The Country Club of Naples Golf Maintenance Blog

There's a new blog in town....last post on this page

2016-12-07T12:56:00.003-05:00

It's been a while since I have put out a blog posting. It's primarily due to the fact that I do most of them from my iphone on the fly as I'm out on the course. Despite several attempts lately, I have not been able to post anything due to an app glitch on my phone that keeps crashing the blog post I was working on for the previous 5 minutes.

So, I have decided to switch blog platforms. I will now be using WordPress instead of Blogger. The address for the new blog is https://ccngolfmaint.wordpress.com . Many of you will automatically get the feed as I tapped into the Clubhouse renovation blog subscriber's list to include those people already. However, if you do not get the posts automatically and wish to, you can go to the new blog page, scroll to the bottom and add your email address into the database for auto delivery.

This blogger platform lasted me many years and I will leave it up, but its time to move onto a better blogging experience.

Thanks for following along,

Billy

Perfect

2016-11-17T22:40:00.001-05:00

Flowers on 12

2016-11-02T06:50:00.000-04:00

I have received a lot of questions regarding the flowers that used to be around the 12th tee since a lot of the membership is has gotten back. Don't worry, I have a plan.

As many of you remember, the 12th tee used to have a rock face along side the cart path that was landscaped seasonally with flowers. Due to the tee expansion project the rocks and landscaping bed were removed to make room for the needed additional teeing ground. Since there is no room on the tee to make a landscaping bed, I'll make a new one between the cart paths. Beginning in the Spring, the grass area between the two cart paths that are close together will be spray out in preparation for a new flower bed. The small strip of grass has irrigation lines and drainage lines under it so I couldn't put trees there as the roots will grow into the drainage lines and around all the pipes. However, it will make a great spot for the replacement flower bed.

The grass is going to take several applications of herbicide over a few months to kill the Celebration effectively. Remember, bermuda grass is one of the world's worst and most persistent weeds....we just utilize it to play golf on. If it gets into a landscaping bed it is exceptionally difficult to remove. Thus the long and deliberate methodology to kill before planting the flowers. This is why the area hasn't been converted yet. I didn't want there to be a giant section of dead grass just sitting there for months when everyone came back.

Happening stuff

2016-09-28T14:31:00.001-04:00

The final push is happening to prep the golf course for "season" and things are looking good. Here are a few of the items we are doing this week.

Annual cart path rehab. This is a major event as it is super labor intensive. First the paths are edged and then they are capped with new material. This project will take about 3 weeks.

Sand trap rehab. This process is known as the sand shuffle and is key to longevity and playability of the bunkers. Every trap is checked by digging down through the bunker sand to the native soil below to see how much actual bunker sand there is. If more than 4-5" of sand is present, it is moved to where there is not enough. If not enough sand is there to move and more sand is needed, sand is hauled in. Depth uniformity is key to maximize playability and you'd be shocked at how much the depth changes over a year's time.

Mulch bed rehab. The entire course has fresh pine straw put in the beds. I love it when the straw goes down, makes the place look "ready."

Accessories rehab. All of the tee signs have been painted and look amazing. They are black with silver letters and numbers. The signs look so good I am having the ball washers and posts painted as well.

Not really rehab, but definitely needed maintenance. All short grass areas are being topdressed this week. This is a key component to maintaining a firm playing surface.

Palm tree rehab. The process of trimming all 1200 palms have begun. It's a 3-4 week endeavor. We recycle all the fronds into landscape mulch to use on the perimeter fence lines.

Ficus hedge rehab. All trimmed up and looking good.

Another one in the books

2016-09-20T15:18:00.001-04:00

Today we finished planting all the new oak trees along Burning Tree Dr, and it was a challenge.

Due to space constraints between buried infrastructures I wasn't able to get as large a tree as I wanted to.

I had to size down the plant material so the root ball would be able to squeeze the trees in between buried electric lines and the City's potable water mainlines.

The good news is that the smaller sized trees are cheaper so I was able to save some money. That let me buy more trees to replace the ones that were lost over the years due to storms. We cut down 9 trees along burning tree and I put back 13. With any luck we won't get any major storms over the next 10-15 years and the trees will get huge and canopy the road a little.

My team also finished the curbing install on 13 green. Looks fantastic!

We're ahead but time is running out

2016-09-19T10:06:00.001-04:00

If this time of year could be equated to a football game it would be the fourth quarter, two minutes to go, and we are in a no huddle offense. Things are really starting to move quickly here at the club while we get ready to wrap up our summer season agronomics, as well as begin landscaping the clubhouse grounds. The next 3 to 4 weeks are going to be insane with all varying stages of chaos trying to get everything done before season gets here.

The cart path curbing project on 12 is complete. I had the guys curb the entire tee from the white's to the red's. Looks great! I also added some new pond cypress trees to match the existing cypress head where I could between 11 fairway and the new tee on 12. The area of grass between the cart paths has irrigation and drainage pipes below it so the space for trees was limited.

Trevor is beginning to install curbing on 13 green. The ground is so rocky we always try to do most digging with a machine when possible.

