Edge, Vertical, Install, Removal, and Notch

We have not had the greatest weather over the last few weeks. A few dry days, then some cold and wet weather. Staff have been changing the pace more than Adam Wainwright to get things completed for the season at Glen Echo.

EDGING OF BUNKERS

The staff began the arduous task of edging bunkers and moving sand around in them this past week. They completed Holes 1, 3, 4, 7, and 5 with a little more work to be completed. I have a video below which will give you an update of the work and what it takes to get to the finished product which I will bullet point below;

• Edge the lower side of the bunkers. Use a sharpened sod shovel to reform the edge removing the sod that has grown over the old edges. Shake the excess sand from the sod.
• Locate the depth of the various areas inside the bunker to determine which areas need sand and which locations need some sand moved to the more shallow areas.
• Shovel the sand or if there is room use the blade on the bunker rake and push into place.
• Rake the bunker and move to the next. Took 4 staff members all day to work on about 11 bunkers.

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

Completed

VERTICAL MOWING OF GREENS

This past Monday we took advantage of the golf course being closed and vertically mowed our greens. We have a set of reels that goes on our normal greens mower that mows up and down instead of a lateral mowing that we do on a regular basis. There are 37 blades on each mower that cut straight down into the canopy of the turf. These blades are about 3/4" apart and cut through the top of the surface of the green cutting longer turf blades and pulling up small amount of thatch in the process. We only set our cutters to about a depth of 3/8" so the healing process is pretty quick. The purpose of this practice is to help stand up the blades of grass and cut off the longer leaves of bent grass. Bent grass from its name lays over and can become longer relatively speaking. The longer the blade, the more friction placed on the golf ball which slows the balls roll out.

Once we've vertically mowed, we then use a drag brush to stand the turf up and spread the sand and thatch around on the green. The regular mower than mows the green picking up a majority of the excess leaves and thatch material. First video is of the vertical mowing and 2nd is the regular mowing to clean up the material off of the green. 

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

Vertical mower, as you can see the blades are in the vertical position.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJZCu9mnPn0

FENCE INSTALL

The fencing along St. Mary's Lane was made up of a lightweight aluminum fencing which is difficult to stand up against a large area mower. Of course its important that our mowers stay away from the fence as well but at times it would bump up against it and stretch it out of shape. We will be installing an 8 gauge galvanized fence from the Wallingford gate down to the entrance to the club. A majority of this work is complete. We need to bring in another roll of fence to complete the project.

Staff stretching the fence along St. Mary's.

Look from the installed side.

TREE MANAGEMENT PLAN

Over the last few weeks, we've removed another 5-6 standing dead Pin Oaks that succumbed to the Wasp Gall that have invaded our property. We still have 2 to remove on the right of 2 and a dead Sycamore along Lucas & Hunt as weather permits. We had hoped to have all ground out stumps filled with soil and covered with sod but have not been able to get this accomplished because of the lack of lengthy periods of dry weather.

NOTCH ON THE BELT

As most of you know, I've been on a journey over the last few months to improve my physical health and along with these efforts my mental health is improved with the release of hormones and other positive effects of the weight loss, proper eating and exercise helped to create.. My participation in the GO! St. Louis Marathon was an accumulation of efforts since December 10th that have led to weight loss of about 33 pounds and exercise in which majority of it included walking of over 300 miles. During the 12 week challenge with over 130 fellow superintendents, vendors and family members, we lost over 2,200 pounds and I lost 33 total but only 23 during the start of the event on January 1. As I continued to push myself to beat personal bests in waling distance and pace, I decided to do the 1/2 Marathon at the end of February. A couple weeks later after walking along with some jogging I went over 16 miles and the die was cast to try for 26.2 miles. 

My desire is for this to be a permanent change in eating and general exercise which. I still have a goal to get down to 170 pounds(11 more to go) and be at my college graduation weight. I appreciate the memberships support of me during the period. Its been a great experience to date.

I hope to see you out on the course soon.

Oops I Did It Again

No, we aren't talking Britney Spears here ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about millions of holes in our golf greens at Glen Echo CC for a second time in 7 days!!

