Aerification time again!

I know, I know, I know, everyone hates the time of year!  Greens Aerification!  Yes, it is that time of year when we punch big holes in the greens and fill them with a heavy topdressing of sand.  No doubt it makes the greens look terrible, but it helps the grass to be stay healthy and strong in so many ways!  Our staff will start this process on Monday, and with a good chance of rain forecast for Tuesday night, we will push to be completely done with all 27 holes before the rain arrives!  Stay tuned for the step-by-step process over the next few days!

#17 Bridge Repairs

Last week our staff was busy trying to re-deck the bridge crossing the creek on hole #17.  The wood that spanned across the bridge was rotting badly and it was starting to be a safety concern for the people who drive across it daily.  We started by removing all the railing and boards which were used as the decking for the bridge:

 What was left after everything was removed were the main support beams as you see in the pictures below:

Since the main support beams were still in good shape, we started to re-surface the decking by anchoring into the existing beams.

By Friday afternoon we were able to replace all the decking boards, and we will work on finishing the new railing by the start of next week.  So far so good!

Cleaning out the Creek

This past week we rented a large excavator and used it to dig the silt out of the creek on holes 13 and 17.  This large machine was able to reach across the creek and easily remove the large sand bars and silt deposits that have been left over many years of washing from upstream.  We even found a tire and a Pepsi can that look like it was from the 1980s!  All this proves that the silt has been deposited over a long period of time, so let's hope our work is not all for nothing and the creek remains cleaned out for years to come!  We will still be doing more work to finish the project, but the worst stuff has been removed!

This silt deposit in front of 17 tee box was 4 feet deep!