The back nine new green's perimeters are growing in nicely. To help some of areas fill quicker in I am having the team plug out some of the larger spots. The front 9 perimeters are completely grown in and look great. It's amazing what 30 days difference will make when growing in turf.

Because our summer agronomics are so aggressive we create a ripe opportunity for weeds to invade the golf course. Instead of spraying lots of chemicals to control weeds, a lot of times it is much more effective to just get some guys and a good 'ol fashioned knife and cut them out. Over the last week Trevor had a couple guys in rouging the turf for weeds and the results have been a tremendous improvement.

I was finally able to get this little machine in to trim the ficus hedge behind the Club's sign on the corner of Solana and Burning Tree Dr. The ficus was starting stretch way out and almost touch the sign. The hedge is going to be a little thin and you'll be able to see my shop area for a bit until the ficus thickens up to conceal my area. I tried to get this machine in back in July when the other hedges were trimmed but it had broken part of its robotic arm. Took a while to repair.

I had all of the utilities located along Burning Tree Dr so my team could start installing the new Oak trees. Install should start later today.

Essentially the new course restrooms are complete. There's a few items left but the building is there and they look great. It's time for me to landscape them as well. Over the next two weeks my goal is to wrap up all of my golf course projects. Site work for the new clubhouse is going to start soon and I'm going to need to be able to shift staff to it as there is a LOT of work to be done to get the landscaping back up and running. What was ripped out had to be replaced and what was trampled by construction trucks needs to be identified and repaired. Then we have to add all the new plants to make the Old Florida look shine.

Lots going on and lots to do......

Pushing rope up hill

2016-09-12T17:09:00.001-04:00

With the daily afternoon down pours, trying to get things done around the course has been like trying to push rope uphill. When it looks like we need to go right, things go left and bunch up!

Despite the daily rain event, my team has continued to make small daily progress. The new par 3 tees are open, the range tee is back open (when not to soggy), the new green's perimeters are filling in nicely, and we began some new projects.

Railroad tie curbing install has started. My team began installing 3 green today....but got ran off by rain. We have a full docket of new curbs to install this year: 3 green, 6 silver tee, 11 green, 12 tees, 13 green and 16 green. It's an ambitious goal!!!!

Our annual cart path "cut back" is getting ready to take place. To prepare for the trimming we sprayed the edges of the cart paths with a herbicide to kill the grass. This way when the grass is removed the roots will not take a large chunk of cart path material with it.

My team has also just finished laying out 6500 square feet of sod on some thin spots in the fairways. These areas are the ones that we are constantly struggling with in season. Experience has taught me that most of the time if you just cut out the struggling grass and sod it the issues go away. Most of the sod is on 5 fairway but there are spots here and there.

The weather forecast is to be rainy all week. There's a short window of opportunity left before everyone returns and a whole lot to get done still. If we could just catch a break from the weather we could make up some needed ground.

Clubhouse tree removal

2016-09-07T12:33:00.001-04:00

Over the last several days I had a tree company in to remove the large Mahogany trees lining Burning Tree Drive. The reason for removal is because the large Mahogany seedpods would fall and crack windshields or worse, dent cars. Additionally the trees were very messy, dropping tremendous amount of leaves into convertible's interior and car windshield wiper hood gaps.

New Oak trees will be installed to replace the removed trees.

I also had the very large Royal Palm behind the Clubhouse that was adjacent to the putting green removed. The palm was so large that I couldn't trim it any more which left it to drop things all over the green, and it didn't fit into the new landscape plan for the back of the Clubhouse.

The plan is to accentuate the enormous Black Olive tree. All the shrubs and electrical stuff under the tree will be removed, new up lighting will be installed under the Black Olive to light it at night, and beautiful seasonal flowers will be installed to make the tree a signature spot. It's all in various stages of chaos, but I needed to get the trees removed now before the major palm tree trimming season starts at the end of the month and the vast majority of tree trimmers are busy.

How my day usually goes

2016-09-07T06:57:00.001-04:00

My father is one of those guys who has a saying for everything. He would of characterized yesterday's rain storm as a "frog strangler!" Although the recent tropical storm had long past, you would of thought is miraculously reappeared here and unleashed it's fury and then left as fast as it showed up, dumping 1.2 inches of rain in 30 minutes.

Mr. Benson in Moorings Park sent me this picture looking out the window of his unit on the top floor right after the storm passed. The view is looking north down hole 7 and all the flooded drain basins are a good indication of the intensity of the rain.....course closed, see everyone tomorrow.

What's happening around CCN

2016-08-29T09:48:00.001-04:00

Lots of sprinkler leveling happening

Lots of landscaping trimming happening. All ficus hedges were trimmed and cleaned up.

Lots of local "recips" happening

Lots of new green's perimeter grow-in happening

Lots of fertilizing happening

Lots of raining happening....like every day happening

Lots of new bathroom construction happening

Lots of new teeing grounds happening

Lots of new range tee grow-in happening

Lots of preparing to sit down happening

Lots of drain basin leveling happening

A lot of getting ready to start installing rail road tie curbing

Lots of new Solana Road landscaping by RP happened

Lots of beautiful new Clubhouse construction has been happening

Lots of prepping for our annual cart path refurbishment happening. Line them out, spray them out, edge, then cap them all.

