grassland into a woodland was between five and six, where in addition to Japanese Black Pine Trees, Eastern Red Cedar Trees, Scrub Oak and Northern Bayberry started to dominate the area. Once we removed all the trees and woody vegetation we noticed that there is a healthy amount of native grasses that were in the area. By removing the trees and woody plants the area should return to a sandplain grassland over the course of the next couple of years. One area where a grassland restoration was successful is around 6 tees. This area used to be dominated by woody plants. Over the course of several years, and multiple burns and mows the area is currently dominated by native grass species.

Behind #3 green before...	After.
View from #5 Gold tee, before...	After.

Our hope is that over the course of several years we can restore once vast sandplain grasslands into thriving grasslands again. We will also continue to mow and burn the grasslands we have to ensure their continued presence on the golf course. In addition to the ecological benefits of these activities many golfers will notice the enhanced views of both the golf course and the island. So far we have removed brush and trees on holes 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9. We will continue to remove trees and brush throughout the winter on selected areas."

Visit the Miacomet blog at miacometmaintenance.blogspot.com.

We have some interesting features in Mink Meadows that relate to the original design. In the clubhouse is the original routing plan from 1936 for 18 holes. One story I heard is that all the fairways were cleared back in the day. Certainly the tenth fairway which cut up through the middle of the rectangle has been maintained for all these years. Mr. David Currier, one of our first landowners and MMA Presidents mowed this patch of land to maintain his water view. His daughter Susan continues the tradition. I mowed it with the bobcat brush cutter a couple of summers ago and again this week. I was amazed at the density of black pines. After reading the blog post above I feel duty bound to try and convert this back to grasslands. I can honestly say the black pine is not my favorite tree and if every last one in Mink Meadows was removed I would not shed a tear. The blog post and pictures above tell the story better than I ever could and show what I have had for a vision of some of the areas I am trying to convert from woods to fescue areas here at MM.

mowing the "tenth" fairway

view back towards clubhouse

View from Currier deck on Hilltop road

The pictures above look down over the Turf Maint. Facility to the sound beyond. It gives a slight glimpse of what the course might have looked like when constructed and leaves one to wonder how spectacular the views must have been. Below are pictures taken of a couple of the aerial photos in clubhouse:

"10th" fairway to right of flash

vintage photo notice how much wider the cleared "10th" is

close up. looking towards town in both

All the current pictures show a good sized patch of woods between the field and the golf course. These trees are expanding in number and size and are in the process of being tweaked as I write this to maintain this view. Creating and maintaining a water view is no small feat, especially when the trees are allowed to grow up to maturity. The view channel often crosses property lines and ownership changes so these relationships are constantly in flux. The mowing of the "10th' fairway for all of these years may have been done for selfish reasons to maintain a view but I for one am glad that we have this piece of history of the course preserved and am honored to play a small role in seeing it continue.

Is the course getting bigger?

2011-12-18T13:04:00.000-05:00

The general premise of this post deals with maintenance. For years I have thought about the subtle changes to the property and how they impact the overall program. This is my 17th winter on the vineyard and over the years we have made many changes to the course small and large. Adding to the total number of greens, think 15 or the nursery are not the type of examples I am thinking of although they do add to the impact.

Will between road and 9 fairway

The areas that I have always remembered having a direct impact deal mostly with leaves. The picture above shows one of these sections. When I arrived the area between the ninth hole and golf club road was woods. Unmaintained, low bush blueberry, scrub oak, poison ivy woods. To clean the course off we would simply blow the leaves off the course and into the woods. To combat the poison ivy I decided to convert the woods to fescue. As we chip away at the trees this becomes easier and our views of the pond and sound beyond improve. We also now cannot simply blow the leaves into this area to clean the course but need to clean this area, at some point (see picture above), as well. As part of this area the current handicap parking and sidewalk was also woods which made cleaning the lawn a lot easier. Another spot in this area is where the current putting green is located. Originally woods with a path through it from Mitchell rd. Cleaning the leaves from behind the ninth green or the range tee was simple: blow it in the woods. Now we have the chipping green, putting green and bunker in that spot.

Kevin right of 1 tees by Turf Maint. buildings

compost pile behind 5 tee

Add to this area the right side of 1 tees behind the cart barn down the first hole (see picture of Kev above). Three examples right around the clubhouse. So as the property becomes more manicured or landscaped essentially it is getting bigger. This adds the dynamic of what to do with all the stuff we used to blow or lose into the woods? We try to mulch as many of the leaves as we can but there always seems to be plenty to pick up. We have a clean fill dump, for lack of a better term, or compost area to the right of six (see picture above). We store all of our topsoil spoils from projects to be screened and re-used later. We also dump chips from tree projects although we do not have any chip beds anymore so the pile is composting into mulch and soon topsoil. We have a small rock pile which we save for future use and then the rest of our debris: leaves, sticks, branches, sand build up from bunkers or bunker edging all goes into this area. The area is getting full and at some point we will have it hauled off to John Keene's pit. John runs the only stump dump on the island and really the only place to bring organic debris. He has a lot of equipment to deal with this stuff and has many nice products for sale that is made from these such as: compost, topsoil, mulch. He also separates rocks and gravel to make hardener, fill and field stones for walls. Add to that all the imported materials: stones, gravel, shells etc and it is a one stop shop for most landscape materials. Without the services provided by John Keene's operation we would all have to haul this stuff off-island in dumpsters or handle them on-site. We do haul many loads to Keene's throughout the year but mostly when dealing with full trees or stumps. Even the leaves would be cumbersome to drive to West Tisbury for every load. On a good day if we have the area prepped we can fill the truck 3-4 times. It is a lot quicker to stay on property with each load, not to mention cheaper with fuel and labor costs.
Getting back to subtle changes around the course. Here are a few more to tax your memory and see if you can remember them from a few years back. Some of you may remember them through many stages of landscaping as these things have a tendency to change as priorities or money to maintain them change. The right side of the first green was a patch of woods. As the leaves fell you could see the water beyond and so I worked to improve this view year round. The scrub trees were cut, some pruning and removal on the neighbors properties and we left this area as a wood chip bed for years. Eventually the mounds were created with topsoil purchased from, then new land owner, now president, Joe Fitzgerald. I assumed the mounds would be enough to keep cars out and they were for a few years. One fateful night a few winters ago they proved me wrong when they tore up the first green, so now we have the fence. The left of the first green was a material storage area. Many piles spread willy nilly taking up a huge area. I consolidated this into bins by the second tee and converted the area into a fescue patch and cedar nursery. The right and left of the 3rd green as well as the back of the 4th were woods. Ten yards off a green and you were in low bush blueberry woods. Lucky to find your ball never mind play out of them. Behind 5 green, now that I think of it, was the same. These were not major events that were planned for, budgeted, thought about and then implemented. It was more of a gradual subtle change to make minor improvements year after year. The overall impact was to make the property, that we maintain at least, bigger. I assume for the better. With the change in technology and the ball flying father we do still hear complaints about the place not being big enough. I often wish I could produce a visual image right then and there to show 'you should have seen it before'. I am a little more conscious of the impact landscaping has to the bottom line before undertaking any projects but again they are usually small in nature and only in the big picture do they add up. Add to this story the increased landscaping of the landowners and the property certainly seems to be getting bigger. certainly a lot less natural or un-maintained.

Blog anniversary

2011-12-11T09:07:00.001-05:00

It has been one year since I started this blog. It began as a vehicle to highlight some of the work we do to maintain the property of Mink Meadows. It has been interesting and mostly fun to try and come up with topics to discuss. Golf course maintenance can be very repetitive. We mow a lot of acres of grass and do it daily so because that is what you see mostly it is easy to assume that is all we do. Hopefully throughout this past year there have been enough varied topics to highlight some of the other work done to maintain the property. The hard part now will be not duplicating the same topics or at least to show them in a different light.

I want to share some of the stats that I can retrieve at any time on the traffic to the blog:
this is the 93rd post

Page views today

Page views yesterday

Page views last month

713

Page views all time history

4,591

Posts

Root Pruning in January

Jan 5, 2011

136 Page views

Lime / Gypsum application

Mar 25, 2011

85 Page views

back in the saddle

Oct 12, 2011

70 Page views

Golf Club Road Drainage Project

Jan 20, 2011, 1 comment

58 Page views

Melt Down! of sorts

Jan 19, 2011, 1 comment

22 Page views

Almost 5,000 page views in a year. I think that is pretty good considering I had no idea what to expect and wrote a lot of posts wondering if anyone was reading. I received a few comments throughout the summer referencing a recent post and that was encouraging. I continue to hear of a few that are checking in so the experiment was successful. How a post about root pruning became and remains the most popular is still a mystery.
Other data I can see is where the hits come from: mostly USA (3806) but also all over the world; 29 hits from Denmark, 84 from Russia! What type of browser and operating system, which referring sites such as minkmeadowsgc.com and a host of others are directing people here. Search keywords that brought them to the blog such as "root pruning" 15 times or "lime or gypsum better for lawns" 10 times. Pretty cool stuff.

Recently I struggled with my latest newsletter article specifically because I was asked to write about the bunkers we rebuilt and to refer people here to see pictures. I did not want to duplicate the blog in the newsletter and risk turning readers away when they came here or versa visa. That gave me the focus of creativity for the newsletter article. The first one I wrote had some interesting insights to the bunker work and explained the traditional architect and builder process. It was rife with tangents and did not flow well. The second version, which I assume will make it to print, has the same basic premise of the creative side to restoring bunkers. An interesting thing happened, quite by mistake, as I was writing: I never mention specifically which bunkers. I realized this and thought "this might actually work to draw people to the blog". So for those who have read the blog posts about the bunkers already it is a twist on the project and for those that have not, you should be drawn here to at least find out which bunkers were done. You will have to let me know how the concept worked. My biggest fear was to regurgitate the same verbiage from the blog post in the newsletter. Easy to do when discussing the same project.
I have tried to highlight or at least include the staff as much as possible in the posts. After all the staff is doing all the work. You will occasionally see me in a post but that is only when one of us remembers to take that picture. I try to use visual images to stimulate topics. Often it works but I have kicked myself countless times for forgetting to take a picture which would have helped a post or inspired one. If anyone has a specific topic they would like to see discussed in detail please let me know.
Here's to a happy first birthday and an exciting second year!

