New water and ice machine on Overlook!

The Board of Directors approved the purchase of an Ice and Water machine to be placed at Overlook bathrooms on hole #6.  The ice and water machines on hole #4/#7, on Overlook at hole #6, and at the turn stand on the back of the Clubhouse will replace the coolers on the golf course.  We hope you enjoy this new addition to the golf course!

Please make sure to fix ballmarks, even when the greens are soft and sandy!

Aerification Process

These pictures below show the entire process it takes to aerify each green.  We have close to 5 acres of bentgrass across all 27 holes, and it takes a lot of work to get it done each time.  Believe me, if there was a better, easier way to give the greens what they truly need to survive and be healthy, we would do it!  The big holes and heavy sand process is really vital to the long term health of the greens.  While it is never fun to putt on the greens for a few weeks after it is done,it is very important, and we try to make them grow back as quickly as possible!


Here is a picture of #8 Green right before we start the process of Aerification.  Greens were looking pretty good before!

The first step is to apply a even topdressing of sand across the entire green. 

Next the Toro Procore 648 will come punch the 1/2 holes and remove a core.  The plugs of turf are then collected by the machine and deposited on the edges of the greens.  You can see staff in the background of the picture using shovels to pick up the piles of plugs.  This is a very labor intensive process.

After all the plugs have been removed and blown off, it is time to drag the sand evenly into the holes.  Sand will help add new pore space in the holes where the plugs were removed, and encourage new roots to grow.  This will help firm the greens and help build a strong foundation to help survive the hot summer months. 

One week later and the green grass is very visible!  This is a sign the greens are growing back quickly!  We will begin to mow the greens on our usual schedule next week, and continue to mow them each day going forward.  Much unwanted rain has really helped wash it in to the turf profile!

Greens Aerification This Week!

The Spring Greens Aerification, scheduled for Monday, February 24th, is still being carried out this week.  Rain all day on Monday postponed the start of the process, but we will carry on and do 9 holes a day to finish all the greens by the weekend.  The Overlook 9 holes were completed on Tuesday, Wednesday we will work on the Lake View 9 holes, and on Thursday we will finish the Mountain View 9 holes.  If you are playing this weekend please expect to see the greens punched with holes!

Here is a look at the aerification machine working on #6 Overlook.  The grey box behind the machine is called the core collector and is dragging the plugs to the edge of the green.  You can see the pile of plugs collected inside the walls.  This small task helps save countless man hours pushing plugs!


Here is a handful of plugs from the "core collector" box.


Here is a look at 9 Overlook Green after the entire process.  All that lacks is a new cup cut in the green and it will be ready for play! Only 3 to 4 weeks of recovery and nobody will know it ever happened!

Spring Greens Aerification is February 24th!!!!

A quick reminder that this coming Monday, February 24th, we will do our annual Spring Greens Aerfication.  This process will be the "big holes and heavy sand", and the greens should fully recover in about 4 weeks.  With all the rain we have received lately it will be a great time to get the greens opened up and filled with some new sand! 



This picture below shows the greens last spring 2 weeks after aerification! 

Wet Start to 2020

       Rivers of water in the fairways has been a common site around the golf course for the last 6 weeks.  During heavy rains, most all the fairways will have rivers running down them with water rushing to drain basins, ponds and creeks.  While this water makes the fairways wet in the low areas, it actually shows the surface drainage for our golf course works quite well.  We do have some isolated areas which need to be addressed across the golf course to help drainage, but overall the course really withstands the rain well.

   Since the start of the year, Marietta Country Club has totaled 13.6 inches of rainfall!  The total amount of rainfall in 2019 for the months of January and February was 12.1 inches.  This combined total in 2019 was the wettest January-February in the last 16 years.  So with 15 days left to go in February we already are ahead 1.5 inches!  More rain is in the forecast for next week, so we should see the record wet start to the year continue. 

During one rain event on Thursday, February 6th, we totaled 3.35" of rain in a 12 hour period, and really started to see some results of flash flooding around the property.  The pictures below show a few examples of the excessive water.

This photo is of #8 Mountain view in front of the green tee box.  The walk path leading to the fairway runs right through this section and it is always wet.  We plan to install drainage this spring to help improve this area, especially during rain events like we have seen this winter.  