Lots of new grasses happened....2000 of them

Lots of equipment repairs happening too

It's been a pretty wild summer so far with all the improvements and hurtles to overcome, like weather. And by the looks of the tropical depression in the Atlantic it might get to be a really crazy place here soon. Guess we have to wait and see what happens.

Finally, a bright sun shiny day....oh wait, spoke too soon

2016-08-08T08:15:00.001-04:00

This blog post was over a two day period. My how things change fast.

Sat afternoon.....

Ever since the first aerification in June it's been raining a lot. So much so that it's been difficult to do most remedial things like mowing some times. Here is a list of rain events since June.

As you can see the rain has been pretty consistent. Due to the constant rain threat I've been hesitant to fertilize the course in fear of it being washed down the drains. The result has been a slowly recovering turf.

Thankfully this last week the rain subsided a bit and my team was able to get the course fertilized to promote growth. Due to the rain being so relentless this summer the grass is still a little thin, so I am going to modify the third aerification series a bit so it's not so aggressive. It is better to have more grass this time of year than not enough.

This aerification session my team will just punch holes and sand most things, plug bare areas in the new green's perimeters, sod some areas where the insects have destroyed the grass, continue raising sprinkler heads and drains, and general maintenance stuff. There will be no wall to wall heavy verti-cutting.

So it was a beautiful weekend, Sunny, hot, and then Sunday evening rolls in.

Monday morning.....

Over night the course received constant rain for hours totalling 1.25" in all. Thankfully the rain stopped around 3 a.m. and the course drained a bit as today I am having the course injected with a chemical called Curfew to kill soil living pests. Wouldn't you know it though, it rained again right before the Curfew guys started. Thankfully it was just a quick blast and not substaintial.

The Curfew material is custom injected by an outside company. It is sliced into the ground six inches deep as a high pressure gas that vaporizes and diffuses up through the soil killing all insects and pests except ants. For some reason ants are immune. The super high soil moisture content of the course actually helps in this case. Since there is no tarping to hold the gas in place, irrigation is needed afterwards to retard the volitity of the gas. Due to all the rain, my staff will not have to irrigate as much after the application. The reason the course is closed for 3 days is because of the re-entry restrictions. Any treated areas cannot be entered until 24 hours after application. So all day today and most of tomorrow my staff will be working in the landscaping and other areas of the course. Wednesday my staff will be out repairing any sod damage and putting the course back together for play on Thursday.

A message from my friends at the UF extension office.......

2016-08-01T09:47:00.002-04:00

When designing a privacy hedge, its a good idea to use multiple species of shrubs. The ficus whitefly destruction was an example of what can happen when we have a monoculture (one plant species in a hedge). I now see a replacement monoculture of Clusia (pitch apple) and hopefully we won't have a new Clusia insect or disease which will wipe out these new hedges. For lonterm sustainablilty, think of hedges composed of multiple-species to avoid pest ruination (an IPM tactic)!

See native plant selection ideas in our new video filmed at the Naples Botanical Garden with Chad Washburn:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndY8KK7cXbI

Sweetpotato whitefly (Photo by Jeffrey W. Lotz, FDACS)- be on the lookout for the new Q strain, especially on hibiscus, lantana and crossandra. This one can be a major problem on 100's of species of vegetables and ornamentals. See info here:

http://collier.ifas.ufl.edu/commhort/CommHortPubs/Scouting%20for%20the%20Q%20Whitefly.pdf

Oleander caterpillar numbers seem to be on the increase compared to the last few years. If you see these beautiful, wasp-like moths (above), look for the clusters of eggs (above) they are depositing and clip the leaves off! Repeating generations of caterpillars can wreck the appearance of an oleander hedge! The caterpillars (below) are a day-glow orange with soft black hairs. See more at:
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/IN/IN13500.pdf

Doug Caldwell, Ph.D.

AKA DR. DOUGBUG

Doug is the Commercial Landscape Horticulture Extension Educator and landscape entomologist with the University of Florida.

The Extension Service is an off-campus branch of the University of Florida, Institute of the Food and Agricultural Sciences [IFAS] and a department of the Public Services Division of Collier County government.

Copyright © 2016 University of Florida | Collier County Extension, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you are a landscape professional or a homeowner who has shown an interest in beautifying your landscape and protecting the environment.