Field Trip

2011-12-05T16:23:00.001-05:00

The basic premise behind this adventure started with the need to replace the garage in a box or hoop house as we refer to it that came with the bobcat when we purchased it from the original owner. We found this extra storage to be quite valuable and it was nice to keep the bobcat under cover. The original fabric was in tough shape when we received it and the owner had a tarp over that to aid in water proofing. After a few years even the tarp was in tatters. I ordered one on-line and they wanted almost as much to ship it as the new one cost so I set up delivery to my house in sandwich to save money. Received an email a couple of days later that there was an issue with the order. After two failed attempts to solve the issue I let the original order dissolve. I then looked up the manufacturer and discovered they were in Connecticut. During this entire episode I receive a call from an old employee, Simon Verbosek from Slovenia, telling me he is back in CT working at the same place he was when I hired him. He cannot get away to have Thanksgiving with us so it strikes me that we should drive to CT pick up the hoop house and visit with Simon. Upon further research I realize the pump station company we deal with that built and maintain both of our stations is in the same general area. Add to this we can take the old sprayer off island and hook up with the vendor buying it and take delivery of a new greens brush. Sounds like a nice adventure right? Get the sprayer to, on and off the boat. Meet with the vendor to pick it up. Drive a few hundred miles, about15 min north of Hartford, pick up Simon and go south for an hour to get hoop house then reverse. Toss in lunch, a tour of the pump station company, what could possibly go wrong?

the day started off with a nice sunrise

The vendor was late. The plan was disintegrating before we even left woods hole. Oh I forgot to mention I took Bert and the bride's bicycle (which she likes to see how many times I will transfer between Sandwich and MV in one year) and the brush sticks above the bed cover so a stop on the cape is in order. Falling further behind we stop and unload the bike, brush and dog. I figured he would be happier in the house than driving all over New England with me and Kevin. Back on the road we hit very little traffic and reunite with Simon. Continue on to pick up the hoop house and then head back to grab lunch and get Simon to work.

back side of Shelter logic -displays of their shelters

Simon Verbosek off to the plant

Walgreens distribution plant. Gigantic building

pictures do not do this justice: over 25 miles of automated conveyor belts inside

Kevin and I then went to DAF Services our pump station company. You know people for years and you may see them on your course or even at trade shows but rarely do you get the chance to see their operation. My relationship with Dave Frechette and his company began in the early 90's when we put a new irrigation system and pump house in at my previous course. Two stations later at Mink and he is still the best in the business. His Service manager, Scott Christensen, kept our visit a secret so it was good to see the shock on every one's face "what are you doing here?" was a common phrase.

from L-R: John Allen, David Frechette, Deborah Paulo

pump station being constructed inside DAF

Submersible skids for a pond location

Interesting sights on the journey were all the damaged trees on the side of the highway from the massive October snowstorm. They were visible for miles. This tree damage was the main cause for the delays in power being restored. John told us it took him a day just to clear a path down his driveway. He was lucky getting power back in a few days. I think Deb was over a week. Amazing what a few hundred miles can mean in a storm. We received just another heavy rain storm and were out playing golf the next day. Our adventures over, I dropped Kevin off in Walpole and headed back to the Cape for the weekend. Will began assembling the hoop house Monday and wrapped it up for the most part today.

Will starting the assembly

Kevin and Will getting the skin on the frame "any time you're ready"

just the front and back left to put up

Aerifying update

2011-12-05T15:17:00.001-05:00

Quick note to show the new brush in action. Kevin and I took a field trip Friday to pick up a new garage in a box, more on that day later. In the morning we drove the old sprayer down to the boat, don't tell Rodney our local constable, and took delivery on the other side of a new greens brush. The technology is no longer cutting edge but still being used in conjunction with power brushes as well. The main technology to which I refer is the placement of the brushes at angles. The old method was a rectangular aluminium frame with two parallel brushes. You could place a cinder block on top for down pressure and better performance. They also make brushes you mount to a mower to speed up the process and improve performance. I chose to add this brush to our arsenal.

Before brushing

after brushing

notice the sand being left in top of cup

As I referenced in the last post sand likes to be dry. It was a great day today for December. High temp of 57. Many players in shirt sleeves some in shorts, but with a relative humidity of 90% and no wind or sun to speak of the dew never went away even after hosing. So our attempts to clean the greens up further failed. We brushed 9 and the practice green but the sand did not flow off the brush well and started to clog up the bristles. We will try again when the surface dries out. As the pictures above show it did move the sand around and help fill in the open holes. This should help smooth them out and a few rain events won't hurt either.

Late Season Aerifying

2011-12-01T07:29:00.001-05:00

For many years we have had the same aerifying schedule and practice: Spring coring (plugs removed), day after Labor Day same coring, early Nov deep tine (solid tine no cores, outside contractor). Last year was a tough summer and I decided to deep tine in Sept. instead of pulling cores. The major difference between pulling cores and not is the time, energy and effort to deal with the cores. It is very labor intensive and it adds a dynamic to the aerifying process that can be a pain see here. Every part of aerifying and topdressing is bolstered by dry conditions. What I mean by that is if we pull cores they clean up better if they are dry. When we apply sand it works into the turf better if it is dry. So why not just do these processes on nice days you might ask? The easy answer is you the golfer. We try to give notice, we clear the tee sheet, schedule the staff etc. Most times we get lucky and the procedure goes smoothly. Calling it a procedure reminds me of one of the Superintendents I worked for who compared aerifying to open heart surgery. Not very far off really as it is a necessary process that often times could save the patient and if complications occur could kill them as well. Very stressful nonetheless for both the patient and the doctor. So after the dates are picked it becomes harder to just move them around without upsetting golfers and their plans. We had some players come over this week from Plymouth country club and after playing nine on the sand decided to pass on the back. They liked the course and hopefully will reserve final judgement until after a round in-season. I am disappointed if anyone does not enjoy their time at Mink but can only feel so bad about conditions in Winter. I like the timing this year because I feel the holes should close up enough for the surface to smooth out for winter play and we did not disturb the surface through most of the great fall weather. Our illustrious Fred Pekari has a way of asking me about cultural practices especially on greens. Every time we do something to the greens he says: "boss what did you do to expletive up the greens today? Why is it every time you get the greens so they are rolling perfect you screw them up?"

Kev punching the nursery

6 green at end of day one. long shadows at only 2-3 pm

8 green buried in sand

The answer I have to Fred's eloquent statement every time we do a cultural procedure to greens (spike, aerify, water inject, topdress) is we need to do these things to make them healthy, smooth, "Perfect". I truly believe the answer I give to people when they ask me 'how do you get the turf so thick and healthy compared to my lawn' is mowing frequency. But lets face it what makes a putting green, which is mowed at an 1/8th of an inch on the high side, truly the phenomenon that modern greens are is all the cultural stuff we do to them. Without frequent venting and topdressing we could not maintain them at the heights we do nor have the consistency of health and ball roll. For you older players that have been playing for over 30 or 40 years think about it. Exclude aerifed greens or a ball mark or other such calamity when was the last time you regularly complained about ball roll on a golf green? Watch some old footage of the PGA from the 70's and you can see the players almost turning to swing at a putt and the ball may hop a bit on the way. Today even with close ups and HD the ball barely wiggles on its way to the cup, and they barely touched it. We constantly try to balance all work to the season we are in and try to have as consistant conditions all year. Below is a picture of a green on sat after punching them on monday. Quite playable for December. A few rain storms and rolling and they will be back to 100 percent.

one green today.

all is well at the end of the day

Weather and all things Mink Meadows

2011-12-01T06:12:00.001-05:00

The last couple posts may have shown some green grass but I have not conveyed what an amazing Fall season we have had. There have been the odd rainy day and a few frosts in the morning but overall the temps have been outstanding. Many days in the 60's and 70's with one or two in Oct. in the low 80's. Yesterday was windy and 40's and it felt like winter it has been so mild. Not the best picture but if you look close you can see the shrub in front of the clubhouse flowering.

purple flowers coming out in November

Another addition to the course scenery was the delivery of the guest house to the right of the 8th green. This new house sits right behind the 9th tee. This summer many thought the land clearing indicated an expansion of this tee. It was a pre-emptive view clearing for this new property.

guest house behind 9 tee

Another small improvement was a garage door replacement on one of our buildings. May not seem noteworthy but the original doors have been a royal pain since the day we put them in over 5 years ago. A true testament to "you get what you pay for" the originals were the cheapest door you can buy and on a large opening not a good idea. We had each door repaired at least 5 times; with the repair sometimes lasting only weeks. They were just too flimsy to handle the use we put them through.

new door on the left. Right one slated for replacement in January

I also toured the beach in the last week to keep an eye on our cut and beach work. The channel appears to be flowing still and the beach replenishment or spoils deposited are doing their thing and shaping the beach as the tide works its magic.

straight down path, channel to the right

southwest

channel looking north west

Inspectors at work

looking east towards west chop

odd growth pattern

Lastly the above picture is on the first fairway but many of the fairways are exhibiting this phenomenon. Certain shoots are stretching above the turf canopy. This growth pattern has a name etiolation. You will often see this on grass under something left on the lawn for a week or two, like the lid of a trash can: The stems of plants raised in the dark elongate much more rapidly than normal, a phenomenon called etiolation. It is a mechanism that increases the probability of the plant reaching the light. OK so why are we seeing this on many plants all over the fairways? Good question. It has been observed recently that bacterial infections can cause this phenomenon. Some growth regulators are being blamed as well. Growth regulators are chemicals that do exactly as their name implies (we try to keep it simple when we can) and are used for a variety of reasons: increase or moderate green speed, help in a conversion from annual bluegrass to something else (usually creeping bentgrass), save money on mowing, reduce clipping yield, or simply to tighten up the turf. We use them on greens and tees for many of the above mentioned reasons but rarely on fairways and not recently. So where does that leave us for an answer? My first thought was an experiment this fall where we sprayed a mineral oil on many areas. The benefits of this product are interesting: they claim to have control of many fungal pathogens, and insects. The way the product works is with repeated use it bolsters the plants natural defenses. sort of like taking a vitamin. It is a natural product and most people are reducing their overall synthetic plant protectants in conjunction with the mineral oil. For us we do not use plant protectants on our fairways instead relying on the injection of a bacteria through the irrigation system to fight fungal pathogens. I am hoping to get away from this program strictly to avoid the water use. I believe in the bacteria as we have shown since 1997 that we can have good fairways without traditional fungicides. I may start spraying the bacteria instead. My goal this year is to completely change my watering practices. With constant saltwater intrusion into our irrigation well we simply need to use less of it. Back to the strange growth in the picture; we are seeing this pattern on fairways not sprayed with the mineral oil. So chalk this one up to a natural process that maybe goes un-noticed when we are mowing three times a week. As always I will keep an eye on it to see if anything develops further.

