Tennis court update

The crew has spent a lot of effort the past few days attempting to put the tennis courts back into play for this season. Approximately 8 tons of clay were placed back onto the courts, smoothed, watered in and then rolled at 2 ton increments. Weed spraying, calcium chloride application of 400 pounds used for hardening and helping to reduce the dust from the clay were put in place and about 1200 nails per court are being installed.(Yes 1200 nails, pass me the Ibuprofen) We have some additional work to do for Vince to insure that the courts are the way they need to be for our members and their guests. Here is a few pictures to show the remaining part of our work.

Giovanni emptying a 80# bag of clay into the drop spreader. You could take the spreader up to the other fence and back and would have to refill. We would place 50 total bags at a time between the two courts.

Giovanni pushing the spreader. The spreader works pretty well in applying an even application across the surface. This would take about 1.5-2 hours. We would then smooth the surface with the brush that the tennis staff uses on a regular basis. This would smooth the surface in preparation for irrigation after each application. We would then come back in after the irrigation had dried enough to use the asphalt roller which the club owns. This would take another 1.5 hours. We would then start the process all over again.

Once the clay application was accomplished, we had to place calcium chloride on the courts. Assist Mike helped apply the calcium chloride. A 50# bag would cover 1 court. Four bags were spread on each court with heavy emphasis of product placed on certain areas of the court that have a tendency to receive more wear and tear.

The completed look of 400 #'s of calcium chloride. Its not Christmas but it was pretty white from the material.

Irrigation after every application of clay and the calcium chloride. The courts are watered every evening during the regular season. Fungicide, weed and algae control products are placed on certain areas of the court to help protect the court. Yes, shade and trees do affect the tennis courts as well because of their shade.

Probably the most difficult or most nerve racking part of the job, laying out the lines. In golf, we like sweeping curves and not so tight geometric features like rectangles and square corners. You can see the army of nails awaiting my hammer on Sunday. From my best count, about 160 nails per approximate 40 feet. All I know is that the box that was full when I started is almost 1/2 empty from being used on court #2. Let's hope my lines are pretty straight and not too much redo but we will do whatever we have to do to make it right. All I know is that assistant Drew told me my second effort was much better than the first which we relined this morning.