New sod behind the Clubhouse!

Last week we took the opportunity to re-sod all the grass behind the Clubhouse that we call the "Event Lawn".  The old grass was Berumuda, and it was always thin and never very good looking.  We removed all the old bermuda grass and installed some new Zeon Zoysia to replace this grass.  After installing a new irrigation system, we should be able to really make this grass beautiful over time.  The front circle of grass in front of the Clubhouse is Zeon Zoysia, so our goal is to have all the grass surrounding the Clubhouse a short cut Zoysia grass like the front circle.  This way we will always have a great lawn for all the members and guests to enjoy when they come to visit the Club!

Member/Guest 2017 Sunrise

Removing Trees to Enhance the View

This week our staff removed the trees planted in the island between #9 Green and #10 Tee box.  The Grounds Committee as well as the Board of Directors agreed to have these trees removed to help enhance the view from behind the Clubhouse, and the currently under construction Mountain View Lounge.  These trees consisted of weeping cherry and maple trees, and were planted by the Club in 1997.  As the trees have grown larger over the years they have completely blocked a large part of the view of hole #9, and were only a few years of growth away from blocking the beautiful view of Kennesaw Mountain.  These pictures above were taken from the new Mountain View Lounge, and as you can see removing the trees helped to enhance the view of the golf course as well as the mountain landscape.  For the time being we plan to sod the area to bermuda grass and it will play as "rough".  In the future if the Committee decides to add something in the island such as low growing plants or a water feature it will be very easy to remove the grass.   We are also working on up-lighting a few of the large oak trees in the distance so at night the view from the back of the Club house is greatly enhanced!  More to come on that in the future!

Fairway Verticutting

This week was a big week for our Grounds staff!  The large Verti-Cutter came to help remove thatch and old growth in the fairways.  This process is very beneficial to help the grass grow much tighter together as well as reduce the "grain" or directional growth it develops over time.  The equipment gets its name Verti-Cutter because it is doing what is called "Vertical Mowing", a system of small blades that are straight up and down and slice about 1 inch deep into the grass profile.  Take a look at the picture below for a better idea:

This is a good look at the Thatch and Organic Material removed by the Verti-cutter

This machine does a great job of removing the old thatch and material.  Another great benefit from the slicing and verticutting is all of the stolons and rhizomes, (which are above ground and in-ground roots of the turf) that are cut will grow a new leaf blade and make for a denser turf canopy.  Mowing afterwards is always a little easier because the grass thinner and easier to cut.  We do this process during the summer time of year because the grass is growing very rapidly and it will only take about 2 weeks to fully recover.  Here are a few more pictures of what it looks like during the process.  Trouble with the machine, combined with wet weather only allowed us to finish Overlook and Lake View fairways.