Bunker wrap up

2011-11-23T12:30:00.001-05:00

Kevin and I spent the day Monday wrapping up the prep for sod on the 5th bunker. Thought we would be sodding it but the day just flew by. We raked the bottom a couple times to remove any stones. We then added about 3 inches of mason sand to add a clean layer between the bottom and the white bunker sand. This was then compacted and we also compacted the faces of the bunker after another 2 dump trucks of topsoil was added and raked out. This was no small feat given the severity of the slopes. We also added a couple of dump trucks of white bunker sand and decided to shovel this out and compact this before sodding. I placed the sod so we could work if there was a frost in the morning.

5 right green side bunker ready for sod

all prepped and ready for sod to be put down

as predicted frost on top of sod

Will and Kevin laying sod

Completed bunker 5 green

another angle of completed 5 rt green side bunker

Today was a washout as we received over 2 inches of rain. I checked the sod work this morning in a lull and after 1.5 inches and both bunkers looked perfect. The new drain on one was probably working as well as it could given the amount of rain it was under. Diverting the water coming down the road from entering the material storage area has made a huge difference in the amount and type of water we get on 1. see pictures below:

storm water filling left green side bunker before road work diversion

1 green approach notice the color of the water

this morning. clean water which will eventually drain down, if it ever stops raining

I never checked to see if the left side bunker filled up with water but pretty sure it doesn't anymore. Seems like a simple thing to divert the water from entering the material storage area but the water has to go somewhere. We also added the speed bump and stop sign years ago so this had an impact on where the water travels I am sure. All in a days work.

Bunker work

2011-11-17T13:56:00.001-05:00

The contractor we have used in the past to do work here is currently working on a couple of green complexes at Farm Neck.

# 12 Farm Neck

# 4 Farm Neck

I called Costa Paganis last week to see if he will have any room on a future sod delivery and he thought he might. Kind of putting the cart before the horse to get sod before you have a place for it, but sometimes you do what you have to do to save a buck. The initial word was 4-6 pallets. Perfect. So first thing Tuesday we start prepping two bunkers simultaneously. Kevin and Will go to the right bunker on 1 with the sod cutter and I go to 5 with the bobcat and dump truck.

5 green before

5 during

5 notice the golf ball for perspective. sand build up on face

contractors secret: add a bit of topsoil to old sand build up

5 with mostly all sand removed

5 looking back towards tee

After a couple hours I head over to 1 with the bobcat and truck. I had decided to shrink the bunker but what exact shape it would become was left to a creative flow while working it. As long as it was 15 feet wide the boss would be OK.

1 green before

Will beginning the sod cutting

infamous lip on 1 green

sand build up on 1 green

Once the machine was in the bunker it all started to take shape. I removed the grass and major sand build up: about two trucks worth. Then I got impatient for the truck's return and started using the debris as fill to shrink the bunker. I saved a pile of existing bunker sand to use on the floor of the bunker and shaped out the front and continued to fill in the back. Once the front was complete I moved the sand into a pile in the middle so I could continue working the back side.

1 green after day one. starting to take shape

1 green mostly shaped out

The next day we finished tweaking the back side shape and removed an entire truck load of the sand I had saved. The floor of the bunker would have been too high. Golfers playing are already complaining it will be too easy to get out. I never thought people would miss the lip!!! We added topsoil and raked it smooth. We also added a truck load of new sand so we would not ruin the edge driving on the sod later. To help alleviate some of the water that builds up in the approach we added a drain.

1 green ready for sod

Will adding a drain to the approach.

Will and Kevin beginning to lay sod

1 green side right bunker completed

"Happiest Day of the Year"

2011-11-14T18:14:00.001-05:00

In Greenkeeper's circles the so called happiest day of the year is when the irrigation system is winterized. To do this the water is drained and in today's world we use a compressor to blow air into the system and force the water out. We call this "blowing out the system". Our main line here is the original from 1936 and is 5-7 feet deep into the ground. This is below frost code and so back in the day there would always be a drain on the system at a low point, possibly several which would be used to get the water out of the laterals and or higher pipes. Any water remaining in the mains would be deep enough not to freeze. Not fool proof, but I am sure adequate since the pipe is still in use and functioning after all this time. We have 18 abandoned galvinized water lines that froze one year. We repaired these and put some form of valve or spigot to be able to "blow them out" every year to avoid them freezing again. Make that 19. While writing this I remembered the pipe under the 5th green we discovered last fall while aerifying (see the blog post here). This has never frozen, I assume because it is a high point, but tomorrow I will open that valve and let the water drain to a lower spot just to be safe, if it hasn't done so already. Remember water always seeks its own level even inside pipes. As soon as the pumps are shut and the pressure is drops the water does all kinds of weird stuff. The snap valve behind the 8th green was weeping at 14 psi. There was not enough pressure against the spring to keep the seal tight so even though the water was off and down from the normal 115 psi it was draining all the golf course pipes above it for days. We eventually shut the feed valve which was actually down hill to make it stop. Another epiphany during this post was how this favorite day of the year scenario is a northern climate one. I assume there are many areas that keep their system charged all year. Their comments to this are usually "yeah but we don't have to plow snow!"

This video tries to show the process: turn on the sprinklers. A lateral is a line off the main, or sub-main in our case, that may have 2 or 3 sprinklers. The last one is referred to as the dead end or dead head and this one will run longer. Once you get mostly air out of this dead head you move to the next lateral. I took 6-8 videos thinking when I heard/saw air on the first head it would only be a bit until the dead head finishes, only to run the video for over a minute. 30 seconds of watching this is boring enough. Just to jazz it up I took a few of the heads on 9 with the sound beyond, still boring video... Even after 4 or 5 hours of this it is still the happiest day!

We have had a fairly wet fall this year so the need to water was diminished. Rather than wait until it would be the most miserable of jobs, usual timing, I decided to blow the system out early. As I teased my friend who went out a week earlier saying it would be too warm and just not feel right he responded "yeah but it will be fun in shorts and a beach chair". All kidding aside my favorite worst memory is the day we started in carts and had to move to 4x4 trucks because we had about 6 inches of snow fall as we were blowing out. We also had a four wheeler do a donut on the second green with about 3 inches of snow that day. Took a week but the snow melted and we chose to strip the damage and sod from the nursery. Good times.

To go back to the thought of drains on a system. The original map shows a pipe teeing off the main loop near the practice green and heading down between the cart barn and clubhouse. We had a valve break closed on the main a few years back and when we dug that up we eliminated this tee since I really did not want to ever see the end of this pipe. On the map it goes straight through the parking lot into a pond. The pond now has a house in the middle of it as they back filled to create the land. My worst fear was this pipe rupturing and flooding their basement, if they have one. The only downside to abandoning this section of pipe was we lost the feed to the sprinklers on the p-lot side lawn. I never knew they were fed straight off that pipe until we put 2 and 2 together. Within a couple of years we re-built the clubhouse and tore up the lawn anyway. Now that section and the flowerbed sprinklers are on town water off the building. Which is a good thing for the shrubs since we have salt water in our irrigation well.

Beach update and input management

2011-11-09T06:39:00.000-05:00

After the last round of storms the weather has been back to normal for a Vineyard Fall. Cool nights, maybe a frost in the morning but very seasonable during the day. Today the forecast is for mid 60's and 70's in Boston. Unfortunately I have a meeting for the Board of the New England Regional Turfgrass Foundation off-island today. I am drafting this on the boat ride over. Unlike my counter part from the Cape association on this board I will not be enjoying the ride on a motorcycle. He won't be on the water however.
I went to the beach right after the nor'easter last week and took a few pictures of the recently completed dredging of the Mink Meadows Channel. There was a grand vision once upon a time when Mink Meadows Association was founded to have a yacht club. Jetties were put in and for whatever reason, finances is my guess, the ultimate plan fell through. So although we have a body of water open to the sound called "yacht basin" and a road to this basin called "yacht club rd" we maintain a channel wide and deep enough for canoes and kayaks only.

finished channel looking towards sound

beach looking east

channel inspection by Bert

channel from jettie looking south into basin

We maintain this channel for the overall health of the pond ecosystem in Mink Meadows. The water that is open to the sound is extensive with channels heading west towards lake Tashmoo and east towards west chop. The flushing of these waters and the surrounding wetlands is important for many reasons. Flowing water especially saltwater helps to keep mosquito populations in check as well as the invasive weed phragmites. It keeps pollutants such as nitrogen from building up as well. We try to maintain an Eco friendly course with many of our programs including nitrogen management. I worry more about septic systems and homeowners lawns as a potential source of nitrogen than I do the golf course. Our efforts to educate landowners and golfers alike to the dangers of nitrogen and any inputs you may have to the ecosystem in the interest of a nice lawn. We all fall victim to the commercials we see on TV but the lawns shown on fertilizer commercials are not the goal to strive for, in my opinion. The sooner we can realize this the better we will all be. The local, state and federal governments are constantly being pressured to pass new laws regulating fertilizers and pesticides. If we all learn to maintain our lawns a bit more Eco friendly we may still get to use the products we are used to. If they get banned entirely we will then be ahead of the curve. Sorry for the rant but when it comes to water whether at the beach or at the tap I take the use of plant protectants and fertilizers very seriously. A simple rule of thumb in the northeast for fertilizer applications are Memorial. Day, Labor Day and Thanksgiving. If you really want to be low input I would do the late fall feed only. This will help recover from damage in the season and set you up for spring. Early Spring applications are dangerous as growth rate is determined by soil temperatures and microbial activity. If it is cold the plant will not take up the fertilizer and if you keep adding when it does warm up you get this explosion of growth. They now are selling granular iron as a weed control. This would be a much better option if you are looking for an early season color fix. A good organic fertilizer may also give the microbes a boost without much nitrogen push and give you a color response without a big flush of growth. This time of year keep the leaves off as much as you can so the plant can take advantage of the sunlight and store carbohydrates for winter. And most importantly never apply anything before or immediately after a rain event. This is a common practice as a way to water in the product but you have no control of the amount of rain and the potential for movement of that product is increased. More tips in the future....

Newport and the Chapter Delegates Meeting

2011-11-02T11:26:00.000-04:00

Last week I headed off to play Newport CC in the Rhode Island Golf Course Superintendent Associations November meeting. Rain was predicted and of course they got it right. They decided to make it a 13 hole event and we were able to play maybe 8 in relatively decent weather. The last 4 it was raining hard and blowing sideways however. Not the most fun but what can you do?

