Tennis Clay Courts

   Monday, June 25th was a great day to renovate our tennis courts!  The Club hired a contractor to install 40,000 pounds of new clay to court #1, and then use a laser level to completely re-build and re-grade the court.  This new clay will allow for an overall better playing surface, and has to be done every 5-8 years as a maintenance practice. The crew also took the opportunity to add 10,000 pounds of new clay to courts #5 and #6.  New lines were installed after the clay was added and leveled on all the courts.  We hope that you will find the new surfaces enjoyable and help improve your game!     

Please take a minute to look at the videos and pictures of the entire process!!!!!

This video shows the Clay being dumped onto the court for the tractor to push into place.

This video shows the tractor dragging the Clay across the court to "grade" it, or make it level.  This tractor has a Laser controlling the amount of Clay spread across the court.  The goal is to get the Clay as level and flat as possible, but still slightly sloped so the water drains when it rains.

This video shows one person installing Clay on courts #5 and #6, while the other person is dragging it around smoothly with a cart.  Since we put less Clay on these courts, the tractor was not needed.  Approximately a quarter inch of new Clay was installed on these courts to help freshen them up.

This video show them rolling the lines to flatten them into the new Clay profile.  This will help to ensure the lines are flat and secure to the ground.  The lines are rolled 5 or 6 times before the court is ready for play.

This shows the truck of Clay as it arrived.  Each large white bag holds 2,500 pounds of Clay!

More New Clay

These bags of Clay have been distributed across the green to patch any low spots and areas around the base line that require a little more Clay.

More patching low spots before applying the layer of Clay across the entire court.

Large pile of Clay that was just dumped onto court #1 to be spread out level.

Bag of Clay being placed before cutting the bottom of the bag.

Bag once it is cut

Tractor with Laser level on the box blade getting ready to push pile of Clay smooth.

Laying out the new lines.  This is a string line pulled first, then the lines will be nailed in over the top of the string line.  This helps to be straight and accurate

New line installed along one side of court #5

This photo shows the lines behind nailed into the Clay.  Notice the large white roll, it is the line material that is rolled out as they install.  The nails are placed every few inches to keep the lines attached and smooth to the ground.

A lot of time consuming labor to install the lines.  Hundreds of nails to drive in!!!

This court is all finished, all that remains is the net to be installed and it will be ready for play!!!!

Bailing Hay!

After totaling over 5 inches of rain over the past 2 weeks, the bermuda grass is really growing!  This week our staff set out to "catch-up" on mowing all the grass around the entire golf course.  The wet conditions made it impossible to mow last week, so this week we had to mow everything twice!

This is after the first time we mowed on Monday morning!  A lot of grass clippings to clean up!

Here is our Grounds Chairman Mark Kenline trying to walk over a pile of grass clippings!  The rain caused the grass to grow so much we had to blow the waste into piles and remove!

 Even the fairways have been growing very rapidly, but this has helped heal some of the thin areas left by the tough winter.  After mowing two times last week we have caught up and the cut is beginning to look very nice!