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University of Florida | Collier County Extension

14700 Immokalee Road

Naples, Florida 34120

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The Cooperative Extension Service is an off-campus branch of the University of Florida, Institute of the Food and Agricultural Sciences and a department of the Public Services Division of Collier County government. Extension programs are open to all persons without regard to race, color, creed, sex, handicap or national origin. For updates on the southwest Florida horticulture visit Doug's website:
http://collier.ifas.ufl.edu/CommHort/HomeCommHort.shtml

Fertilize Your Palms Regularly

tee renovation update and other news

2016-07-26T12:01:00.000-04:00

The tee renovations are all complete and the sprigs are growing. Growing so much so that we are already mowing the newly planted grass. To ensure that the tees are level when they open for play and not all clumpy like they are now, a lot has to be done. The basic principle pretty simple, take the top down and bring the bottom up at the same time...along with some verti-cutting and other things. As the cut is lowered it will purposefully scalp off the mounds of grass, and sanding every week will fill the voids giving a smooth surface for the grass to grow on.

Fresh planted

Little over a wk old

The purpose of the tee renovations was to increase the available teeing ground to accommodate the golfing demands of the club. In 2009 when the course was redesigned we were only playing 25,000 rounds of golf so the smaller tee sizes worked. Now that the club is full, or nearly full, we are playing over 30,000 (probably closer to 35,000) rounds and the smaller tees were not able to spread out the wear enough. What was left behind essentially was perpetual divot during the winter months, not much different than the range tee. Too much use and not enough area to spread it out.

To solve the problem I consulted with the golf course architect, Gordon Lewis, about making some adjustments and we came up with the current shape and size of the renovated tees. These very large teeing grounds should give ample room to spread wear out and provide sufficient time for the grass to recover during the winter golfing season. Remember, these are par 3 tees and most people are taking large divots which require time to heal.

Although the vast majority of the changes to the new teeing grounds are completed, there are a few items left to do to wrap up the projects. The new teeing ground on 6 still needs to have some landscape grasses added at the bottom of the new tee slopes to tie into the existing landscaping. On hole 12, I will be adding a few trees between 11 fairway and 12 tee. Not many as I don't want to create a shade issue again, but some to give just the slightest hint of separation between holes.

The range tee is healing in quickly and should produce a fantastic hitting surface. The tee is basically in a grow-in mode. There's lots of new growth filling in.

Day after leveling

Today

In other news, it has been raining constantly! The constant rain has played havoc on my plans to complete some of the items that would normally be done during the closure week - like sanding fairways. The ground is so saturated that it is becoming difficult to even mow, let alone drag a loaded sand trailer around. The only good thing about all the rain is that it is showing us where we need to do a drainage project, or two, or six. This next intermission between aerifications will be concentrated on landscape trimming and leveling of sprinklers and drains. Fortunately none of that work requires machinery so the soggy ground should not be an issue.

Closure #2 - feeling dead but rising

2016-07-18T11:08:00.000-04:00

This past week has been one of the hardest aerification weeks I have experienced in nearly 20 years of golf course maintenance. The relentless rain, tremendous work load and my uncompromising expectations for the week kept the pace at a breakneck speed. The good news is although we are not ahead like usual, we are not slipping too far behind.

A lot of this past week's focus was vertical mowing the fairways, tees and green's followed by aerifying. This is a massive endeavor, let alone to do it in 5 or 6 days. "What about the 7th day?" you might be thinking. The 7th day is needed to put the golf course back together just so it's playable. We have to blow out all the bunkers and repair the edges, put back all of the yardage markers that were removed for aerifications, reset all the pins, tees, trash cans, and all sorts of stuff that gets removed in preparation for aerification week. So out of this week's closure I really only have 6 days, and those 6 days were filled with a lot of set backs.

Due to the Celebration grass's aggressive growth habit, it generates a lot of thatch and grain. To manage all of this it is imperative to heavily vertical mow the turf. This is what heavy vertical mowing looks like. My rule of thumb is if the material isn't flying at least as high as the canopy of the tractor then we are not going deep enough.

Here is a video of how aggressive the fairway vertical mowing is. For those up north, you should show this to your Supt up there. Be careful though, he might freak out!

The resulting mess then had to be cleaned up. I rent 3 turf vacuums, plus use the one I have to clean it all up

All of the vertical mowing produces a tremendous amount of thatch that needs to be hauled off. In total approximately 450-500 cubic yards of dead thatch and material will be removed. This is just a few hours worth of material from vacuuming the fairways post vertical mowing.

Then, after cleaning up the verti-cutting we aerify everything making another huge mess, have to vacuum up all of that as well, then we come in and circle cut down the remaining grass to eliminate grain. It's a huge under taking, but it's worth it.

Circle cutting is not a real fun job. It's hot, dirty, it's a you go home with dust where it shouldn't be type job.

This is why is called circle cutting

this is not CCN, just a great pic to show circle cutting

Circle cutting is a very aggressive style of cutting because the cutting unit isn't riding flat across the surface, it's being forced into the canopy by the "turn" of the machine. It is a great way to really attack the excessive grain of the grass during times of active growth.