Bill Coulter, CGCS

NCC clubhouse

sitting room with fireplace going

some historic hardware

random pics hanging on the wall, JFK and Jackie

famous tourney??

Contractors

close up of some of the builders

The weekend was spent in the company of 98 fellow superintendents from all over the United States. We all represent our local affiliated chapters and gather at the headquarters of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America in Lawrence, Kansas. Actually we meet at a hotel at the Kansas City airport and only make one trip out to the headquarters for a quick tour, some talks and dinner. This was my third or fourth trip out to Lawrence, this time representing the Rhode Island Chapter. They had some issues and asked me a couple weeks ago if I would represent them knowing of my previous involvement for the Cape Chapter. The Cape Delegate, Keven Young and I were none too happy to see snow on cars in RI on Friday morning when we flew out, I can tell you. The Cape area's dodging of storms began early in the weekend.

Jim Fitzroy, CGCS immediate Past President from The Presidents GC in Quincy, MA

The Delegates mtg is a very long weekend because we are not used to sitting in one spot and being bombarded with slides and break out sessions and information overload. In the picture above Jim is all smiles because as past president he no longer has to run this meeting. Actually Jim often smiles because he is a great guy and a true credit to our profession. Behind him is the conference room, which is a great place to have a meeting with less than 70 people so 95-102 chapters becomes a bit cumbersome for three days, hence the airport hotel meeting site.

Board room at headquarters during a break-out session

I was fortunate to get the board room as our location for a small group break-out session during the Friday session at headquarters. others went to places like "the bunker"

Sunday morning during the Government Relations session

in center of another table is Ralph Dane, Field Staff Florida

My table as we discuss the field staff initiative

One of the topics we discussed and were educated on is the GCSAA Field Staff initiative. They are adding staff on the ground, if you will, throughout the country in nine territories. The first was three years ago as a pilot program. They have since added three others and are currently interviewing for the Northeast and then the Northwest. This will be the first time GCSAA has had staff out in the field full time in its 80+ year history. Quite a big deal and large investment. We broke out into small groups to discuss the matter and at my table were the following people and their respective chapters: Vince Zellefrow, San Diego; Stuart Rowland, Hi-lo Desert (calif.); Troy Martin, Miami Valley (ohio); Brian Abels, Iowa and Staffer Scott Woodhead, CGCS who is not only the Manager of Chapter Relations but also a Past President of GCSAA.

So it is a lot of fun to interact with peers from all over the country. The topics covered range from the state of the assoc to government relations as well as presentations and then breakout rooms with all of the candidates. I find the meeting far more enjoyable than the traveling. I am convinced we are not made to fly. Although I have never flown on a private gulf stream decked out better than Air Force One so it is a sheltered opinion.

Weekend Weather update

2011-10-31T16:43:00.001-04:00

To say we are having some severe weather in the northeast this year would be an understatement. Western Mass and actually from north western Rhode Island out to the Berkshires is under snow. Schools as well as Halloween has been cancelled. Even here on the Cape Halloween has been cancelled in some areas with all the downed power lines and lack of power. Closer to home on Martha's Vineyard it is business as usual. Yes we had some heavy winds and 2.6 inches or so of rain from Thursday through the weekend but that is not out of the norm for us. The golf course fared well with only a couple of trees coming down. One small pine near the 8th tee and another large one that is on the edge of the road and not fully down just coming up out of the ground. We will need a tree company to deal with that one because of its proximity to the power lines.

great aim as this tree fell on the side of the 8th tee

Dead pine snapped and leaner behind

Root ball coming out of ground notice cracks and heaving

The rest of the course was, yet again this year, covered in sticks, twigs, branches and leaves. Mike and Will were able to get the greens and tees cleared off for play Sunday, while Barry cut up the pine on the edge of the tee. Kevin was stranded off-island as the boats were cancelled from approximately 5pm sat - 10 am sun. I was in Kansas all weekend at the Golf Course Superintendents Association Delegates Meeting, more on that later. Today we manged to get most everything cleaned up and also mowed. No small task when you begin the day with a frost delay. Otis blew off all the roads then mowed some tees and aprons while Fred mowed all the fairways.

Flag pole lawn

pile behind 9 green

Practice putting green, all sticks so must be hand raked

All in all dodged another one where the damage was not severe and we did not receive any snow in October thankfully. Actually turned out to be a decent day in the 50's with no wind. A few hearty players took advantage.

Day in the Life

2011-10-26T15:42:00.000-04:00

We are in that middle ground for season where the grass is still growing but not as much. We alter the mowing schedule and add to that some leaf chasing and the odd repair work and it fills our day quite nicely. As an example we mow greens daily in season and now maybe three-five times a week. Tees/Approaches and fairways are three times a week in season and now one to two times per week. For all areas except rough we first have to blow the leaves and sticks off. This becomes a challenge on windier days often requiring multiple attempts. We have seeded many weak or thin areas throughout the course and hopefully we get germination before we blow or mow the seeds away or winter sets. Another fall favorite is the mowing of the fescue areas. Our little blue stem (variety of fescue) is very healthy and often will create so much debris it must be picked up rather then blown into the woods or in the case of the picture below there is no real woods to blow this to:

Mike picking up debris behind 6 green

Another favorite project that takes me off the course is the maintenance dredging of the jetty. This is done twice a year using an island contractor with an excavator and front loader. So far this week it has been mild and actually pleasant at times. There have been many times where it is a fast conversation with the contractor to get off the beach and the cold wind coming off the water.

Closing up the pond by creating the bridge

Steve Handy setting up laser

Lindsey directing the measurements

digging and hauling

Interesting critters

2011-10-19T07:30:00.002-04:00

I ran into a couple of different wildlife creatures last week on the course. The first was on the sixth green while fixing ball marks. It was just scampering along so I picked it up and re-located to the tall grass so it would not get mowed up on either the green or the rough. My guess is salamander but that is just a guess

out for stroll

The other was a swan from the pond off the parking lot. He was on the lawn the night before. Saturday morning he decided to play the first hole making it all the way down to the 150 yard marker.

prettier than Canada geese at least

back in the saddle

2011-10-12T06:17:00.001-04:00

After a week away from the farm it is nice to get back into the swing of things. The boys did a nice job wrapping up some of the aerification while I was away. The approaches were all punched and top dressed. Approaches and the tees have the most thatch and require this process more often than we seem to be able to give them. We are getting ahead of the curve on them however and they are playing much firmer and are easier to maintain. This is just a quick note as I wait for the sun to rise so I can head out to mow greens. This time of year we struggle with keeping up with mowing and other regular maintenance as many of the staff have left and you add the extra duty of chasing leaves and the shortened daylight. We will attempt to add a few projects to the mix to try and recover from any damage over the summer. Speaking of damage, the fairways which took a hit appear to be finally coming into their own. We will continue to push these areas to fully recover before winter. A not so gentle reminder is in the background of the picture below with Fred and a mishap on his fairway mower late in the summer:

luckily no one was injured and the fix was simple and no damage done to mower or turf, Fairway Fred in a classic pose!

New Sprayer arrived

2011-09-25T13:54:00.001-04:00

Earlier in the year I posted about the research I had done for a new sprayer. It can be viewed here. The utility vehicle that the sprayer mounts to arrived a few weeks ago and we have driven about a few times to run it through it's paces. This particular vehicle is a John Deere Pro Gator. Our other utility vehicles are Toro Workman's. One of the main components for the operator to adjust to is the sheer weight of the new sprayer when full. Our old sprayer was a 160 gallon tank while the new one is a 300 gallon. The weight difference on water alone is 1,120 pounds. Plastic vs stainless steel is a few hundred more, I am sure. I like the feel of this sprayer vs a tow behind model which I have used in the past. The tow behind in my previous experience was unwieldy and possibly too big for the rig we were towing it with.

lifting off of trailer and mounting onto Gator

Still on the trailer is a tow behind model slated for deliver to Nantucket

Howard Meredith, Jr calibrating nozzles

Water sensitive paper to test spray pattern and coverage. Blue is the applied water

We chose a couple of nozzles based on the rates i am looking to apply and for their wind resistance properties. We then proceeded to test them on the nursery in open conditions. One was clearly better with less drift and the pattern proved to be sufficient. They have this special paper with a dye on it. You lay them on the turf then spray over them at your desired settings. The water activates the dye and you can see what your coverage and pattern will look like at those settings. The top three papers are greens and the bottom one is fairways. Our current sprayer is set up to cover 2 acres. This allowed us to spray all the greens with one tank. In the beginning we could also spray tees and approaches providing we did not get too aggressive with the size of our approaches. As we enlarged the tees I had a tough time getting them all done. Fairways was 7 tanks. The new sprayer will cover 2.5 acres for greens, tees and approaches using 250 gallons at 4 mph. Using the same nozzles and boom with a full tank at 4.8 mph which is second gear full out it will cover 3.9 acres or roughly 4 tanks. With a special flood jet nozzle mounted directly behind the rig it will cover 6.8 acres or 2 tanks. These nozzles do not give you the coverage pattern of the others but can be used for certain products such as wetting agents and fertilizers. The time savings on fill ups and travel alone make them very appealing.

flood jet nozzles in action

flood jet nozzles are attached to the frame and stick out beyond the regular boom

Also with this new sprayer we purchased and installed a pre-load system called cleanload. It it a mechanism that you add the products you wish to spray directly into and they flow into the tank with the water while it is added. It has several rinse ports for powders and also a jug washing port to efficiently rinse any containers from liquid products. Usually these are mounted right on the sprayer but they stick out and can become cumbersome when traveling around the property. We decided to mount ours right at the mix/load pad attached to the chemical storage building. This will save the person spraying from pre-mixing in a five gallon bucket to ensure the product goes into solution and also having to add product through the top of the rig, which is often cumbersome and dangerous.

Aerification update

2011-09-20T10:22:00.000-04:00

Since the last post we have made great strides in the greens aerification process. We were able to get them and collars topdressed. They have grown through this and are playing well at this point. We are in the middle of tee aerification with 8,9,1, and 2 completed last week and recovering nicely. Yesterday the boys aerified the rest and today they will topdress those. By the weekend we should be looking good and we can move on to the rest of the approaches. We were able to complete 1,2,3 but the rest have yet to be aerified or topdressed.
One of the drawbacks to not being able to topdress greens right after aerifying is we were unable to get sand into the holes because they had closed up on the surface. This is great for playability but not what we are looking for to create the deep sand channels seen in the picture below:

left side of the picture the light spot is the bottom of a deep tine hole filled with sand

These channels aid in water and air movement throughout the soil profile. The holes will stay open without sand even though the top has closed up or appeared to close up. The grass grows over the hole and the green surface becomes smooth but when we change cups we can see parts of the holes are still open. They last longer with sand in them however as the picture clearly shows.

close up of some tearing when the grass gets "puffy"

outside edge of 6 green showing tearing

The other main benefit to topdressing is to smooth the surface and control thatch. The greens will become puffy or leggy where the surface has a lot of leaf tissue and when in this condition they are soft and the mowers will scalp or tear the blades instead of cutting them clean. The sand will firm the surface and eliminate this issue. It will also help breakdown thatch which is the layer of dead sticks, roots and organic matter.