#6 Overlook green was very close to becoming the bottom of the lake!  While the water level is not as high as it was in 2009 when Stephen took his infamous picture standing in water holding the flag, it was starting to crest the top of the wall.  On a typical day, the top of this wall is at least a foot above the water level.

I have had quite a few people comment over the years about why the area which separates #7 Overlook tee box from the fairway is not made into a pond.  Well, this picture shows exactly why it can not be a pond.  This low lying area is built as a retention pond to catch water during heavy rains, exactly like it is doing in this picture.  Because the railroad tracks prevent the water from freely moving through during heavy rains, all the water must flow through a drainage system under the train tracks.  If the area was always full of water, it would flood tremendously during a heavy downpour and potentially damage the train tracks.  It is amazing how much rain moves through this area during heavy rains.

This picture shows just how high the water was after the rain ended.  Almost over the bridge!!

Summer Weed Control

Over the past 3 weeks our staff has worked hard on applying the summer preemergent herbicide to all the turf on the property at MCC.  Every blade of grass, except the putting greens, has been sprayed with a weed control mixture which will kill any weed that is green and visible now, as well as prevent any weed from growing over the next 6 months!  Once the product is sprayed on the grass we let it dry, and then water it in that night so the chemical gets into the soil.  The soil is where all the weeds will try to grow, and the preemergent acts as a blanket that will not allow any weeds to grow.  Weeds will typically start to grow any time after the middle of March, so it is very important to be ahead of the game and protected before they start to grow!  

In this photo you can see our spray technician, Brad, applying the product to hole #16.  The green tinted spray is actually a non-toxic dye we add to the spray solution so Brad can see exactly where he has treated.  If you look closely you can see the difference in color of the rough where he has sprayed.

#13 Dam Repair

This week a brick mason came on Monday to help repair the Dam on hole #13.  As a previous post explained, rushing water during heavy rains has washed off the rock facing on the dam.  You can see in the before and after pictures below it is hard to tell it ever happened!

We also added a layer of rock on the top, as you can see the light brown line of rock on the right side of the wall.  This will help to keep this area from washing out and causing unsteady footing when crossing the wall.  

Frozen

Wednesday morning once the sun came up we noticed we had a problem.  After spraying our pre-emergent herbicide we needed to water the chemical into the soil for it to work effectively.  The water was programmed to run at dusk on Tuesday evening, and stop before the freezing temperatures arrived in the early morning hours.  All was well except one sprinkler head on hole #12 decided to go "rogue" and stick on throughout the entire night.  Once we noticed it was still running water in the morning we rushed to shut off the water, but the damage had been done.  Over 2 inches of ice had formed where the water hit all night, breaking a few tree branches around #12 green.  All in all once the tree branches were pruned back, nothing else was harmed by the ice formations.  This area will take some time to thaw and will no doubt be wet behind #12 green for a few days!

This was the scene at daylight on Wednesday.  You can see the sprinkler running on the left hand side of the picture, getting ready to add another layer of ice to the trees!  The ice was only on the bottom half of the trees, and the tops had no ice and suffered very little damage.  

A look down the creek on #12 shows a pretty neat winter backdrop with all the ice.

A view from the tee box in the afternoon showed exactly what was covered from the sprinkler head!  

January starting out very wet!

      2020 has started out very wet at Marietta Country Club, with the Club recording over 6 inches of rain so far in less than 3 weeks!  When heavy rains fall as in the past few weeks, the creeks and ponds rise very rapidly. This causes a lot of debris such as leaves and sticks to come down the creek from upstream.  The forebay constructed in 2014 has been very helpful in capturing most of the large debris before it enters the pond.  Each year we remove up to 100 cubic yards of material from the upstream side of this wall (or calm side in the picture above) to the first bridge you cross when playing #13.  By removing the debris periodically we can have a "reservoir" to hold more dirt and material the next heavy storms will bring.  A continuous cycle!!!


One problem we are facing with the forebay now 6 years after construction is the rock facade is falling off.  This is due to the heavy water flow when the wall gets overtaken during flooding and heavy rains.  As you see in the picture above, the water will come completely over the top of the dam very rapidly at times. 