Nearly everyday though, it has rained. Not your typical summer rain where you think to yourself "Oh, look honey it's raining." It has rained like the end of days type rain, massive quantities in very violent fashion. All of the heavy rains didn't do the course any favors. Lots of washout in bunkers, lots of flooding, lots of washout on newly sodded areas.

soil wash out under new sod

Despite all of the adverse weather, the crew persevered daily and just repaired the previous day's damage and made daily progress. Some of the great progress made was on the teeing ground renovations of holes 6 & 12. The only thing we have left to do for these two huge projects is install the cart path material on hole 12. All of the construction and grassing is done.

hole 6 from start to finish

starting to fill in the low areas

adding more dirt to expand the tee north

this was all landscaping

rail road tie curbing installed on the new blue/white tee #6

grassed with sprigs

grassing complete

aerial view over 6 tee, the front and middle of the tee is almost 3 times as wide

Hole 12 start to finish

stripping the tee from the red to the back of the white

grassing complete on this huge tee

aerial view of 12 over the back tee

We also completed moving the cart path away from the green on 5

clearing out all of the trees in the way of the new cart path

new cart path area filled, cart path material installed and ready to grass

laying sod from the old cart path edge to the new cart path

project complete

Last Thursday, during the course closure, the Club hosted another Celebration field day for turf managers across the state. There were 30 guys that showed up from all across Naples and Ft. Myers, some from the east coast and even the two USGA agronomists in Florida attended. It was a great day to share ideas and showcase our maintenance practices as a template for others to build their programs from.

One of the new practices the USGA wanted to showcase is what is called Fraze mowing. This is a cultural practice that has come out of the sports field area that is being adapted to golf. Essentially when you Fraze mow you are milling the surface off at a specific thickness. Think of how roads are milled down before being repaved....same concept, only a smaller machine.

approx. 1.25" milled off

As you can see in the picture above, the road milling analogy is very accurate. This pass is about 1.25 inches deep. The purpose of going so deep on the range tee is to try to level it out somewhat. Over the years of daily random sand applications to the divots the tee has become very, very bumpy (or wavy). Traditionally there is no way of correcting this without stripping the entire tee, laser grading, and then regrassing. Now with the invention of these new machines it is possible to laser plan the tees regularly to prevent from having to do a traditional re-grass. All of the stems left behind as seen in the picture will sprout new leaves and the turf will recover in a 3-4 weeks.

Even though I had the top 1.25 inches of the tee removed, you can see from this aerial picture that there are still several low spots indicated by the green patches. The milling process will fix the entire tee if you keep going deeper, but that will eliminate all of the needed grass rhizomes for recovery. If the tee is truly pot holed like ours was, it will take several years to level it back out and still have some grass left to regrow from.

green spots mean the area was more than 1.25" below the rest of the area.

Some of the green spots were really low, as in the case of this sprinkler head. This head was leveled to the teeing ground two years ago, but is now still 4-5 inches low. That's how much sand is added annually to the range tee.

Having the range tee Fraze mowed served two purposes: 1) to level the tee somewhat 2) to generate sprigs for the new par 3 tees being renovated. The Fraze mowing machine generates spectacular sprigs as it pulverizes the thick grass on the tee into perfect sprigs, and then shoots it out the conveyor belt. Check out this video of what happens to the turf as it is Fraze mowed. It is literally a sod to sprigs conversion.

I will take weekly aerial pictures of the range tee to show how fast the grass recovers. Think of the turf loss like one enormous divot!

During this past week's closure the staff successfully finished recapturing the putting surface perimeters on the back nine. After only one month the new perimeters on the front were nearly grown in, so there's no reason to not expect a rapid establishment and grow-in for the back nine as well.

#11 perimeter freshly replanted with aerification cores

#2 putting surface perimeter after only 30 days being planted

Another great thing that happened this past week I'm sure all the people who use the pool will love is the conversion of the pool from a traditional chlorine pool to a salt water pool. No longer will liquid chlorine be used to keep the pool clean. These new units will spilt the ionized salt molecule back into their separate atoms of sodium and chlorine. The chlorine atom keeps the pool sanitized and then the two ions will eventually bond back together to form salt. This type of system is not hard on swimmer's clothes, hair, or eyes. Salt is silky they say! Due to the size of the pool and production capacity of the units, two units had to be installed to keep up with the sanitation demands of that much water.

As many of you know I am good friends with the Superintendent at Royal Poinciana. He and I were talking last week and he told me that RP is getting ready to start landscaping the median island from Goodlette up to the entrance of RP. I'm happy to say that today they started to install the underground infrastructure in the median. It won't be long before the entire median will be landscaped from Goodlette Road to Burning Tree Drive.

Don't forget to check out the clubhouse renovation blog at Clubhouse renovation . There's lots going on everywhere around here!

Green's update

2016-06-27T09:14:00.001-04:00

It's been a couple weeks since the perimeters of the putting surfaces were redone and I'm happy to say the new grass is coming in nicely.

It's been raining like crazy here so that's been helping a lot with the grass growth.

The course is in great shape considering what I did to it last month. It's amazing how fast the Celebration recovers.

Tee expansion project work continues on 6 & 12. This morning we are removing all the rocks and steps on 12 to prepare for hauling in more dirt to widen the tee.

The tee will be widened to the West all the way to the edge of the cart path and cut to be all the same level. This will give tremendous variability for spreading divot wear.

5 green / 6 tee.... fill dirt is being hauled in for the raised cart path by 5 green.