We completed our Dry-Ject contracted service on March 23rd and we spent parts of 4 days this week doing our Verti-drain Deep-tined Aeration. Our process includes the following:

• Burying each green with about a ton of sand
• Then using our Verti-drain deep-tined aerator with 1/2" tines going about 8" deep into our green profile
• We then blow the sand into the holes
• Brush the green with a drag brush behind a cart
• And Roll the greens

This work assists our .125" tall bentgrass (30 pieces of copy paper tall) in a number of ways:

1. Deep channels assists water to move through the green profile. 
2. It creates channels for new roots to form and grow.
3. Oxygen moves into the subsurface assisting root growth and soil microbiology
4. Reduces excessive thatch which can make a green spongy and be susceptible to foot traffic during wet conditions
5. The additional sand assists in protecting crowns which is the growth center of the plants where roots grow down and leaf shoots grow up. The sand also assists in filling blemishes, ball mark holes and improves ball roll out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd9I0M7PaLA

                                      

                                                 Skip topdressing our greens with sand

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

Russ deep-tine aerating our greens

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jay2BYmSI4Q

It didn't happen if you don't show it in SLOOOOWWWMOOOOOOOO

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

Tom blowing sand in holes. We also use backpack blowers in tight areas.

 Pretty much the finished product. We've brushed and rolled the greens a couple more times this week which assists in spreading the heavier pockets of sand around the green surface. We expect the greens to be completely healed over the next 10-14 days. Work took about 150 man hours to complete.

Tree Management Plan includes removing dead and or dying trees throughout the season. It also includes a few planted when needed. Staff installed 3 trees on the right side of #9 red tee toward the fence line on 9. These trees were grown in our nursery over the last few years and we then transplanted them. From left to right, Black Gum, European Hornbeam and Yellowwood to replace the Carrico tree which died over the winter.

Skip mowing fairways for the first time. Not a real tight mow and used an old set of reals since there is so much small debris on the fairways. We blew and hand picked up as much as we could. This got a little bit of the winter fluff off of them. 

Tee Renovation Completed and Other Course Work

The staff completed the tee renovation to #5 and #14. They were stripped, tilled, laser leveled, tops sodded with zoysia and perimeter with fescue. We converted one single tee pointing to 6 tee box to 2 tees pointing at the 5th green. This should assist our players with proper alignment as well as our staff when they set the markers.

We aligned 14 somewhat the best we could but we were able to increase the teeing surface across the tee. If you remember, the left side fell off somewhat and reduced the overall teeing ground. 

I would expect a month of growth before these tees could be ready for play. In the meantime please resist the urge to walk on the surfaces. Extra water will be applied to get them to root and grow.

We had some extra zoysia and the staff is busy fixing damage spots in fairways. A little bit of fescue is left and we will patch a couple of prominent rough spots near greens. They are also going to remove sod from back area on 9 red tee, fill with dirt and sod with zoysia. This will allow us a larger area for a drop area for players lieing 3 after hitting the water.

We had a contractor come out on Monday/Tuesday to remove the tops of 3 large trees that have been in the process of dying the last couple of years. # 4 Elm along Lucas & Hunt, red oak at #10 tee and a large Pin Oak on the right side of 15. Since it is spring, we intend to evaluate the effects of the tree on 10. Everyone’s assumption is it will make it easier. As you play this season, your inputs that you have noticed in your playing groups will be appreciated by the green committee to make the proper decision to plant a new tree or not. 

MSD contractor continues their work on #9. Glen Echo Park subdivision had combined storm water and sanitary sewers which flowed downstream and would flood areas of U-City. Their efforts are attempting to place storm water in drainage systems and sanitary where it belongs. The area to the right of the cart path will be sodded with fescue allowing it to be more natural looking and fit into our golf course. No gabian in this project. Hopefully it will be completed in the next couple of weeks giving it plenty of time to grow in for summer.

The last pic is our effort to reduce compaction on the right entrance to 10 fairway. We placed a  bench across the path to request golfers to use the left cart path to enter the fairway and proceed to their golf ball. This will reduce the impacts on dormant grass as it tries to break winter's hold. We understand if your ball has gone to the right or not crossed the lake but if all players have crossed safely, please use the left path.

5 Blue Tee

Front of 5 white tee

Left side look of 14 tee. Not quite down the left side but much better than it has been.

Right side. We were able to get the top right corner to align down the right side.

Drainage area on #9. 

This area will be sodded completely and will handle storm water as it comes into the golf course.

Arrow for 10 tee. Please go down the left cart path to enter fairway. 

