Friday, December 22, 2023

#2 Pond South

This pond on #2 South also had more material in in than we had expected. We have cleaned it out, reshaped the banks on #2 side of the pond. Removed the 3 silver maple trees on #3 side of the pond and enlarged it over towards the fairway bunker. We now have a much better depth of water in this pond, I would say it will average just over 8' deep. Looking forward to getting the irrigation redone in this area and sod laid in the spring. The predicted rains should help fill it this Christmas weekend.

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

#2 Pond South

We started lazte last week pushing the muck out of the pond on #2 South. While it is not as bad as the North pond was, it still has a lot to be removed. We dug a pit south of the current #3 tee South and that is where we are dumping the material from the pond. This pit was over 20' deep. Muck being removed from #2 pond
Dumping the muck into the pit.

Friday, December 1, 2023

Dredging Week 3

We started this project on #12 North on November 13 and 3 weeks later all the muck is out of the pond, and the pond has been enlarged. I really though this would be a difficult project and it has been. There was an extreme amount of muck in the pond, and it took longer to get it moved to the muck pit. Here is a photo of the finished bottom of the pond. The muck has been removed and the clay liner has been smoothed up, ready for water to come back in.
Here is an aerial photo of the pond work.
Here is a aerial video of our work.
Here is a photo of the muck pit. As time goes on this winter and the water starts to move downward through the soil, we will continue pushing good soil over the top of the muck eventually covering it all up and making a new mound on the right side of #6 North. This part of the project will be continued in the spring to finish it up.
We have reshaped the bank on #11 side of the pond. If you recall it before it was sluffing off and falling into the pond. It was a steep bank and once the golf ball went over the edge it was gone. We have graded the entire left side of the pond bank. Previously it was concave bank going into the water, we have made it convex shaped and have graded the bank to a 4 to 1 slope before going into the water. It will place a premium on the tee shot but now you should be able to walk down this slope to the water’s edge. We will try to do grade the pond bank to a finished grade next week, install new irrigation in this area and maybe try to install some sod. We will see if we can get that accomplished. It is very difficult to finish work this time of year
We installed a new self-flushing inlet screen on our pump station intake pipe. This new screen should provide many years of good service protecting the irrigation from getting debris pumped through the irrigation system.
We are now starting to pump down the pond on #2 South. We have removed the 3 silver maple trees that were adjacent to the pond on #3 side. We have removed the sod and the irrigation system on that side. We have started to dig a new muck pit on the south side of # 3 Tee. Next week we should be moving muck out of this pond and start to reshape the banks. The weather looks very favorable to do this work.
3 South Muck pit

Saturday, November 18, 2023

#12 Pond North, Dredging Update

We started to drain and clean out the pond this past Monday. We will also expand the pond towards #11 fairway, trying to have a little more water storage capacity in the pond. This pond was built in 1987 when we did a renovation to the North course. It has been drained a few times over the years to do some bank work or when we built the wall around #12 green. We have never removed the silt and organic matter that has accumulated in the bottom of the pond for the last 36 years. We had estimated the silt to be about 2' deep, however we were wrong on that estimation, it is closer to 4' deep. Our plan is to dig a big hole in the native area right of #6 North and put all of the muck in this hole. Elder Corporation is the company that is doing our work. They dug the first hole and it is now full of muck. This morning we are digging the second hole. Hopefully this will be big enough to hold the remainder of the material. In the spring we will try to cover this muck area up with material dug out of the holes. A pad was built out of good material to hold the backhoe, the dozer then pushes the muck to a small hole in front of the backhoe. He then loads the 2 trucks and they haul the muck to the bury pit.
All of this work takes a tremendous amount of time to get set up and making it operate smoothly. Once the muck is removed then the banks of the new pond will be graded, we will install rough irrigatio heads and then sod will be installed. Some of this work may be delayed until spring. It is all weather dependent. Here is a photo of the muck being pushed.
Digging the new hole.
I will be updating this blog weekly to show you the progress that is being made. As soon as we have completed the work on #12 North we will move to the irrigation pond on #2 South and do the exact same operation to clean it out and expand it.

Friday, October 20, 2023

Trupin

We are now using new technology when we set our pin placements each day. It is called Trupin. It works in conjunction with the EZGO/PACE GPS Systems on our golf carts and with the GolfLogix app. Once we have set the hole location in its new position, we then turn on the Trupin and mark where that new hole location is. The new location is then automatically updated instantly to every golf cart in our fleet. We are also locating all Par 3 Tee locations each day. You will notice on the right side of the screen when you arrive at a Par 3 hole a box will pop up showing you the exact yardage to the pin from the tee. You no longer need to walk up to the tee and shoot the yardage with your range finders. If you are a walker and are using the GolfLogix app, this information is also updated instantly on the app.

Friday, March 24, 2023

PACE Cart Management System

Today starts a new era at DMGCC, we have new golf carts and they have GPS on them. With this new technology there is going to be a learning curve for staff and for the golfers. 

First thing to remember is that the rules for golf carts has not changed, except now with GPS control the rules will be enforced. You can no longer drive where you want to breaking the old red stake rules.

Geofencing at the start of the hole where you enter and geofencing at the green will be changed on a as needed basis. If we see wear and tear to the turf we will adjust the geofence in or out to change the wear area. 

The one thing to keep in mind is very simple - an active geofence will be shown to you on the screen as you approach it. If you breach that fence the cart will shut down automatically asking you to put it in reverse and back out of the area. You must back completely out of the area before you try to move forward. All geofence violations are shown to us and the software tracks the violations. 

This new technology offers us the ability to keep carts out of dangerous areas, keep them on paths if we need to, message golfers, show you ways to take care of the golf course and it allows us to mange the cart fleet to keep it running at it's maximum efficiency. 

Over the next several months there will be more items made available for us to use that will make your golfing experience even better. 

Our Thorguard Lightning Detection system will be integrated with the carts and so will the app Golf Logix. 

We hope you enjoy the new system and we hope it enhances your experience at DMGCC while it also protects your golf course. Thank you.