We are doing two things by raising the cart path by 5 green. First, the intention is to make it harder for a rolling ball to go left across the path and into the landscaping. Secondly, we are sculpting the ground to channel surface water to the existing drain basin so we do not have to modify it as well. There are a lot of things to consider for even a small project like this one.

Also be sure to check out the clubhouse renovation blog as well. The clubhouse is looking good and moving along nicely. The goal is to try and have the roof sheeted and dried in by the end of week. That would be a huge milestone.

Summer projects

2016-06-20T13:44:00.001-04:00

Lots to do this summer with some aggressive projects planned.

Here the staff is ripping out what's left of the 50 years worth of asphalt by 5 tees. This area of asphalt was not removed in the renovation of 2009 to save money and has always not blended in the way it should. It will have a new aggregate cart path installed and shaped to perfectly fit the area.

Once the material is loaded it is then brought to 6 white tee area to be used as a base filler for the tee expansion project. The tee is being expended northward to the Mooring's Park fence line, but in order to do that the littoral needs to be filled in. To save money, the littoral is being 80% filled with the old as asphalt and then capped with clean dirt. This process allows us to environmentally get rid of the asphalt by burying above the water table.

Once there's enough material piled up, Trevor pushes the material into the depression with the blade on the mini excavator.

Along with the tee project on 6, the maintenance staff is moving the cart path on 5 green away from the bottom of the green's slope. This is being done to help any shots that might go left of the green from rolling across the cart path into the landscaping, having a chance to stop on the grass for a decent recovery shot.

In the next picture instead of the cart path veering off to the right and riding the bottom edge of the green's slope, it will be to the left along the edge of the tree line and turn at the back of #6 blue tee.

This is a very poor picture of the newly reclaimed putting surface areas, but believe it or not there's lots of greenery popping up. The program of using the old Aerification plugs seems to be working well. Trevor and Kenny are nurturing the baby plants along with kid gloves.

Here Trevor is removing some palm trees in anticipation of BIG, LONG trucks making their way out to the comfort station on 6 for it's reconstruction process. I am removing the trees so that the heavy trucks do not have to make a 27 point turn on the paver brick cart parking area in front of the golf trailer which will destroy it. The trees will be saved and put into a nursery area for holding. Once the comfort station reconstruction is completed the trees will be replanted in the same place.

100 Day War Begins

2016-06-11T14:38:00.001-04:00

It's aerification week and we all know that means... there's gonna be a lot of holes, a lot of ripping, a lot of tearing and long days. This time around however, it started out very wet. The weather as it was didn't seem to affect us to greatly in the beginning of the week, but in the end it really put us back about two days.

As always we began with a whole lot of vertical mowing trying to eliminate the thatch build up and the grain accumulation from the previous growing season, followed by aerification and sanding. This time around however was also the beginning of our putting surface reclamation project.

As everybody knows the putting surfaces that had been encroached by the celebration Bermuda grass was killed in an effort to prepare for this process. This week my staff was able to successfully reclaim the edges of the putting surfaces on holes one through nine. The weather delayed us such that we were not able to get to the back nine. We will complete the back nine reclamation process in July when we close down to aerify again.

The dead encroachment area being cut for removal.

Trench view of the area being reclaimed. Only the dead grass and underlying thatch was removed.

Then the greens were aerified to produce the needed new grass plugs for the trenches.

The millions of small cores were pushed into the perimeter trenches to "plant" the new grass.

Before being planted in their new homes, the plugs were spread and leveled out

Once the plugs were leveled they were compacted and watered. Let the grow-in begin.

The perimeter areas were purposefully left a little low so the mowers would not scalp off the freshly planted areas.

The plan will be to continually add supplemental sand to the perimeters of the putting surfaces, thus raising the level up to a point where it is all on the same plain.

Holes 10-18 will have the putting surfaces reclamation process start in July when we close. Due to the weather delay, I decided to do a phased approach for this project. I didn't want to take a chance and try and complete the holes 1-18 and be unsuccessful before having to reopen for play.

Random pics from this week...

Mowing in a cloud of dust scalping down the fairways. Scalping helps remove grain, or the tendency of the grass to grow in a particular direction. All of the grain causes the swirly look.

The aftermath, not much greenery left around the tees and approaches.

The mound of material removed from aerifying the greens, minus all the material that was reused.

1/6 of the pile left from verti-cutting the fairways. At remedies amount of thatch is removed from verti-cutting. This helps with grain and sponginess.

Lunch for the guys one day I made. Each one is 5 lbs of pork sausage rolled with rub, onions, peppers and lots of cheese. Then wrapped in 1.5 lbs of bacon, topped with BBQ sauce and slow smoked for 4-5 hrs. It's called a Bacon Bomb! I made 4 of these and they didn't last long. I always cook for the guys when we are closed for the week for aerification.

Long week but we're almost there. Lots to do and a short time to make it all happen.