Large mushroom at the base of a tree on number 2

Aerifying week

2011-09-07T15:41:00.000-04:00

Well sometimes you just get the short straw. We had all the best intentions this week of aerifying all sorts of stuff and adding some seed and then topdressing with sand to fill the holes and smooth the surfaces. The sand application also aids in thatch management. All of these processes are best accomplished in dry weather. We had some early rain yesterday before I awoke. I studied the radar several times before deciding to head out attempting to aerify collars and approaches. The storm was west of us heading north. Sure looked like we might get away with it. While on my second hole and Will on his first it opened up and we received about a 1/2 inch. All the cores we pulled were saturated and cleaning them up was going to be messy. We all dried off and waited out the worst of the storm. After a democratic vote we all decided to plod on and get the wet cores up. It was a muddy mess but we managed. The contractor arrived and i proceeded to usher him around the course solid deep tine aerifying the greens and also a few tees. They came out great and we even raised the setting from about 10 inches deep to approx. 2 inches and did most of the second fairway.

cleaned up collar

troops cleaning up the muddy cores

more of the same

very labor intensive and not much fun as the cores are heavy

finished product after deep tine aerifying

solid tine aerifying the 2nd fairway

The main reason to pull cores is to remove thatch. It also allows us to remove the soil and add straight sand for better drainage. The sand added to the existing turf will also help break down the thatch left behind.

The above video is of the contractor deep tine aerifying the 9th green. You can use hollow tines and pull a core on this machine but that would bring up some nasty clay we have down deep and possibly contaminate the surface. So we stick with solid tines here and use hollow on our machine for our other aerifications in the year. This machine also fractures the soil much deeper than our machine so it gives us more compaction relief. I discussed in a bit more detail the differences in tine selection on a spring blog post here Imagine the tine in the middle of the picture a foot long instead of 6". That is why we refer to it as deep tine aerating.

Today we continued the collar aerification and cleanup. It was still to damp and misty to apply topdressing to the greens. We instead focused on spiking and seeding the three damaged fairways mentioned in the previous post. I applied topdressing to those areas mainly to cover the seed. Being wet it will stick to the cart tires and not make it into the soil where it needs to be to germinate. Between the holes punched yesterday and the slits today hopefully we can get some into the ground and start the recovery process.

August Roots and the dangers of herbicides

2011-09-01T13:38:00.000-04:00

Cup changing plays many roles. The first is to spread the wear around the green. As I have mentioned in this blog before there is not a green keeper in the world that given the chance would put the cup in the middle of the green in spring and leave it there if they could. The constant complaints range from "that location is unfair" to "the color of the flag was off". So while we change the location we use the time to inspect the green in many ways: How is the overall appearance: healthy, stressed, dry, wet, hungry etc? Some of the questions are visual and some are answered by inspecting the top plug.

2 green. mostly annual bluegrass Poa Annua. shallow roots "hockey puck" or "pancake"

4 green, I believe. notice how much larger, ie deeper roots

When we cut a new cup we use a two step method. We insert the cutter to approx 4-5 inches and remove the plug and place it in the bucket. We then re-insert the cutter gently so a not to destroy the new edge. Continue digging until final hole depth and then remove and insert into old hole reversing steps until complete. When we have this plug out of the ground we inspect it for various things: color, smell, size, weight, moisture content, root mass as well as a closer inspection of the above mentioned criteria. Color refers to not only the top grass but also the soil. The lighter the color the dryer it is, but why smell? Well if the soil is over saturated it will build up anaerobic bacteria and have a foul smell. A healthy soil has it's own distinct smell. The size and weight help determine root depth and moisture content respectively. We will also ball up a piece of soil and see how it holds together. Dry soil will not form a ball and crumble in your hand. We will often find roots shooting out of the bottom of the plug for an additional 2-4 inches and these are most likely from old deep tine aerifier holes. Sometimes, especially in late summer the plug will break off and this is a true indication of how deep our roots are. I often try to make the plug break just to force this issue. The pictures above demonstrate the difference in root depth from green to green. EVERYTHING we do in maintenance is from the soil up. We try to grow roots to have a healthier plant. That is why the salt water intrusion is such an issue for us because it messes with basic chemistry in the soil and how nutrients and water are available to the plant. So our conversion to bent grass on greens is also shown in the pictures with the green with the most Poa, 2, has the shallowest roots by far.
Also while changing cups we often find surprises: an odd rock, tree roots etc. The picture below is from the back middle of number eight. I should have cut it out to get a better visual. it was a decent size for how far into the green it was. Competition from trees is a major problem on our course as I described here in an earlier post.

tree root right in the middle of a new hole location 8 green

Just about two weeks ago I applied a selective herbicide on 3 holes and the range fairway. I was attempting to try and stay ahead of the crabgrass. We used pre-emergent chemicals attached to our spring fertilizer this year and still had some break through. I have mentioned here in a couple of posts about our increased attempts to stay ahead of the crabgrass issue this year. One of the reasons for this diligence is the risks of herbicide damage when it is hot. Now it was not forcasted to be exceptionally hot on the day I applied this and by all accounts it should have been fine. I am working with the manufacturer and our sales rep to deal with this problem as they too do not like to see these results:

2 fwy herbicide damage. not all species affected but some killed outright

2 fwy notice the sections not sprayed

2 red tee. this is typical chemical burn: off color minor turf loss

Irene update

2011-08-30T10:56:00.000-04:00

We dodged a big one here for sure. many parts of New England were hit very hard by this storm. In comparison this was a major nusiance. We lost a couple of trees and a few large branches. Otherwise it was a lot of sticks and twigs as well as leaves everywhere. The boys did a great job getting greens, tees and approaches cleaned off so they could mow everything yesterday. We continued concentrating on green and tee surrounds so they could be mowed today. We will continue to chip away with the cleanup until it is all back to normal. This morning we tackled bunkers and put out our scheduled plant protectant spray on greens. We also watered last night as the storm only left us 0.2" of rain. At 80 degrees yesterday that rain is long gone with this low dew point. Perfect days with these cool nights it's too bad we have to spend so much time cleaning up instead of other projects but it could have been a lot worse!

clubhouse lawns

big oak limb rt of 8

downed pine tree rt side of 8

Whirl wind week

2011-08-25T18:28:00.001-04:00

Where do you start? We fertilized fairways on Thursday and had some minor issues. Friday the salesman comes out with his boss to look at the stuff and try to figure out if it is OK and if we are good with the spread rate. If it is too low you can get speckling and not the uniform growth desired. If too heavy again mottled appearance and possible burning. We fared OK and all should and appears to be well. On the way into town to grab some lunch with the boss's friend who happens to be with the Secret Service we encounter the motorcade and get ahead of it by a whisker:

motorcade coming into town

Told MMGC Member and local Tisbury bike patrolman Rodney Silvia I would make him famous

Motorcade blocking main Street as President Obama picks up a book or two in Bunch of Grapes

On Tuesday I headed up to Marlboro mass for a New England Regional Turfgrass Foundation board meeting. i am one of two reps for the Golf Course Superintendents Assoc of Cape Cod. After ten years on the board they just would not let me slip away. The NERTF is responsible for running a conference and show in Providence, RI every spring. In 1996, the New England Regional Turfgrass Foundation was formed through the cooperation of the seven Golf Course Superintendent Associations within the New England Region, along with the New England Sports Turf Managers Association, and the Massachusetts Association of Lawn Care Professionals. Anyone who has travelled in the past week may have seen the new escorts:

I like it better when they man the guns!

On Wednesday we had an MMGC executive meeting to prepare for 2012 and then found out President Obama "might" play later in the day. A few last minute preparations like cup changing and mowing off the shufflers scuff marks and we were ready to go. He seemed pleased to be here and said "the greens were great". What more could you ask for? He was gracious shaking hands on the way out to play and also when he came in a and a few luckierones received an autograph.

Tsani our summer staffer from Bulgaria and Kevin's arm with Obama working the line

A couple of the typical off the shelf SUV's

President Obama signing autographs

Today was the ladies closing luncheon. Unfortunately we had to mow a few areas to stay ahead of the weather. Heavy rains predicted for tonite might shut us out and with more stuff predicted over the weekend we could not take the chance, sorry ladies. The rest of this week we will spend wrapping up hurricane preparations like fueling everything up, pushing back the dump to make way for any debris, clean gutters AGAIN, clean the road drains, etc

Turkey update

2011-08-19T17:38:00.001-04:00

I posted earlier in the year about some of the wildlife here on property. We had two hens band together with 6-8 chicks or so and they were fixtures. The seemed to have gone away, at least I had not seen them for a couple weeks and now they seem to be back. Kevin had a feeling they were eating the seed in his divots on 7 tee. He could not figure out why the divots were not growing. Upon further inspection he realized there was no visible seed in them. He tried not to blame the ones filling the divots but turkeys eating the seed seemed a bit of a stretch until Will saw them first hand one day. Here they are on the 6th fairway and tall grass:

chicks getting big

maybe not as many as before but a decent flock

lets hope they do not eat the fertilizer we just applied and really get big!

There is not a lot we can do to keep birds and turkeys from eating divot seed. just one more hurdle for us to leap to make it to the finish line.

We received just about 2 inches of rain on Monday. The course took it well and actually perked up a bit. We are limping through on fairways and rough as the summer patch disease takes its toll and the stress of heavy play adds up. The greens are possibly the healthiest they have ever been this time of year and the tees are a mixed bag. Maybe a Presidential visit, our August charity tourney the Ken Williams, Ladies closing luncheon and it will be the Labor Day scramble before you know it. Here's to some nice weather for the next couple weeks as we make it to the clubhouse turn....