This rock facing is coming off both sides of the forebay.  This is showing the backside, or upstream side of the wall.  These areas will only continue to get worse until we install new rock.  We have scheduled a brick mason to come fix the problem on Monday, January 20th.


This photo is a good example of what a normal day at the forebay looks like.  It is easy to see the rock missing from the front.  A lot of work will be done in this area over the next few weeks including dredging the creek and replacing some large boulders, but is all starts with fixing the flat stone facing!

A few bloopers from the Concrete Project!

Believe it or not we had some problems with keeping people off of the concrete after it was poured!  It usually takes at least 12 hours for the concrete to set up in good weather conditions, but in cold weather it takes almost 24 hours.  Fortunately for us, a few of the times when we did have people drive through the wet concrete the crew was notified and was able to fix the imperfections.  Some of the areas in these pictures did have to be re-poured however!  We used caution tape to warn people of the wet concrete, but it proved to be pretty ineffective. 




Here a panel on hole #2 was driven across multiple times!

This long run on #14 fortunately survived without any damage!!!!


This panel on #1 Overlook was the first day we started the project!  Someone rode a bike across the wet panels even though they were roped off with caution tape!  What is a bike doing riding on Overlook in the first place!!!

This area on hole #15 was driven through within 2 hours of being completely finished.  As you can see there is caution tape, and the person drove straight through the tape like it didn't exist!  Fortunately it was very cold that day and the crew was able to run down and refinish the top of the concrete before it dried and nobody will ever know!

Concrete Cart Path Project Finally Completed!

I am happy to say we are all done with the Cart Path repairs!  No more huge trucks and equipment clogging up the pathways!  It has no doubt been a mess in some spots over the last 4 weeks, but it is easy to see and feel the improvement if you drive around the cart paths!  We focused on many different areas, trying to make the ride across all the cart paths as smooth as possible.  All in all it required over 30 concrete trucks to do all this work!  Every bad area on the Overlook 9 was repaired, along with areas on holes #1, #2, #3, #5, #6 Tee, #8 Tee, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, and #17.  Some of the holes listed were only a few small panels, while other holes like #8 and #14 had significant areas repaired.  All of the work made an impact removing broken, bumpy paths and making it a smoother ride around the course!  Below are some pictures of the concrete work over the last 2 weeks.  These photos show a good example of what we had to do during the entire process.  


Here was a common sight, seeing the concrete trucks!  It took over 3 trucks and almost 300 cubic yards of concrete to complete the project!


Here a concrete worker smooths the surface of freshly poured concrete on #1.  Roots from the nearby trees had buckled up this spot in the cart path making a very severe bump in the panels.


Here is the start of the work on hole #8.  You can see in the very bottom of the picture the cart path is very broken and cracked badly.  This run ended up being over 250 feet of cart path continuously, and ran from the blue tee box all the way past the green tee box!



A very busy area to be tearing up!  This services hole #3 as well as hole #8 where the bridges intersect.  We were forced to do this area on a Monday, as well as use fast drying concrete, to be able to ensure carts could still travel through on Tuesday morning!


This picture from the large bridge on hole #3 shows the crew preparing the sight to be formed and poured within the next few hours.  The ornate rock wall was also something we had to work around and fit in smoothly, which took a little work!



This old cart path was very easy to remove because of all the cracks!  This machine was used to remove all the cart paths around the entire property!

Here is a good example of what the cart path on #8 looked like before we removed it!


Here is the same area on #8 tee box after the concrete had been poured.  This crew member is putting the finishing touches on the entire area so it is smooth and drains perfectly.  As you can see they did a really good job of making the rock wall and concrete seem like they went together forever.  We started by pouring these panels and then working our way out, as you can see the crew in the top of the photo working on the freshly poured material.

This large machine was used to haul the old concrete away, and also to bring in the new concrete and dump on site.  This bucket on this machine can hold 2 yards of concrete!  This makes the pouring process much faster and allowed us to do this area in 1 day!  Once the concrete is poured, it is spread out across the entire formed area at a 4-5 inch depth.

Here is another area we improved on hole #14.  On a few different locations we added some new curbing to help keep carts on the path and improve the function of some sharp turns.  This area above always was rutted out by people cutting the corner, so hopefully this will help to keep people on the cart path!