Tale of the Trap -- Part 2

Work is complete on the sand trap in front of the green on the 8th hole.  Many golfers have commented that the new trap and surrounding area will be easier to play from in some ways and more difficult in others.  Of course, the idea is to avoid it altogether! 

Here are some pictures of the construction process:

Moving soil and compacting

The new trap takes shape

The new banks are sodded

The sand has arrived!

Once the sod has fully rooted, this trap will be open for business.  Currently, it is still marked Ground Under Repair so golfers can take a free drop if they enter the area. 

The Tale of a Trap

Today, we began work on the sand bunker in front of the 8th green.  This area is currently "Ground Under Repair," meaning any golfer who 'accidentally' hits a ball into the trap may drop a ball no closer to the hole with no penalty.  If you would like to learn more about the history of this bunker, read on. . .

History

The bunkers at Sugar Creek were built in 2004 as part of the course improvements.  The trap in front of the 8th green is a vital element of the hole's design as a short but challenging par 4.  Without the bunker, golfers could "go for the green" with a driver without much risk -- if hit straight of course!  The bunker creates a nice "risk versus reward" situation for the long drive hitter and doesn't penalize the short drive hitter.  The placement of this bunker makes good sense for the hole.  It has, however, been difficult to maintain since it was built.

Here is the bunker at its best last year:

Unfortunately, the crew can only get the bunker in this condition with Mother Nature's help.  This picture was taken during a dry spell with no rain for 2 weeks.  The trap is playable under those circumstances, but any rain puts this in jeopardy.

This bunker has several problems:  

1. The top lip is dug into the sub-surface of the green so it is always crumbing
2. An old drainline from the green oozes water into the trap
3. The trap has been "over-edged." Every time the top lip crumbled, it was edged back a foot or two. From digging around, I can tell the original shape of the trap was a full 10 feet smaller! This edging has only made the situation worse.
4. During a heavy thunderstorm, water flows off the green straight into the trap.  This fills it with water and mixes soil with the sand stopping drainage.

 In short, this happened too many times:

Every time the bunker "washes out," the sand becomes mixed with soil and loses more and more of its ability to dry out. 

The Fix

To solve these problems, we are going to . . .

1. Restore the bunker to its original shape
2. Build a soil barrier between the green's sub-soil and the bunker
3. Clean sand and soil from drain lines and add clean-out ports so we can keep the lines clean
4. Shape the top lip to route as much water as possible away from the trap
5. Sod the top lip with bluegrass to slow sheet flow during a storm
6. Replace the contaminated sand and pea gravel with clean materials

With these modifications, the bunker should drain and function better than ever.  Stay posted for "Before and After" pictures!

Update:

A golfer just asked me not to fix this trap.  He said he enjoyed the "Combo hazard" -- you never knew if it was going to be water or sand!  Unfortunately we are too far along to stop now.

Are we sure this is March?

A string of record high days in the 80's has really kick-started the growing season. It's amazing what  2 weeks can do.  We have had hundreds of golfers out enjoying the course.  What a great start to the 2012 season!

9 Green with blooming Magnolias

 Here is March 16, 2010.  Not bad but nothing like this!

March 16, 2010

 Back to 2012, the first picture is from early March:

March 7, 2012

13 days later, and . . . 

March 20, 2012

March 20, 2012

An Unseasonably Warm March 14th

The "jobs board" at Sugar Creek looked suspiciously like a June day this morning with "Mow Greens," "Change Cups," and "Sand Traps" making an appearance on the same day for the first time since probably October.  It was a beautiful morning (no frost!) and a sunny afternoon. 

Gary mowing #1 green

The putting green is busy at 2pm

The crocuses are blooming already

The 1st tee

The 4th tee

#6

Here is Daphne - when I'm not at work she keeps me busy

Time to Grind

If you walk past a golf course maintenance facility this time of year, you will most likely hear the sound of grinding wheels, air rachets, and other assorted power tools. Winter maintenance of golf course equipment is essential to keeping them sharp and operational. At Sugar Creek, we use two Neary grinders to spin-grind reels and grind bedknives back into cutting shape. These grinders are considered "classics" but they do their job well if you are careful and treat them nicely.  Throughout the season, we touch-up and adjust these reels twice a week but winter is when we re-grind and re-set all the cutting angles and surfaces.

Here are some pictures of Greens King IV reels being worked on:

Our equipment technician uses very precise gauges and calipers to ensure that the reels are not slightly cone-shaped or the bedknives tilted. He often uses this Interapid indicator to test within a 10,000th of an inch if everything is coming out straight and parallel. Here you can see the indicator being used on the bedknife grinder:

Winter is when golf course equipment technicians shine. In addition to sharpening and grinding reels and blades, they change bearings, grease joints, change oil, rebuild engines, service hydraulics, replace brake pads, and a whole bunch of other stuff that I won't list here. After finishing grinding and preventative maintenance on the machines, we will be replacing the reels on the fairway mower and refurbishing the groomers on our greens mower early next year.