75th and the august slide

2011-08-15T13:54:00.001-04:00

We had a great tourney and dinner afterwards. Everyone was amazed at how well the tourney went with 90 players on a nine-hole course. Just goes to show we all can play fast golf if we put our minds to it. The weather was perfect and I think the Dinner portion was a huge success. I would like to personally thank everyone who carpooled and made my job as parking engineer a lot easier. Rollie Savage did a great job organizing the party and I think I made him a little crazy since he had every detail planned out and whenever he would ask me about the parking I would say "sure have it all under control". When actually I had no idea where we would put the potential 120-170 cars. Many people doubled up or were dropped off. I stuffed as many as I could in the maint. area early and counted 19 before I teed off. This saved room for maybe a dozen spot in the lot for the dinner guests. Phase one of the overflow was utilized as a single row on the old 1st cart path, see picture below, and luckily we never had to implement phase two which was parking on the course itself.

cars parked on the old cart path right behind cart barn

Some of our last minute prep. for the tourney was to locate and mark the irrigation pipes that could be in harms way from tent spikes. This was done the old fashioned way using two wire flags and dousing. I taught Matt Lombard and Walt how the method works.

should have videoed this to give a better idea of dousing

We also had some green repair issues. One was a frustrated golfer, same one as last week? and one was self inflicted with our triplex greens roller.

yet another divot. this time 7 green

roller mishap similar to the PGA Championship issue on 17

pale yellow areas are summer patch soon to be brown

The sad news is that last week we talked of surviving member guest week and actually compared to now we were outstanding. As previously posted here we had a major dollar-spot outbreak on Monday and then summer patch started whacking some turf as well. So anywhere we do not use fungicides we are vulnerable and showing signs of stress. unfortunately for us that is most everywhere. Even our tees which we do spray are showing signs. The good news is that the greens are holding up nicely and actually putting great. we also have only a couple of weeks left before the weather should tun in our favor and hopefully we can start to turn the corner the other way.

9 approach showing fwy damage and weak rough

By the numbers- member guest recap

2011-08-09T10:08:00.000-04:00

We survived member guest week, barely. The ladies was not an issue and the first day of the men's was fine but Sunday was not the nicest day to be outside. It could have been worse. So as a re-cap of what we did for prep and some of the weather totals:

Mike pruned the hedges behind the 8th tees

night shot of spraying fairways, notice foam marker drops on left side, below a video of night spraying

I decided to spray the gypsum application to flush the sodium build up in our soils on fairways Friday evening. I started around 5 pm, danced around a few groups early and then finished about 10 PM. Several miss-haps along the way: gas gauge broke and like an idiot I kept thinking i was fine until I ran out in third approach. It pays to know your neighbors and so a borrowed couple gallons of gas later I was back at it. Only to have the main switch, (which is a foot operated one much like the old high beam one on a car, remember those?) break so I was stuck using the individual boom switches to turn on and off. To say I cannot wait for the new sprayer to arrive would be the understatement of the century.
Mowing and rolling by the numbers:
Thur: mow
Fri: Mow and Roll
Sat: Mow and Roll in AM then again Mow and Roll before Tourney
Sun: Mow and Roll
Rain for the week:
Tue: .24"
Sat AM: .19"
Sun AM: .14" rest of day additional .95"
Mon afternoon .13"
So as you can see not hard to figure why we are squishy in spots. Carts are wreaking havoc as well as maint. equipment. I believe we would be worse off if not for the addition of the gypsum. The rain helped to flush the sodium deeper into the soil and we will benefit from it eventually. A little sun and wind and things should firm up soon. Some more interesting observations recently:

reason # 129 as to why green keepers hate trees: clogged gutters. we must clean then 5-8 times a year

yesterday was apparently perfect dollar spot fungus weather. it looked like snow there was so much mycelium

dew patterns on 6 where I skipped the gypsum application

Today was apparently perfect brown patch fungus weather, jeez we cannot get a break

Animal vandalism

2011-08-04T10:02:00.000-04:00

not sure if is considered vandalism but when you see this amount of damage on a green you have to wonder.

did I curse myself with the last post about divots and tire tracks? Didn't know deer read the blog!

not sure what the drag scrapes are about

in a few of these pics you can clearly see the hoof print of a white tail deer

We will repair these much like a ball mark. Pull the dent into the middle and knit the damage together. Happens two to three time a year. The next pic is a refresher about bug spray. was so distinctive I had to take a picture:

classic double foot print bug spray damage.

The next few pics are strange insects on course or mysterious turf calamities

on 7 green this morning. no idea what it is.

almost stepped on this guy as it crossed my entrance path to deck about 6" long

middle of 4 fwy. somebody spilled something? gas leaking from something?

the weather is cooperating this week with a shower Tuesday evening that dumped .24" in short order. No apparent damage from the lightning and a quick green up from all the free nitrogen. One of the phenomenon that happens in a lightning storm is the electrical charges actually convert the nitrogen in the air to a form that plants can take up. So between this and the flush of rain you often see a perk up after a storm. The cool night time temps are also a bonus this time of year. The ladies are playing their member guest as I write this and if we can keep the wildlife to a minimum we should get through the men's this weekend.

Ball marks

2011-08-02T11:24:00.000-04:00

This time of year we are at critical mass. We have early tee times which force us to stay ahead of play and we are busy putting out a lot of players. We try to stay ahead of ball marks and some days are better than others. We sure could use the help of golfers. It is after all their responsibility to repair their ball mark. so these shots and videos may help educate some of you who may be repairing them wrong which adds to the problem.

Still amazes me that someone could leave these. Do they assume they will be gone the next time they play?

So hopefully you get the idea of the proper way to repair a ball mark. Popping up from underneath is not the preferred method. You often see the PGA Pros doing this but you have to understand they are simply looking to smooth the surface for their putt. The best long term solution is to bring in from the sides. The Pros are trying to make a living and are not necessarily concerned with the long term health of a putting green. If I was lining up a putt worth a few hundred thousand dollars I might not care if my ball mark was going to heal in one day or nine days either. Especially if in nine days I will be on another golf course. If you have any questions or want to see the technique in person flag one of us down and we would be happy to show you.

Around the course and tournament prep

2011-08-01T04:35:00.000-04:00

I often use pictures to inspire the topic of a post. I see something of interest and think "I should write about that". If I take a picture it will remind me of something I wanted to talk about when I upload them from my phone. Of course finding the time to write this blog has been another story. Some of the things that happened the past week or so are that Kevin hurt his back and missed three full days; we had our first real heat of the summer. Great if you like the beach. Not so much if trying to grow cool season grasses. In the link below there is a great reference to selecting the grasses that are right for your environment and how the right ones thrive in the worst weather as opposed to struggle to survive. I covered issues of salt water intrusion and its effects in the last blog post as well as the need for everyone to use less stuff on their lawns. This post will cover member guest prep and a link to a video on PGA Championship prep at Atlanta Athletic Club that I found interesting and informative. Our prep is virtually the same, except for the total re-grassing, replacement of bunker sand, re-construction and placement of bunkers and all that other stuff they did. Although as the picture below demonstrates our conversion to bentgrass on the greens is progressing. Last year we had a disease on number two that we could not get a handle on. So after repeated chemical applications failed about a week before President Obama might play I decided to replace the damaged areas with cup cutter plugs from the nursery. These plugs have expanded a bunch in less than a year. I tried to draw a circle the size of a cup cutter in the dew on this patch of bentgrass.

bentgrass plug from nursery overtaking poa on 2 green

We will try not to lose any more turf in the next week. We will tidy up some off-play areas like the woods along three and eight. Staying on top of ball marks is crucial because they take a few days to heal. Of course then there is the normal everyday occurrence of the following:

bicycle skid on seven green

Divot middle of the day on 3 green

not quite sure but guess is gasoline spill as you come off cart path on 5 T

We will juggle our mowing schedule around this week to avoid the ladies member guest on Thursday while still trying to provide a clean mowed course for the men's member guest over the weekend. We may save a few choice spot on greens for cups this week. Our greens are small and so to come up with three sets of placements in a row can be a challenge. If you played a few tucked ones or questionable weekend placements that is why. As long as nothing major pops up it will be business as usual with a few extra hours put into fine details. Our goal is to provide consistent conditions year round. It is a constant balance to accomplish the tasks needed on a daily basis.

some of the crabgrass we have been spraying

some kind of caterpillar on putting green

My biggest focus for this week is to make sure we do not do anything to set the course back. We have our 75th the following week and many more weeks of play before the season winds down. A few days of "putting the shines" on the gem and keeping morale up through the dogs days of august.

good for morale. fourth hole early in the morning

Update

2011-07-30T07:54:00.000-04:00

This has been one interesting season. By all accounts it is normal to slightly above in rainfall amounts. It certainly seems hotter at times but I have yet to look over those numbers. I know 90 degrees at 10 am last week was sure hot. Luckily for us it has been windy which makes the heat and humidity bearable. Many places are much hotter so we should all be thankful we are here and not there.
The high humidity for long stretches is not the best for cool season turf growth. Warm season grasses such as crabgrass are having a ball and thriving. The humidity is also good for several fungi that like to disrupt all the good efforts we have put into the course. When our turf comes under severe heat stress it inevitably slides backwards, mostly due to disease since we do not treat most of the course. Some is insect damage as again we do not treat wall to wall but instead target specific areas like greens and tees. Still some of the stress is self induced such as the havoc wreaked by the salt water intrusion we have in our well. This salt build up in the soil messes up everything: nutrient mobility and availability, water uptake and availability, water movement through the soil and if it builds up enough it will also change the physical structure of the soil. This is where the soil no longer has structure. It becomes slimy, soft and holds water at the surface. This will increase the damage done to turf by any physical strain whether mowing equipment or even golf carts. Hard stops and starts will skid and peel up turf like it was just laid down. To combat this we will water with potable water hoping to flush the salts lower in the soil profile. This can get expensive paying for water. We will also apply gypsum to flush the salts. Again expensive and also time consuming. I am hoping to stave off the application of gypsum until our new 300 gallon sprayer arrives. This will cut my application time in half as our current sprayer is 160 gallons and it takes 7 loads to cover all the fairways. That's a lot of mixing and driving back and forth which equals time. I am hoping to be able to cover the fairways in 4 to 4.5 tanks and greatly reduce the time it takes. With all the above issues you might ask what can be done to solve the saltwater intrusion? One answer would be to drill a new well and try to stay higher in the fresh water profile. No guarantees and we do not know what our yield will be and whether it will be sufficient. Another might be to build a large retention pond that could be partially filled with rain water and possibly run off from the roads and course. With the current state of the economy and lower interest in golf nationally larger projects such as these stay on the back burner. So we chip away at the problem on a curative side and hope for favorable weather. It is not a new phenomenon but one we have managed for close to a decade. Another approach would be to use less water. This is a very deep issue and not as simple as it sounds. As I have stated on this blog and possibly in club newsletters in the past Americans like green grass. Thank the deluge of commercials and print ads which show lush green grass for every marketing pitch you can think of: lawn furniture, real estate, cars, mowers it's endless. The only time you see bad turf is when they are touting a product to improve it and inevitably there will be the green one shown to compare. Much like the organic food movement there is a movement to reduce chemical use on turf. I am all for it. Huge estates on MV that see limited use certainly can have a few weeds in my opinion. The idea of total perfection needs to go away. Seems a bit contradictory when you see us out there spraying for crabgrass or something but we are using smaller sprayers and targeting specific weeds. I could spray the entire place wall to wall but that would use a lot more product unnecessarily. Look hard enough and you will see plenty of weeds. Trust me. I have had to re-train myself to live with the less chemical use approach and if I can do it a a professional turf manager so can you!