Leveling the playing field

2016-06-03T09:19:00.001-04:00

Over the years as the greens are top dressed, it is inevitable that the collars begin to get what is called the "sand dam." This is caused from the process of dragging in the sand after a sand top dressing of the putting surface. The collars have a longer leaf blade than the putting surface and therefore grab and hold more sand as the brush that is used to drag the sand is turned on the collars. Notice in this picture how the ends of the level are not touching the turf, this "bump" in the middle of the level is called the sand dam.

Since we are redoing the perimeter of the collars I thought it would be a good time to go in and rectify the problem of the sand damn. The traditional method of eliminating the sand dam is sod cutting off the turf, leveling the sub grade by hand, and then putting back the turf. This is a very labor-intensive and long, arduous process.

In recent years a new method has been devised in order to be able to eliminate the sand dam in one easy process without having to remove the turf to get to the subgrade. Essentially what is done is use a machine that has a very wide swath that cuts on a level plane perpendicular to the bump in order to flatten out any bumps along the way. The machine has hundreds of super fast rotating flat knives that act like little scoops, only remove what is sticking up too high.

The end result is what looks like a divot, just five feet wide. You can see in the picture the green grass that is left within the machine's swath. These areas are areas that are little bit low and therefore did not have anything removed. The picture is of a test pass that was done on the putting green by 1 tee. The white lines are the edge of the putting surface we are going to reclaim.

So we all know that next week is aerification week, or the start of the 100 Day War as I like to call it, and that means the Club is closed. It would seem this time however, Mother Nature isn't going to play nice with us. On Monday and Tuesday of next week it is supposed to rain due to a tropical disturbance that is going to be moving up from the Mexican peninsula. The weather disturbance is forecasted to intensify quickly and possibly become a tropical storm by Tuesday.

Well what does all this have to do with leveling out the sand dams around the edges of the greens you ask? Simple....I have borrowed the machine that does the leveling process and need to get it back to the Club that loaned it to me. So, because of all of the weather that is forecasted we are going to go ahead and level the collars over the weekend instead of on Monday morning. The leveling machine is scheduled to go back on Tuesday and returning it can't be delayed.

For those playing this weekend you will notice that some of the colors appear to be scalped out a little bit more beyond the edges of the dead green's perimeters. It will have no effect on play and will be only a visual disturbance. Moving up the sand dam removal process a few days is a necessary evil to ensure that we maintain our schedule for achieving all of our economic goals for the summer.

Final Project Prep

2016-05-30T08:11:00.001-04:00

Happy Memorial Day! My staff is in this morning to do the final herbicide application on the collars in preparation for next week's putting surface reclamation project. Even though we have already sprayed the celebration grass twice to kill it and it looks pretty darn dead, there is still some green plant parts down in there if you look close. Hence the early morning holiday application of herbicide. The goal is to kill as much grass as we can before cutting it out.

As a boy my father would always tell me that the better a job is prepared for, the better it turns out in the end. I hated it as a kid, but I can completely appreciate it now.

Collar update....post Roundup application

2016-05-04T09:06:00.001-04:00

Now that we are 7 day post application of the non-selective herbicide (meaning it kills everything) to the collars you can really see how much of the putting surface that has been lost. What is also very evident is how resilient the grass is in its ability to survive such an application. The Celebration grass's durability and tenacity is why it was chosen during the renovation in 2009. We knew back then that when we had to reclaim the putting surfaces, the very reasons why we wanted the grass in the fairways was going to make it a bear around the greens.

All of the green haze within the kill zone is still actively growing Celebration grass, and this is exactly why we needed to get started killing the grass early. It is going to take multiple applications of herbicide to kill the plant significantly enough to make a putting surface reclamation project successful. If I do not kill the Celebration it will pop right back up on the putting surface from below where I cut it out and the whole endevour will be wasted.

I'm guessing on the first application we got approximately 75% kill. So on May 16th, the first day the course is closed on Mondays, I will have the collars sprayed again. Then sprayed again on the 30th. Although we will never kill the grass 100% because we are not fumigating the perimeters, we will be able to achieve a kill rate in the upper 90% range. That will make anything that pops back up very manageable to remove.

Preparing for the future

2016-04-27T16:53:00.001-04:00

Today the golf maintenance team started the process of the putting surface reclamation project by spraying the encroaching celebration grass with Roundup herbicide. The Roundup herbicide is a non-selective chemical that is taken in through the plant leaf and kills the plant within 7-10 days. The plant will begin showing faint signs of dying sometime this weekend. There will be no signs of anything done for the Lady's event tomorrow. The course will play and look the same as it did Tuesday.

To make sure the Roundup doesn't drift off target the Maint team made some drift shields out of some thin paneling board and used some smaller lumber pieces as handles.

This method provides 100% containment and perfect edges.

Once the Roundup is dry it is absorbed quickly into the plant. Tonight I am having the greens heavily watered and the remaining blue ring around the greens, which is essentially just a colorant like food dye, will wash into the soil and you'll never know we were there.

Again, the grass won't show signs of being sprayed until this weekend.

Surrogate parents

2016-04-26T10:45:00.001-04:00

Congrats to everyone, you're all surrogate parents to a new generation of wildlife on the course. I had all of the nesting boxes surveyed last week and we have some new members in the Club.

