Week 7 weekend found me taking of 2 days to attend the Ryder Cup Tournament in Minnesota to cheer on my friend Zach Johnson and his teammates, so with this week's report I will try to update you with 2 weeks of information.
Hole #8
The putting green was seeded 2 weeks ago. We covered it with an Evergreen Turf Cover to protect it if we received heavy rains, but more importantly they work really well to hold in some heat and promote germination of the seed. At day 5 we could see that we had achieved really good success with our seeding. 9 days after seeding we mowed the green and applied fertility. We will continue to take the cover off and mow it every few days, and place it back to promote as much growth as possible.
7 days after seeding
1st Mowing
Bluegrass sod has been installed on much of the rough around the 8th hole and the bentgrass sod was installed on the fairway. We will be mowing all of this sod very soon. It has knitted down well and growing. The fall temperatures have been very good for this.
The remainder of the drainage has been installed around the tees and the only item that remains left is to finish the construction of the tee tops. This will be put on hold until the other greens are completed and seeded. Cart path work has also begun on the 8th hole.
Hole #9
There was a huge push over the last 2 weeks to finish off the green end of the 9th. The green construction and irrigation was completed last Monday. The green complex was sodded and then we were able to apply fertility to the green and seed it. Stensland Sodding came in on Monday and started to install the bluegrass sod. At the same time that they were installing bluegrass sod they also had a crew cutting bentgrass sod for the new fairway. We cut the sod off of the old 15th hole and moved it to the new 9th. They started late on Monday installing bentgrass sod on the fairway. They even brought in lights to continue working into the evening. By Tuesday morning they had just a little bit of work left to do. DMGCC staff also were involved cutting and installing bentgrass sod into other parts of the 9th hole. All of the bentgrass was blown off and rolled immediately after installation. Here are some photos of the process in action.
#9 Fairway
The fairway bunkers on the 9th were completed yesterday and on Monday we will finish the bentgrass sod on that hole. There is a huge area of bluegrass rough that is prepped and ready for Stensland to install sod. So hopefully he will be here in full force on Monday to do that portion of the 9th hole. The area where the 9th used to be is all filled in with new drainage tile and grading completed. This area was seeded to oats and fescue prior to the rainfall that we received this week. It should look really nice once the turf is established. The cart has also been completed on the 9th so hopefully very soon tours will be able to go on these holes and you will be able to drive on the new paths and not in the dirt/mud.
Dirt work on #12 has started, we had to be very careful in this area where we are cutting and moving dirt. The club has an 8” water main line that comes through this area. We had to locate the line and be very careful not to hit it. We also have to leave enough soil over it to make sure that it is still below the frost line. The topsoil in this area is first moved and saved, then the clay layer is moved. This process will take quite a few days to do.
#15 is really starting to move forward. There was a tremendous amount of drainage tile lines that had to be installed on both sides of the fairway and around the new green. Once that was installed LUI has been working at a fevered pace to finish the dirt moving. The architect was in on Friday for a visit to make his final adjustments to the hole and now there will be a huge push over the few days to finish this hole. The cart path on #16 will be poured today, then this crew will move back to #8 to finish it off.
It has been a great 2 week run of events. A lot of work has been completed but we still have a lot to do. I very optimistic that we will finish this fall as long as the rains stay away. Scott Howe and staff will be giving tours of the construction, please sign up and see what has been happening.