update of goings on around the course

2011-07-20T11:24:00.000-04:00

This week we are jumping into the heat and humidity. Luckily we missed the major thunderstorms predicted earlier this week. When it is very humid the last thing you want is super saturated soil. We have tried to be extra cautious with our water use this year and try as we might I feel we still could improve. You lose more turf when wet than dry. When grass turns brown from lack of water it is only going dormant. Once the moisture level raises the turf will recover and be green again. If you are overly wet the grass may turn brown from disease or wet wilt. A phenomenon where the plant wilts even though there is adequate moisture. I witnessed this last Friday on the blue tee on number seven. we had received rain and so the assumption is everything will be fine and yet this tee is showing all the signs of wilt. You still have to apply a fine mist of water to cool the plant down even though the soil is saturated. As we head into the hotter days of summer expect to see a few sprinklers running in the afternoon. This added water use only adds stress to our well and saltwater intrusion issues.

often times we switch to town water when we reach 1.0 on conductivity meter

I try to check the water often to monitor the salt level we are pulling in but often times it fall into the category of don't ask the questions you do not want the answers to. After close to a decade of dealing with this issue i can tell by the condition of the turf when we have reached the point of too much salt if there is such a thing. some people would consider ANY salt too much.

Two dark green spots in the middle: look like footprints?

Here is a picture of one of my favorite turf calamities. Bug spray damage. If you apply bug spray wile on the turf this is the result. scorched turf with foot prints left unharmed. please apply while on the path. This is damage that can be avoided.

extra windy day so the foot prints are to the left and the damage is all to the right

Not what you want to see first thing in the morning.

One of the latest thunderstorms did cause some issues in the pump house. We run on three phase 480 volt power and one of the legs went out, so this is what I came into one morning. The irrigation computer flashing and chiming this fault message. A call to Nstar and after a visit from them we were back up and running. Good thing too as we have spent many days this year repairing various issues with the irrigation

Kevin installing a new valve on the 8th tees

Will replacing a compression coupling that started leaking

A couple other projects over the last week: The "boys" Taylor and Mike finished weeding the clubhouse beds and mulched. We sprayed most of the crabgrass on the course. I used the big sprayer and did tees and Barry used the 25 gallon tank and did bunkers and other smaller areas. It is starting to check out and the grass around it is looking OK. Big change over last year where we killed everything but the crabgrass.

Mike and Taylor on the front lawn

dying crabgrass

Wildlife observations around the course

2011-07-13T08:16:00.001-04:00

Many times if you pay attention you can see all sorts of wildlife around Mink Meadows. While walking the road a few weeks back I came across a small turtle. Just this week I watched an osprey fly into the top of a tree at speed trying to break off a branch to build a nest. Second time I have seen this done and it is really cool. tough to photograph with a phone camera however. here are some of the other things i was able to capture:

landowners with a beehive

White tail deer in back of parking lot

Bert trying to get me to play ball by rolling it at the cup. training is working as he stays off green

Bert again this time in a bunker. Ditto on training

White tail deer at top of pic in compost area off number six

Pair of wild turkeys with a bunch of chicks

possible feral cat looking for the turkeys?

Dollar Spot right on schedule

2011-07-09T20:19:00.000-04:00

You could set the week on a calendar. In fact we usually do. Our programs are set up to combat the eventual early July Dollar Spot fungus outbreak. We have been seeing minor outbreaks on tees and approaches as the preventative fungicide applications wear off but the fairways have been holding their own. Until this week. Traditional use of plant protectants is on a preventative basis where you apply fungicides or other protectants on a schedule and hope you stay ahead of any outbreak (sort of like applying sunscreen). Or you can go out after an outbreak with a curative application to kill the fungus while it is active. The damage is already done at this point and it takes more product to kill vs prevent so most people choose the preventative route, or a combo of the two. When you use a biological approach as we do it is a combo of both methods. We apply a bacteria we brew in our pump house through the irrigation system on a daily basis. But when the conditions favor the fungus it still grows(kind of like when the sunscreen washes off). We then see the damage on the turf and usually add a little fertilizer to the mix to help outgrow the damage. The continual addition of bacteria helps keep the fungus from getting a strong hold and continuing the onslaught. It has worked for us since 1998 as the last preventative fungicide applied to fairways was in September of 1997. Many parts of our program help us to achieve this goal. Dragging a hose across the turf to knock off the dew and guttation water (a fluid rich in sugars excreted by the turf) every morning and timely fertilizer apps are just a couple.

tiny little bleached out spots all over the fairways

As we approach the dog days of summer remember that the turf is under a lot of stress this time of year so anything you can do to limit your added stress: driving around in circles searching for balls, applying bug spray while on the turf (see picture), walking on the collars while dragging your pull cart etc will all make a difference as to how well we survive the season.

lost balls and speed of play

2011-07-07T11:51:00.000-04:00

We fight hard to balance the aesthetics, playability and overall experience of playing at Mink Meadows. We do not have any water hazards and by most accounts are pretty wide open. I know of few players that think much about what club to hit off the tee. That says a lot about a fairly short course. The penalty's are so few that they simply get up and hit as far as they can. This year the fescue areas have come in thinker in a few spots (left of three, right of eight) and a few people are complaining. Those same people are the ones complaining about the mowed rough being too thick as well. For most they welcome the new challenges and are pleased to have a slightly different feel to the course. We are in the throws of Club Championship week with the ladies in the middle of their first round as I write this. In that vain I mowed a bit of the fescue on three since that hole is narrow to begin with. I also brush cut a few areas that collect errant balls on four.

looking back towards the 4th tees

The other reason to brush cut this area was to allow more air flow back into this shoot. The back tee was starting to feel like a tunnel and it was mostly pine saplings with a few oak. Neither of these would we want to see grow to full size trees. Even the trees we have on either side back there need a little pruning as they have encroached into the flight path of balls. judging by the amount of balls I found in some of these areas Iwould say we may speed up play by having them more open and accessible. I am sure someone will say we are making the place too easy but it is all a balancing act.

"Rough"

2011-07-05T18:07:00.000-04:00

I have discussed the issues we are facing with what we refer to as clipping yield. When people ask me how often should i mow my lawn my answer is always often enough so the clippings do not make a mess. Easier said than done on several acres of rough or fairways. Most of the comments about our rough this year have been favorable. We changed our fertilizer program for this season. We are not adding a lot more overall but less applications and slightly more nitrogen for the same money. We also added a crabgrass preventative to one application. All this means is we have received more bang for our buck getting away from organic fertilizers. Some people have complained the rough is too difficult this year. It has added a nice challenge to the course. We are straight forward with no water hazards. The fescue has a certain challenge but is mostly on the outskirts. Most tees require little thought. You instantly grab driver and flail away. If superbly errant you will be punished but otherwise you chase it down and continue on. Now the rough not the "smooth" has a little teeth to it. If you find it overly difficult maybe try choosing another club off the tee to stay in the"fairway" and enjoy the shorter cut turf. I have found it interesting to hear the many favorable comments about the the added challenge the rough has presented. We have started mowing it a bit more often to ease the transition. I hope everyone enjoys the week leading into club championship.

Traffic

2011-06-30T21:20:00.002-04:00

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Great band. Love Steve Winwood but the topic is not music. It is the traffic that wears out turf. We on the crew hate ropes, stakes anything that makes our jobs tougher. We constantly try to balance the aesthetics of the course and the probability that golfers will all go in the same place and wear out the grass. Case in point the picture above. We were busy today trying to find a broken irrigation wire on four fairway. In a lull Will takes the ropes down for Otis and Fred because he is a nice guy and we try to take care of our seniors when we can. Minutes later we see this golf cart right up next to the left of the third green. Suttle reminders like this keep us from removing all the ropes, stakes and signs. My old boss had a theory that there was something in golf shoes that turned everyone into dummies. Dr's , lawyers whatever all become blinded by the fever of chasing the little white ball and lose all common sense! Next time I see someone drag their pullcart up the third tee steps i'll take a pic and repost. My guess before the end of august. Sorry for any typo's and weird stuff on this post i did it from my phone for the first time....

Beach cut update for a "fan"

2011-06-22T15:01:00.000-04:00

We have a yacht basin that has never seen a boat unless you count kayaks and canoes. It was never fully developed but remains an important feature to the health of our ecosystem. The flushing of this basin is critical in the fight against phragmites and maintaining a healthy water system. To that end we do studies to best figure out how to keep this channel open. We dredge twice a year and jump through more regulatory hoops to keep this and the next administration employed for decades. Anyway it can be the most frustrating thing because we are dealing with one of Nature's strongest forces: the Ocean. No matter how much we or the "experts" we hire think they know about the best way to do this work; in just a couple of storms we are slapped back to reality that if you fight Mother Nature you lose.

looking north out towards sound. channel barely open

west. straight down replenishment area. lots of erosion

looking west

inside jetties. large pile from last min opening barely there

looking into basin. channel still flowing but very shallow

close up of spoils or replenishment. almost all washed away

east side spoils almost gone

looking south into basin

Kevin & Mike carying in some flotsam debris

Sprayer research

2011-06-21T16:10:00.000-04:00

I was fortunate to be told I could purchase a new sprayer this late Spring. Unfortunately it was unexpected and I had not done a ton of research into exactly what I wanted. One of the few times I have been handcuffed by being on an island. I probably should have just taken an entire day and toured all around but I managed to combine the research with planned trips off-island, practical pig that's me!!! Anyway I called my vendors and received prices very early in the process. They also let me know where I could go to see one. From there I had a trip planned to New Bedford with my son Josh to see David Crosby and Graham Nash. We decided to "tour" the facilities at a course on the cape that just happened to take delivery of a brand new sprayer.

older model and issues they had with boom at first course I visited

One down three to go. On another rainy weekend I decided to spend some time with the bride in our house in Sandwich so I snuck out one early morning and drove almost to the end of the cape to check out another brand of sprayer (sorry no pictures). I had never been to this fairly new course and was treated to a drive around. On yet another trip to America for my niece's graduation and a tape delayed watching of the Bruins win the Cup I awoke at normal time with only 3.5 hrs of sleep and ventured to a course that had taken delivery of a third type of machine. No time for tours as we all had a boat to catch and work to be done so the race to Palmer ave ensued.