Screech Owl using one of the boxes

Great Crested Fly Catcher eggs

Tell tale Blue Bird eggs

Not only are the golfers happy with the course, our wildlife around the property are prosperous as well.

Walking the line

2016-04-06T11:07:00.001-04:00

During the next few days my staff will be marking the original perimeters of the greens with white lines. This is where the putting surface was when we opened after the golf course renovation project in 2009. The Celebration's tenacious growth habit is spectacular for wear resistance and divot recovery, but not so good on putting surface encroachment. As you'll see when you play, some areas have encroached significantly. This summer the plan is to recapture the lost putting surface.

On April 27th I have coordinated with the golf shop to close the first tee at 1 o'clock so that my staff can begin the phased process of the project. They're will remain closed for the rest of the day so that someone doesn't step onto the recently applied herbicide and then track it somewhere unintended.

Here are the steps that will happen.

4/27 : spray a non-selective herbicide on the area from the outer edge of the putting surface to the inner edge of the encroaching Celebration grass

5/16 : spray a non-selective herbicide on the area from the outer edge of the putting surface to the inner edge of the encroaching Celebration grass. The area should be 90% dead but we want to kill as much as possible to make sure it doesn't come back.

5/30 : spray a non-selective herbicide on the area from the outer edge of the putting surface to the inner edge of the encroaching Celebration grass. The area should be 99% dead but we want to really kill as much as possible to make sure it doesn't come back.

6/6 : sod cut off the dead ring of grass around the front 9 greens. Afterward dead grass removal,aerify the putting surfaces and then push the billions of tiny fresh grass plugs into the empty troughs around the greens to replant the recaptured areas. Tamp down to start the grow-in process.

The tricky part of the entire process is to make sure we do not run out of aerification plugs. To prevent this from happening we will only strip the front 9 green's perimeters to start, and then will strip more as needed after I see what sort of progress is made and how far the plugs go. There is a chance we will need to extend the project into July if we run out of aerification plugs to refill the perimeter troughs

Click here for the USGA's publication on the process for more details

It's all about the weather

2016-02-15T16:59:00.000-05:00

Most people in Naples this time of the year are here because of the typically great weather. It is no secret, right? Blue skies, sunshine and 80 degrees is the place you wanna be!! It Almost seems like a myth this year.

I did some research on the University of Florida's weather station to see just how different our local weather has been and it is pretty surprising even to me. Back in the fall I did a post called "Winter golfing season is almost here" click here for "Winter golfing seaon is almost here" and explained in detail the science behind the timing of the summer maintenance practices. After riding the course with Trevor this morning and doing our usual weekly planning session I wanted to see just how far away from summer growing conditions we have gotten. My "barometer number" of 140 for great winter plant health is based off of historical solar radiation output from the sun and years of experience putting the course through the greatest stress at the worst time of year. Here is what we are getting now as compared to a few years gone by....quite different.

If you are wondering why the golf course is seeming to be "dull" for this time of year you only have to look at the highlighted numbers. During the time frame of January 2013-2015 we averaged 140.35 units of solar radiation as compared to dismal 114.49 the course received in 2016. The sun's energy is just not getting to the grass to fuel the photosynthetic process. Days like today with 100% cloud coverage really cut down on the required solar radiation for the plant to be able to endure the punishment of winter time golf.

Now have a look at the rainfall totals. We were blessed with an amazing 10 inches of rain in January.....that's crazy!!!!! All of that rain and cold weather cost the Club over 800 rounds of golf.

Also highlighted with the total amount is the amount that falls in less than 15 minutes. The table shows that we do typically get a shower, maybe even a good rain...but 10 inches of rain is such an anomaly. Also, in one of those winter storms we received almost .6" of rain in 15 minutes. That is like a mid-summer rain event. I remember back in 1998 during the last "Great El Nino", I was an Assistant Supt at Collier's Reserve back then, and the area received almost 7 inches of rain in February when historically we received almost nothing. It caused a lot of problems with turf thinning out and an overall lack of turf vigor, just like what we are experiencing now. Even with my large bag of tricks to make the course look good, we are primarily dependent on Mother Nature to give us the basics like sunshine to make the course look good.

The sun is the essence of all the good that we are wanting right now, and quite frankly have come to expect. Until Mr. Golden Sun decides to peek out from around the clouds the course is going to be at less than peak performance. In anticipation of the sun eventually coming out, I had the entire course fertilized last week. I wanted to make sure that the only limiting factor to make the course come back to life is the one thing we can't give it, sunshine.

Irrigation issues

2016-02-15T10:22:00.001-05:00

I'm sure everyon has seen the Clubhouse green and number 1. The irrigation controller that controls the irrigation for these greens went down. Trevor checked the green on Friday and by Saturday the green had turned for the worse. The controller has been repaired and the putting surface is starting to green up, but the weather is fighting us at every turn as well. The windy conditions and low humidity are making water control difficult. Hopefully, by week's end the surface will be green again.