Another great week of work by Al Van Meeteren and the rest of the crew from Landscapes Unlimited and Stensland Sodding. The first part of the week was solely dedicated to finishing up the #12 hole. There was a tremendous amount of hand work and tractor grading that needed to happen to finish this hole. By Wednesday afternoon Stensland started to install the sod. Al and his crew were very busy working ahead of them to get the dirt work and drainage work completed. By Thursday night Justin Stensland had purchased a light tower so his crew could work later into the evening and they did. Almost 4 semi loads of bluegrass sod was installed under the lights that evening. On Friday morning 2 more semi loads were used to finish up the 12th hole and move on to #13. The 1st fairway bunker on the right side was completed as well as the grass bunker at the 13th green. This grass hollow used to be a bunker and now it will be played as turf. It will not be an easy shot out of it!
Sod being installed along the lake on #12
Sod being installed in the late evening on #12
Enjoying the view on the new 12th hole
The new grass hollow in front of the 13th green
The rest of the LUI team worked on drainage tile installation and prepping bunkers for the sod installation. The greenside bunkers on the left side of the 13th green are very complex and it offers a great number of shot making to get out of the area. The drainage was finished in this area yesterday. Today they will start to install sand into the bunkers, sodding the area the 1st part of this next week. From here on out the rest of the sod installs will be 1 or 2 semi loads versus the 4 - 8 loads. Everyone stresses out on the big installs because there is so much ground to prep, and so much to water immediately after the install. The drainage green finished 2 different drainage installs on #13. Both of them involved cutting across the fairway to new bunkers on the left side and to a cross bunker a 100 yards out from the green.
Danny is almost finished with all of the bunker shaping with his mini excavator. He has a little work to do on the 16th hole and then that phase is over with. Speaking of finishing part of the 4 year project, the last bull dozer will be finishing some work today and then no more dozers! Victor and his irrigation staff have completed all of the big irrigation installations. They have some sprinkler heads to level and complete. Again another part of the puzzle completed.
We have really tried to push the 15th green to grow in as much as we can before it freezes up for the winter. We pulled back the cover yesterday and it looks very good. I am very pleased with our results on this green.
Architect Tim Liddy will be in later this next week to give his final blessings on some bunker work on #16. The weather gods have really smiled on us this fall. We had a tremendous undertaking in mid-August and we really have been able to do a large volume of work the past 13 weeks. We still have a couple of weeks left to finish all of the bunkers and then all of the detail work and clean up behind us. Next week we should have a much better idea as to when the last part of the puzzle will be completed.