Chem Farm sprayer mounted on a John Deere Gator

We used to have an earlier version of this sprayer

Lastly, I swung over to Farm Neck down the street and looked at their brand new sprayer. Unfortunately I was unable to drive that one as it was half filled with chemical and hooked to a battery charger. Apparently they are having charging issues. Over $60k asking price and it is down in the shop. Yikes.

completely re-designed sprayer from Toro

covered rear boom

One round of golf, one course tour, three riding demos and four sprayers researched. All participants had good things to say about their respective sprayer. All have good and bad features. Similar in price depending on options and all quite good sprayers I am sure. I ordered the one I thought fit our needs the best and hope to have it in a month or so.

another week gone by

2011-06-17T17:53:00.000-04:00

The weather is sporadic with some nice and many not so nice. I caught a not so nice on Tuesday for the Golf Course Superintendents Association of Cape Cod's annual scholarship and research tournament. We played The Golf Club at Cape Cod in Falmouth. It is a new private club right next to Ballyemede. If you get the chance it would be well worth the boat trip. One of the best courses I have played in years. I wish I could tell you I played the best in years but that is another post...
We managed to get a little tree work done this week. Will spent some time earlier this year cutting a few dead trees and hauling them into our pit on six and then most of Wednesday dropping a few trees. The tree company came in on Thursday, sorry ladies, and chipped what he cut and also a few more he dropped Thursday. We lose about a dozen pines every year on the property and this year a couple were in the large variety.

Will cutting dead tree on Range

Brush in the pit on 6

We continue to have a few irrigation problems. 4 zones are not working with the main control system that we use. They are however working with the old stand alone satellite which only adds to the confusion. After several attempts at repair by switching out electric cards and the like today's revelation was the fact that a sprinkler came up with out a second wire even attached to the clock. For anyone that knows anything about electricity current needs a circuit to work. It travels down one wire and back another. if you remove one of the wires or say it breaks than you break the circuit and usually stuff does not work. With impending t-storms I decided to call it a day with that nightmare! About a half hour later mike came in and told me there was water running on the 3rd green cart path. Upon investigation the back left sprinkler was gushing water and dirt. Will dug as much as he could before leaving but it was all mud and still not fully exposed. I waited an hour and continued. One of the new elbows had cracked. It started sprinkling again so I called it a day on that one too! Starting to hate Fridays as much as Mondays.
Saw this Monday morning whilst hosing fairways:

Is it still called vandalism when it is your staff???

I wrapped up my sprayer investigations today with a trip to Farm Neck. More about that procedure in another post.
I try to keep this blog about stuff related to the Mink but I would be remiss if I did not mention the fact that Boston Bruins won Lord Stanley's Cup Wednesday night. I have been a big fan for my entire life and the bride and I watched almost every game this year. What a treat. Well worth all the lack of sleep and fuzzy mornings. Next week will be the first week with all staff on board. Taylor Smith is back from college out in Oregon and Mike wraps up school here on Tuesday. That means we can start to tackle little projects like mulching the beds, cleaning the woods areas of 3,8 and the left hill on 9 as well as finishing the power washing and staining of the decks. Assuming I can get ahead of the irrigation system I would like to start spraying some of the clover and crabgrass which is just starting to appear.

weekly update

2011-06-10T08:04:00.000-04:00

We finally received some much needed rain. Two massive thunderstorms rolled through this week and thankfully did no damage that we know of and gave a some nice rain. Usually not the case in thunderstorms where you get inches per hour which useless unless trying to fill a pond. We received .18 and .27 in the two storms. The place was getting a little crispy so this should even things out again. We were also starting to build up the salinity level in the soils with all that watering we were doing. The heat wave predicted was minor here with a good cloud cover most of the day and cooler sea breezes. All in all I would say we are still on the right track. We did get a couple irrigation expansions done this week as predicted. We added a part circle sprinkler to both the back left of 2 and 3 greens. Three turned out to be more work than expected when an intermittent problem turned constant and the power wire to the back left head failed completely. We simply tied it in with another head in the green loop. Not the perfect solution but it will work in a pinch and get us through the season. Probably why the rough in that section is always suffering if the head worked less than 50 percent of the time. We have always had communication problems in that corner so half the time the head would not come up we blamed the communication. I think now the wire has been on the verge of complete failure.
We also discovered irrigation issues on three fairway. Several zones are not coming up and the communication is erratic at best. I changed out a few electronic boards in the clock but did not have any success. The beat goes on.

improper wire connections

We discovered a broken head on the 9th green this week and when repairing I came across another of this technique where instead of cutting the wire and using a traditional connection and water proofing they skinned back a section of the casing and attached the sprinkler solenoid and then used electrical tape to cover. How these things works for more than a season is still a mystery but the water penetrates the casing of the wire and degrades the copper from the inside and will eventually lead to complete failure.

2nd green plumbing in a part circle sprinkler for the rough

I took a few videos of the lightning storm as it was intense wed night. I thought I would post them here but they are not as thrilling as when watching it live. My title was going to be: Bruins win: Tim Thomas posts another shutout and higher powers celebrate with light show" I really need to get more sleep. Usually I would not even stir with a t-storm at mid night but these NHL playoffs are keeping me up way past my bed time. Hopefully we win the next two and put an end to it. Go Bruins!!

Weekly update

2011-06-04T07:27:00.000-04:00

Judging by the faces we see returning to the island i would say summer is arriving. Not everyone is "down for the summer" yet but quite a few have returned. The course continues to get rave reviews. We went from a wet spell where it was always dreary and cold to some very nice days. Feast or famine. Biggest issue has been the lack of rain keeping the pollen alive and recirculating. The breezy days have not helped. We seem to be closing in on that cycle, thank goodness.
We managed to get ahead of the grass clippings for the most part only to have the oak tassels and pines dropping stuff as well as a few leaves coming down everywhere. Luckily we just had some wind and not the full force of the tornadoes that hit many communities in Mass. Still giving us a workout trying to keep the course clean, however.

Barry blowing off the 1st green so I can mow

We had a hydraulic hose blow on the second fairway. Luckily Fred heard it and pulled the mower into the rough before more damage occurred. I went out and rinsed the oil off. We use a vegetable based hyd. oil which runs cooler but the heat still torched the leaf tissue. I will check to see if the crowns are still alive before we decide what to do next to repair the damage.

washing hydraulic oil off turf

next morning

The grass on the left woods on number seven has taken hold and was actually too thick so we mowed it down. Eventually I hope for this area to be a thin and wispy fescue area. time will tell.

woods improvement #7

The deck work continues as well. I stained my stairs and deck as a trial run before starting the clubhouse porch. I also began the power washing of the lower deck and handicap ramps.

lower handicap ramp power washing

Matt staining deck

Kevin and I decided Friday would be a good day to aerify some of the weaker green surrounds. We have a lot of thatch in some of these areas and by mid summer they begin to give us issues. The best way to deal with excess thatch is to remove it. Pulling cores works well and gives us a place to add sand and or seed if necessary. We started with three and five until the belts broke on the aerifier. Just as well as it took several hours to clean up the cores and get the areas top dressed. We also did a fairway exspansion on number four and the cart path expansion on three. A productive week by any measure but especially when we lost a day with the Memorial Day Holiday Tossed in. To stay ahead of the mowing schedule I mowed fairways Sunday night. I had no intention of cutting them all but the course was slow and so I was able to get them all done in 3.5 hrs. Sorry I did not think to take a picture of mowing the last two in the dark. It was interesting to be sure.

Aerifier cores from three surrounds. No soil at all. solid thatch

Next week we will try to get a few of the irrigation sprinkler additions done. And continue to improve the decks.

Scenes from the course

2011-05-28T18:55:00.000-04:00

As I drive around the property I notice little things that peak my interest. Sometimes turf related and sometimes just a part of nature that I find curious or interesting. We often have ground spiders that build webs on the turf that are often quite striking in the morning dew. I am sure the pictures will not do them justice but this one was about the size of a baseball in the tall grass on the right of number four:

ground spider web

other times it could be something kind of gross like a pile of turkey excrement on the seventh green:

dried out and pelleted you would be happy to spread it on turf but not like this

A salesman and I were chatting the other day about the seemingly absent red thread fungus. Being a wet year it appeared to be the perfect condition for it and so he was curious why no one had seen any. Not more than a day later it was everywhere. I took a picture and emailed it to him and he responded : "Woke up this morning to see my back lawn covered in the stuff". I thought there's poetic justice for you. Not a horrible disease and usually grows right out of the damage but just another observation made.

named for the red thread like mycelium when active

Lastly a picture from last year on golf club road where I noticed these shoes and decided they might make an interesting picture (has to be a story behind their abandonment) and a couple from this year where I noticed a lady slipper for the first time just off the second green.

Bert investigating the scene

Favorite part of spring is discovering these gems

Lady Slipper just off the 2nd green

"Putting the shines On"

2011-05-26T16:47:00.000-04:00

Superintendent friend of mine calls the final touches of prepping a golf course "putting the shines on' or shining the gem. With the first big weekend upon us we are attempting to do just that. Been made much harder with the growth spurt and the wet morning conditions. seems we spend as much time cleaning up the clippings as we do mowing the place these days but this too shall pass.

clippings in the rough

clippings on the tire from the fairway

What makes the clippings a real pain is there is no where to drive to avoid them. In the morning the tires of your mower are wet and they build up there and then fall off in clumps and make a mess. The buffalo blower is getting a workout. What did we ever do without it? Adding to the clipping debris is the oak tassels or other tree debris. I told some people I should blog the following pictures with the heading: reason number 125 as to why Superintendents hate trees

six bunker with oak tassels

six green. just more work for the blower

Back to the shines. Kevin has been busy weeding the paths around the clubhouse and cart barn. We also spent some time pulling the shells out of the grass.

Kevin hard at work chasing the weeds or grass growing into path

Shells in grass