In the above photo, you can see the groomer blades on the greens mower cutting units.  The bearings and adjustment hardware are worn out making it very difficult to set them precisely and have them stay there.  Grooming is tricky as it is without having the cutting depth change on you.  Ideally we like the little vertical blades to go into the "canopy" of the turf just slightly and lift up leaf blades that are getting too long or running sideways (about .030" below height of cut on greens).  Having groomers too deep could damage the green and would eventually break groomers -- for deep cutting we have verti-cutter units.  Going too shallow will have no effect at all.  Since accurate adjustment is so important, the bearings and hardware on these groomers needs to be replaced once in a while to produce a quality results.

Somebody once told me Superintendents swear by groomers; mechanics swear at them.  This will most likely be true in our shop sometime in mid to late January when we take them apart and start fixing them up. 

Frost Delays

Reposted from April 2010:

Since we have a frost delay today, I thought I would post some information on frost and frost delays.  No one likes frost delays - maintenance workers especially - but they are necessary for the health of the course.  Golf course employees ask for your understanding during frost delays.  We don't like them either.

Here are some key points from the Golf Course Superintendent Association:

• Frost is basically frozen dew that has crystallized on the grass, making it hard and brittle. A grass blade is actually 90 percent water, therefore it also freezes.

• Walking on frost-covered greens causes the plant to break and cell walls to rupture, thereby losing its ability to function normally.

• When damaged, the putting surface weakens and becomes more susceptible to disease and weeds.

• One foursome can leave several hundred footprints on each green, causing extensive damage.

• A short delay while the frost melts can preserve the quality of the greens and prevent needless repairs.

You can find a more detailed article on frost formation and effects in this article - "The Big Chill"

The following is a video from the USGA:

October Pictures

Fall always makes for some great golf weather, and great pictures.  The weather lately has been perfect for misty mornings and sunny, clear afternoons.  Enjoy!  You can click on the pictures for a larger view.

A Week after Aerification : Update

For the last few days, a low pressure system has been swirling over Chicagoland.  At Sugar Creek, we have had around 3 inches of rain in total.  Not all at once, though, but in six hour soakers spaced about 12 hours apart.  Wonderful!  Believe it or not, these are very busy weeks for a maintenance crew -- in a different way than usual.  We have not been able to mow fairways, but we have been able to mow everythings else very slowly.  Sand traps have been a constant battle.  In weather like this, we pump them just to give us a shot at drying them faster after it stops raining.  Since you never know when will be the last shower for the week, sometimes we pump them only to have them fill up again.  That's just the chance you take.

On a positive note, the greens have healed quickly from aerification last week.  After one week's time, they now look like this:

1 Week after Aerification

Close-up of #1 Green

They will be putting nicely once they get a chance to dry out a little.

Flooded bunkers have been common this week:

This is Gary's third time pumping traps this week.  You can also see him pulling weeds while he waits for the double sump pump arrangement to do its job.  Great job, Gary!

Gary's daily ritual : Pumping and weeding!

The last problem areas are filling in with slit seeding and aerification:

5 Tee slit seeding

The 5th tee has always been challenging to grow.  It is affected by morning shade, hard subsoil, and heavy use.  Being a short hole, divots are often very large and numerous.  We ask that players refrain from practicing, or taking multiple shots, on this tee for obvious reasons:

Divots on 5 tee

Divots taken during the course of regular play are necessary, but these divots were not between the tee blocks and are probably from just one golfer "practicing".  Ouch.

Looks like we may have one more sprinkle before a nice dry week!

Aerifying Day 2011

It's that time of year again!  The greens at Sugar Creek were aerified on September 21 with a deep tine machine that loosens up the ground up to 8 inches deep.  Aerifying is essential to the long term health of a green.  Here are a few pictures of the process.

We started spreading sand before the deep tine machine this year.  This helped it dry out before brushing.  Here is the deep tine machine on the first green:

Topdressing the greens:

In this photo, you can see the brush in action on the 5th green and the tractor aerifying the 7th green:

After brushing as much sand as possible into the holes, we used some custom built brush reels on the old greens mower.  These reels have a bedknife set to a little under our usual height of cut.  Brushes then come around to pick up extra sand and debris and collect it in the baskets.  These brush reels help to create a puttable surface:

After the first day, the greens look something like this area:

We try hard not to over-sand them even if all the holes aren't full to the top. It is easy to add more sand later but very difficult to get rid of too much.  After testing many spots, the holes almost never interfer with putting after we roll the greens out.  At least in my opinion, excessive sand is more difficult to putt on and can delay recovery. 

At the end of the process, we used a pull behind roller to smooth out any bumps.  One of the difficulties of dealing with recently aerified greens is dew in the morning.  The next two mornings were too dewy to mow or roll the greens without making them clumpy and unputtable.  Instead, we will be brushing and mowing them in the afternoon after they have dried out. 

They are putting smoothly and especially in the dry afternoon are almost too fast.  Some golfers even told me they loved putting them the afternoon after they were done.  Others said they liked the challenge of the different speed.  I hear a rumor that some golfers are not big fans of aerification, but I haven't run into them yet . . .  Well, maybe one or two!