Sodding Zombies

Not much of a zombie guy but the staff has been getting that sod zombie strut going pretty good the last couple of weeks. They laid another 500 yards on holes 5 left rough to finish the bunker surround area. 7 back right bunker entrance, 2, 11, and 15 approach's and the east side of the practice green area were all sodded. Also a couple of stump holes were covered up and some repair on 4 approach. Pulled up some good bent grass on the approaches and laid it on damaged collars. Normally when we have cut off larger areas for repair, we've used a tractor with a blade and the backhoe as well as a dump truck but its been too soft and the areas are pretty sensitive for large equipment. All these areas were hand picked up. We were able to place the sod nearby this week after our backhoe repaired which kept them from having to load into carts and then unload onto the ground. Staff did a killer job on all of this work!

Left collar on #11 repaired.

Right collar repair 11.

15 stripped and waiting on sod.

Right side of 15 laying sod.

15 complete

We had completed part of the practice green area near the pro shop and looked at the Pearson Lane side and had to clean it  up as well. Aerified it heavily and then put a couple yards of compost in place to help soil structure a little.

Guys laying the sod on practice area.

Its been mentioned could we place some zoysia around so you can practice approach bump and runs so we did a decent sized strip on the east side of the practice green. Not really a place to be chunking out areas of sod but should be able to practice and few bump and runs. We might have to close sections of this during the season when play has worn it down a bit.
We also put some entrance and exit areas on the  pro shop side to try to spread the walk on and off area. We hope the soil modification, irrigation and aerating we will be doing will help keep this area looking good as well.

From the pro shop walk way. Did a larger cut out of zoysia neared Doc Ott's clock area.

Finished the area between the bunkers. Still have to repair the sod trench line from new irrigation.

Another look on 5.

2 approach repair and clean up.

2 approach

The mowing of greens are becoming more regular along with rolling. The first mowing of rough, tees, tee surrounds, fairways occurred this week and bunkers were trimmed up. Finishing up on our pre-emergent applications and we do have a great deal of broad leaf weed control that will take place over the next couple of weeks. Dandelions, clover and some cool season weed control.

We did some finish grading around the new 2 tee complex. Trying to get our laser leveling contractor in over the next week. We are going to have to dig out part of the back tee. The soil is soft and pumping so we will dig it out this morning and put some good hard Glen Echo clay in its place. Little video below showing the smoothed out area.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KPSyWUcEn0

Update on the repair to the back of the tee. Dug out a 10' x 12' section of the back of the tee this morning and back filled with some Glen Echo clay. The soil that was originally used was excessively wet and plastic like not allow the surface to firm and ultimately would have settled. The new soil should improve the situation.

Skip dug out  about 2' of fill that ended up being too plastic/rubbery.

Back filled, packed and smoothed over.