Saturday, September 24, 2016

Phase 4, Week 6 Renovation Project Update

Phase 4, Week 6 Renovation Project Update

It was a wonderful week of work. No rain really makes construction work happen at a very rapid pace. It is amazing to me how much soil has been moved around Des Moines Golf for the last 3 years, however this year has really raised that total amount of dirt work that has been moved. Just standing back and looking how much soil has been moved to create new and exciting golf holes is truly amazing. The downside is that it takes a lot of time to move that much soil and get a hole prepared for final seeding and sodding. However I think you will find that it will be worth the effort once it is completed.

This week on 8th hole all of the irrigation was installed and prepped for operation. The final drainage work was completed and then final grading was completed around all drainage basins. Liners and sand were added to the bunkers. On Friday afternoon after a brief morning shower the bluegrass sod installation was started. Stensland Sodding installed 5 semi loads of sod around the green, bunkers and outlined the fairway. This morning they will be cutting the sod on 15th fairway and moving it over to the 8th fairway.

The DMGCC crew has installed all of the pre plant treatment to the new putting green. Then it was seeded and wheel tracked in. This morning we will install a cover on the green to help speed up germination next week and this also protects it from the forecasted heavy rains tonight.

Seeding taking place on 8 Green


Wheel Tracking in the seed


The 8th hole this morning


My hats off to my staff for helping to maintain all of the infrastructure that is installed on the 8th hole. All of the irrigation control wires, septic systems, weather station wires, domestic water and the newly installed conduit for fiber optic cable. They worked with LUI to make sure all of this stayed operational and intact while the 8th hole was rebuilt. It was a very difficult task but with some careful planning it has worked very well.

Architect Tim Liddy was in for a visit on Wednesday to give us his insight on how to finish off the 9th green complex and the fairway bunkers. LUI is making the necessary dirt work changes and today they should complete the drainage of the 9th fairway. They hope to spread the black dirt back on the fairway by the end of today. EC Design will be out Monday morning to flag out the irrigation on the 9th fairway and rough.

Once the sod is removed on the 15th hole the irrigation lines will be cut and capped and then the dirt work will start on the 15th hole. The green complex is cored out and ready to be gridded. The fairway area will require several days of dirt work to complete it to the plan.

An excavator has moved to the 12th hole to start stump removal and he is prepping to start moving some soil there next week. Silt fence and erosion protection has to be installed 1st to protect the area prior to any major dirt work.

We also moved some trees this week that were small enough for us to handle with our tree spade. Anything that we could save, we have. I am happy to say that all of the tree work is now complete on this 4 year project. Happy to have that in our rearview mirror!


One of the major items for the irrigation install this year was to connect a new irrigation line to the 16th hole. This required a bore under the golf course maintenance road using an 8” HDPE pipe. This was completed yesterday. LUI is making those connections today. We will soon have some very nice pressure to the irrigation system on that side of the golf course.


Also for this next week we will begin installation of a new fiber optic network across the golf course. There will be some major work being done by the starter stand and the clubhouse. This fiber network will provide high speed internet and cable to the Clubhouse, Cabana, Golf course maintenance facilities. It will also be used for the point of sale systems for the Solheim Cup, Sign boards during the tournament and provide the Villages at the Solheim Cup with information and internet during the tournament. Once the tournament is completed we will utilize that fiber optic cable well into the future. This should take 2 weeks for us to complete this. Sorry for this inconvenience.


While all of this has been happening we are still working on the aerification of the golf course. It seems to have been a bit of a battle this year with golf schedules and weather. We have 6 fairways left to do on the open side of the South course. We hope to complete those holes this upcoming Monday and we can put that to bed for this year! Thanks for your patience while we have been doing a very important task.