New bridge deckings and ornamental beds being touched up with fresh mulch

Promised some finished pictures of the concrete pour on 15 bridge and the asphalt work on the Marvin Pierson Lane bridge repair. A Turkey and mulching round out the pictures below.

Place some heavy duty fabric in the hole to keep gravel in place.  Covered larger gravel with smaller which Jason is packing with our vibratory plate.

A quick fix so we used bagged asphalt for this repair.  Pretty difficult to close bridge down for any length of time since we have many guests using the lane and trying to coordinate with too many people.



Jason packing the asphalt after it has been laid out.

Finished product.  Will seal it in the next few weeks. Tore it out Monday morning and completed before 11 a.m. Tuesday.  Quick job.  Still have to evaluate clay tiles under bridge for potential lining.

The concrete bridge covering on 15 completed.

Looks like we have a Jake Turkey playing around over on holes 2-3 again like a couple of  years ago.

Becky mulching the main entrance beds at the clubhouse.  75 yards of mulch to spread and she is doing most of it herself.  Watches over her plants like a hawk!  Staff has assisted but its mostly her work one cart load at a time.  The staff will do the large area down in the woodland garden on 9 with the chipped mulch for her.  Not too many plants to get in the way down there.

Finished product.  Looks great.  Fine layer, just enough to change color. We don't like big piles of mulch in our beds.  Helps to hold moisture in soil but not create an artificial layer for roots to live within.

Living room bed becoming my favorite.  Lilac trees beginning to pop out.  Smell will be awesome in a few days.

15 bridge/spillway work

Today the staff poured the new flume or bottom of the spillway drain pipes at #15.    

The bottom of the galvanized pipes were rusting through and allowing water to potentially undermine the entire structure.  We intend to resurface the bridge a week from Monday since we have an outing this coming Monday.

Leaf Patrol, Bridge work and foot prints in bunkers

After mowing greens this morning, part of the staff spent the rest of the day clearing a large amount of leaves that accumulate over the winter along our fence lines.  They hand rake and use backpacks to blow the leaves in rows so that another staff member with a tractor and vacuum can then come by and pick them up and haul them to our dump area.  They were able to get a large portion of #4 completed and started on part of #3 because the winds changed direction.  This normally takes 3-4 days to complete the entire perimeter of the fence line of the property.  If the leaves are not picked up, they will kill grass along the fence rows, make it difficult to locate a stray golf ball and can also be blown back into play areas when  the wind blows in the right direction.

Jason picking up the rows of leaves along 3 that Jeff, Randy, and Sam blew away from the fence.

Skip, Russ and Tom worked on the 15 bridge/spillway project today.  A couple of portable mixer loads of concrete were placed underneath the 15 bridge spillway to shore it up and stop the scouring of gravel from underneath the structure.  The guys mortared some cracks in the upper part of the spillway to reduce leakage underneath the structure.  We plan to place a new concrete roadway on the bridge, preferably a Monday in the next couple of weeks. Still have to talk with Skip about the concrete flume work that I originally had discussed.

Skip, Russ and Tom pouring the concrete through the hole cut in the lower spillway. You can see the boards in the foreground and background that were used to prevent the concrete from coming out from underneath the structure.

I sprayed greens today with our seed head suppression product that I discussed a couple of weeks ago.  The requirements of the application are that you spray it no later than 21 days after the first application.  I was 1 day on the back 9 and 2 days early on the front 9 but early is better than late. I was concerned with a potential report of rain overnight and with Men's Opening Day on Saturday, did not want to be late with the application.  It appears our application is working but we still have not reached the peak flush for seed heads which should occur in the next few weeks and last for at least a couple of weeks depending upon the weather.

During the spraying today, 17 green was one of my last greens to spray. I took a picture below of a bunker that was not raked.  What was most surprising to me was that all three bunkers appeared to be not raked and all had foot prints in them.  Please be aware that bunkers are not raked every day and if you leave your foot prints in a bunker, players behind you are potentially left with a difficult shot if their ball would fall into a foot print.  Please be considerate and rake the bunkers after you use them.  Interesting, a majority of the other bunkers were raked properly.

The right bunker on #17 that was not raked after balls were hit from it by what it appears to be at least two different foot prints.

15 Bridge/Spillway Repairs

The bridge/spillway leading from 15 tee to 15 fairway is in need of some significant repairs since the excessive rain last week.  The gravel  under the spillway leading to 15 lake has been scoured out over time and the roadway/asphalt experienced another collapse.  

Today, we ripped off the asphalt covering to the bridge and cut a hole in the concrete spillway to check how much of gravel has been eroded from underneath the spillway.  Our plan is to pour concrete under the spillway to reinforce the spillway and protect from future erosion.  The upper part of the spillway needs some patching and the rusted bottoms of the galvanized spillway pipes will receive the same treatment we did last season to the spillway between the two small lake on #10.  We will cut the rusted section of the pipe and place a new concrete flume bottom so the water will travel through the spillway and empty into the lower lake. Our last task will be to place a new concrete bridge surface for carts and walkers to cross the area.

In the meantime, please use caution when crossing the bridge by foot or by cart. This work should take a week or so depending upon rain and lake levels.

Skip removing the asphalt covering of the bridge on #15.  Once repairs are made to the galvanized spillway pipes which have rusted bottom and repairs to the concrete spillway, the bridge will be resurfaced with concrete.

A check hole was cut in the lower section of the spillway so we could see the damage.  We plan to pour concrete into the area to stop the eroding that is taking place under the structure.  You can see to the left the rusted galvanized pipes.  The rust areas will be cut out and a new concrete flume will be installed to move the water  between the two lakes.

10 lake crossing completed

Skip, Russ and Tom did great work on the crossing to #10.  Not easy work since they had to climb inside a 38" pipe during part of the work removing the rusted bottom of the pipe, laying additional rock and pouring and smoothing the concrete.

Last section waiting for more concrete.

Skip and Tom smoothing it out.

Final product and back open again for safe crossing.

Bridge repair

The bridge on #10 that was pushed over by a big rain event in mid-summer was rebuilt this past week.  Our staff broke the bridge into individual pieces and chiseled the excess mortar off of each piece of stone in preparation for the stone company to restack and mortar it back into place. 

The bridge beginning to take shape.

The staff from Stone Mill Design nearing the completion of the rebuilding of #10 bridge.

The finished product as good as new.

Bridge repair

The bridges over our lake drain culverts continue to create some issues for us. Sections of the galvanized pipes used in creating the spillways have rusted in the bottom which allows water to get under the pipes and move the gravel which was filled around the pipes at installation years ago. As the gravel under the pipe erodes, the gravel which is over top of the pipe then drops down to the bottom creating potholes in our asphalt cart/walk paths. During the heavy rain last week we had another episode on #15. Our repairs since last fall which have been at least 2-3 have included concrete which is being pored into the holes which will reduce the amount of erosion around the top of the pipe. This will also keep our surface from breaking open and exposing small to moderate caverns below.

Lady as usual inspecting the work that needs to be accomplished for the day. The hole on the left is almost all the way down to the bottom of the pipe in depth. The hole on the right was a repair we made early last fall before we started to include concrete as our fill material. It was only about 1' deep.















Picture does not give the depth perception I wanted but you can see it is only about 1'foot wide but it dropped down at least 3-4'.
















The repair completed and patched back over with asphalt.