#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!

Cart Path Repairs

Beginning in December, we will begin our annual cart path replacement to repair several areas around the entire Club property.  Over the last 5 years the Board has directed the funding of $20,000 to $30,000 each year for cart path repairs to help repair some very rough and cracked panels.  This allotted money has helped to improve many areas across the golf course and Club grounds, but each year many areas in need of repair remain untouched.  This year, the Board agreed to increase the amount of cart paths repaired by allocating $100,000.  This will be a huge help in getting us back to the point where $20,000 or so each year will help us repair what is needed, thus eliminating multiple rough areas when we are finished.

        So why in the world do we spend so much money on the cart paths?  For starters, the 27 holes of golf at MCC contains over 6 miles of cart paths!  Some of the cart paths which are cracked and broken today are original to the golf course when it was built in 1990.  Others are newer panels which have been replaced more recently but broken by tree roots underneath or equipment driving over the top.  The concrete lasts up to 30 years in some areas with no tree roots, but might only last 8-10 years in heavily treed areas.  Daily wear and tear will degrade each panel of concrete over time, so it is important to replace the bad areas each year in order to not fall behind and have to play catch up, which is expensive!

         The focus of this project will be to replace the areas of the cart path which are currently very rough and bumpy to drive a golf cart.  Many of the cart paths have cracks throughout, but are still smooth to drive on.  We will not focus on the minor cracks at this time if they still drive smoothly.  Some of the golf holes in need of the most repair on the original 18 holes include #14, #9, #5, #10, and #8 tee box.  We will also plan to repair all of the bumpy or broken areas on the Overlook 9 holes.

         During this project, we will direct all cart traffic around the areas under construction.  Please be aware of rope and signs directing you where to go.  In favorable weather we should be able to complete the project in 3-4 weeks.  New cart paths will help provide us a smooth start to the New Year with many cracked and rough areas being repaired!

Edging the Bunkers

Over the last 3 weeks we have started one of our winter projects, and that is to detail all the bunkers on the golf course and cut a clean new edge around them.  Over the past 2 growing seasons since sand traps were renovated we have seen a tremendous amount of growth around the edges of the bunkers.  The grass has grown towards the center of the bunkers, causing them to become slightly smaller and lose the original edges.  The grass is some areas has become very puffy and hard to maintain or cut.  It also has developed a "shelf" or little ledge where the bunker face does not transition into the bunker consistently.  Here are a few pictures of hole #12 to try and demonstrate the situation:

I placed the rake to try and show the "shelf" that has been created by the grass creeping into the bunker.  Under the rake head is grass, but under the grass is straight sand.  The sand is supposed to the bunker, but the grass had other ideas.  The rake head is 25 inches wide, so this overgrowth is almost 2 feet wide!  The left edge of the bunker rake is where the actual original edge of the bunker was when we finished the renovation 2 years ago.  We know that because we can take a shovel or probe and push down to fine the concrete bunker liner.

Here is a close up of the ledges and overgrowth we are trying to correct.  The grass should fall straight into the bunker.  In this case, the grass levels out after the downfall, then transitions into the sand.

So what are we planning to do to fix this issue.  Well it starts with a shovel!  The shovel above is in the ground at the start of the concrete bunker liner.  When we finished the bunker renovation 2 years ago this is where the grass line started.  The grass has slowly grow into the sand, very hard to see how much it has encroached.  

We have been working to go around all the bunkers and cut a new clean edge with a shovel.  As you can see in the picture above, some of the edges have grown over very badly!  The gentleman above is simply cutting to the bunker liner, and look at all the grass we have to remove!  The golf ball has been getting stuck in these areas making for some difficult golf shots, so it is a very important thing to fix.

Here is a look at #17 green side bunker.  The yellow paint is the original bunker edge we are trying to get back.  It is easy to see how much grass needs to be removed, and how inconsistent the edge has become.

This is the bottom edge of 17 bunker as it transitions into the bunker.

Here is the same bunker edge after it has been edged with a shovel.  Notice how much smoother and consistent this edge is than before we started.  Big difference!

Over the next few weeks we will really make a push to get all the bunker edges fixed.  Golf rounds are slowing down and we will have much more time to get into the bunkers and get them back to where they need to be.  The green side bunkers are especially hard to work on when we are busy on the golf course, as there is too much interruption to get anything done in a timely manner.  To date we have completed the green side bunkers on hole #4, #9, #11, #17, and #18.  We intend to do the green side bunkers first, followed by the fairway bunkers.  Some of the bunkers are worse than others, and will be completed accordingly.  Thank you very much for your patience as we work to improve this aspect of the golf course!!!