The Dog Days Have Begun

It has been quite a while since the last blog post, which reflects just how busy we have been so far this year. I do enjoy writing these posts, but as the season is ramping up it is hard to find time to sit down and go through the writing process when there are more important things to take care of on the course. In this entry I would like to talk about some of the issues we have had over the past few months.

Feeling the Heat

With a recent heat wave sweeping through the southern part of our Province, the course is showing the weak spots of irrigation coverage. The system has literally been running beyond capacity in the last few weeks, we have had to turn on our backup pump system to try and keep up with the course's demand for water. You may notice some dry areas and some wet areas. The dry areas are a result of poor irrigation coverage, while the wet areas are a symptom of trying to keep the dry areas near them alive. Keep in mind that although we have a new irrigation system there were many areas that were cut back during the Renovation, and that even with our old irrigation system we were still adding sprinkler heads and making adjustments for 30 years after it was installed and right up to the new one was started. Our new system is much better than the old one but it will take time and money to continue improving it.

Another problem we face with our irrigation system is our dependance on the City Effluent/Waste Water. The effluent is great because we did not have to put in a new pump house with pumps during the Renovation, saving the Club a great deal of money, but now the new system is designed around using the Effluent as our main source. The effluent can often become "dirty" with debris and sediment from the reservoir, which makes its way into our system, clogging up our sprinkler heads. Clogged sprinkler heads give us a 'head'-ache. Haha, bad joke.

The debris also gets caught in the sprinkler valves, causing them to stay on until we arrive in the morning and shut them off manually.We have been in conversation with the city about installing a filter on the effluent line and will see where that goes.

We have also had a problem with some of the sprinkler valves leaking and creating small puddles around the sprinkler head. Yes, we know they are there and we are planning to fix them. One of these valves costs $70 which can get quite costly, we are looking at getting some on warrenty.

The 5th tee was accidentally turned off when a sprinkler head on the 5th fairway (puddle shown above) was stuck on and was manually turned off, then fixed. When the fifth fairway was turned back on, the person fixing it did not know the tee had also been turned off by mistake. It was not noticed for a few days, and in 36 degree heat... the result was a burnt tee complex. However, yesterday we pulled out all the tricks in the book to get it back as soon as possible. This includes Verticutting, Aerating, and topdressing with divot mix, followed by manually brushing it into the holes. Hopefully mother natures lets up on the heat a little and the tee's should come back quite quickly.


"It's a Bunker, not a sand box"

One of the few complaints we have heard this year is about the lack of sand in the bunkers. We realize that it is not fun to hit a shot out of a bunker to find that there is almost no sand underneath your ball. However, there is nowhere in the rulebook of golf that says bunkers, or any hazard for that matter should be consistent. After all, a bunker is in fact a hazard and a player should be penalized for being in there.

Despite using this excuse, we actually do want to make the bunkers consistent and add sand or move sand around to the places that need them. Our main issue with this is our small staff. With a staff of 8 people plus 2 part timers, we have to prioritize our tasks. I hope to get the bunkers more consistent by the Sunshine Open, so please bare with us and do your part, raking bunkers after your shot, fixing ball marks, and filling divots, whether or not they are your footprints, marks or divots. We do our best with our short staff, but it is just not possible to do all of these things on a daily basis, especially when we start our shift at 5:30 and the first tee times start at 6:30.


Hydraulic Rupture

Some Members have also asked "What happened on the 12th fairway?" We had a fairway mower rupture a hydraulic hose, which can happen over time. The burning hot oil scalds the grass, usually killing it within minutes. We tried to wash it off and cool it down with irrigation water, but it was too late, the damage was done. Luckily our operator was quick to notice as soon as he turned around, stopped mowing and got off the fairway. One of my collegues from another course in the Vernon area just had a similar rupture on their fairway mower and the operator did not notice... so they now have burn marks up and down the entire fairway! Yikes! We pulled out all the tricks again, this time scalping it down with a greens mower to remove the oil stained grass, verticut, aerate, topdress and brush with divot mix. Hopefully we see it recover shortly.


Greens Mowers

Greens stimping

Another comment, not really a complaint that I have heard is "can we get the greens to roll faster?" The answer is No, at least not with our current greens mowers. My philosophy for the greens this year has always been health over speed. After last years disease outbreak we didn't want to push the greens too hard. We have been using sand topdressing to achieve speed, but the effects of this only last about a week before the sand is pushed down into the turf canopy. We have stimped the speed of the greens regularly, and our average speed is around 9.5 feet, which I feel is a good happy medium for our membership and the contour of our greens. I would like to get the a bit faster, pushing 10.5 or 11 for a tournament.


Now that summer is here and we have established a decent root mass in most areas, we can look at getting the greens a bit faster. With our current greens mowers we cannot cut lower with out scalping on mounds and contours. The cutting heads pivot 2 ways, side to side, and up and down length wise. The new Toro "Tri"flex pivots 3 ways, allowing the cutting heads to roll back or forward while going over contours and mounds.

Triflex Cutting head "Tri-flexing"

We have demoed a few new greens mowers, one from John Deer, one from Jacobsen to see some of the other technology out there. We liked the JD but thought our current mowers can do the job just as well. The Jacobsen has a great deal of interesting technology such as brushes that lift the grass before you cut, and an adjustable clip rate to cut more or less grass as desired, but we still feel our current Toro greens mowers were able to match the cut quality.

Toro Triflex 3400

We have recently worked out a deal with our Toro supplier to return our walk behind greens mowers,which we no longer use due to our short staff situation, and replace them with a new Toro Tri-flex riding greens mower, without changing our lease payments. We believe that with the new Tri-flex we will be able to cut lower with out scalping, and speed the greens up as needed. This issue is currently waiting approval from the Board of Directors, and should be official in the next week or two, should everything be approved financially.




 Thanks to the Staff and Members

The Turf Care staff would like to thank all the Members who came out to the Staff Appreciation Dinner to recognize the hard work the Club's staff has put in so far this year. The Pro-shop and Clubhouse staff have also been a big part of the Club's success this year and I thought it was good to get everyone together under one roof. A special thanks goes out to those members who volunteered to cook, serve and bartend during this event, we certainly felt welcome and it was great to see some Club spirit.