Storm Damage 5/11 Tree Management Plan

Limbs and leaves down everywhere. Spent a significant amount of our day on fallen Red Oak near 4 tee into the cemetery. Details below. Will be working throughout the day on Friday trying to clean up more material. Its pretty wet  so it is going to be difficult for us to clean up leaves and things on Fairways without doing damage so they will stay where they are for now.

https://youtu.be/0AoVxWBwe4U




https://youtu.be/s-jdxSGHkDQ

Cleaning it up

Threw in the total group except Hort and Mechanic

Getting near the end

Hope there is no damage

Tree Management Plan

Over the weekend, we installed three oak trees on the course and four other trees in a nursery we are establishing behind 17 green.

The first tree was a Chinkapin Oak placed on the right side of #2 about 135 yard from the green. There is a multi stemmed Ash tree at about 160 yards from the green that is showing some structural weakness and could be effected by the Emerald Ash Borer in the future.

You can see the Ash tree in the background as well as a Pin Oak behind it.

The 2nd tree on the course was planted on the lower right side of #10. It is a Swamp White Oak This tree was planted in this location because of a lightning strike and structurally weakened Pin Oak near the 2nd lake on 10 and the right cart path that dead ends at 10 fairway. This tree is already weakened in the crown area and then took a big lightning strike. The new tree will reduce the temptation of those who try to cut the corner too tightly unless you can fly your ball over the top.

The third tree planted was next to the tennis courts along the right side of #18, a Bur White Oak
This tree replaced two hollowed out Silver Maples and a poorly formed Sweet Gum. A great trade off in my mind. I would consider the Bur Oak the King of All Oaks. A formidable specimen tree for members to admire for the next 80 years or so. We need to clean up the stump grindings from the three trees, add soil and sod in the next couple of days.

We also placed four trees in a nursery area behind 17 green. The four trees are a Yellowwood , European Hornbeam ,Kentucky Coffee Tree , Black Gum  These tree will be allowed to grow and will be tree-spaded and moved on the course over the next 6-10 years as needed.

This is the view from the cart path on 2 looking over toward the 16th tee/hole. We have water in this area. The two trees on  the right will be watered regularly from the nursery green sprinklers.  The other two have sprinklers nearby as well if we need to provide some supplemental water.

Miss you Lady girl!

Leaking Water Line, Sod Laying, Mulch Spreading, Zoysia Grass Greenup, and Stump Sodding Oh My!

A number of items to cover as we go into this weekend. The weather has been really kind to us with average temperatures 6-7 degrees above normal for March. That means our warm season grass has awakened early this year. Normally we mow fairways around the 20th of April give or a take a few days. Might be a little early this year but will evaluate a little further early next week. No promises but we are looking at it closely.

The staff noticed the other day a water stream above the 14th tee water fountain. Skip has investigated and believes the leak is coming from under the cart path. Sure, lets make it real difficult. We plan to cut the cart path next week and dig up the leak. The line feeds the water fountain on 14 so it is shutoff for now. Sorry for the inconvenience.

The view looking down from the cart path on 14 tee. Red dots are the water line. We believe the water line is leaking from under the path. Water line comes from Lucas & Hunt. It feeds the Field Bar, goes cross country to the pro shop and to our building. This was the original water line that fed the old clubhouse at the tennis courts.

Free is always good when it comes to our department. We try to think of ways of doing things that do not require additional expenditure. One of these ways is using oak chips from the tree trimming and of course when an oak is dropped we chip those limbs as well. Its not the fanciest mulch but it works well enough in our shrub style beds like along Wallingford Drive along the short range and especially #9 Woodland Garden. We would probably need another thousand dollar load of regular mulch if we used it on these areas. Along with mulching comes continued removal of sweetgum balls. Alphonso worked all day today on about 8 different trees picking up and hauling away gumballs.

Nice sized pile for us to use. You would be surprised how quickly it goes.  Latrell and Randy spreading product along Wallingford.

The staff spent most of the day Wednesday and part of the morning on Thursday sodding the ground stump areas on the course. We still have a few spots that we will seed in the next few days. 

This worked involved hauling dirt which was discussed the week before, packing it and then cutting out the edges and laying the sod. I will circle these areas in the next couple of days to allow you for a free drop from this new sod as well as warning you when driving your carts so that you will not drive over the top of them. It will take a few weeks for them to become solid and to become fully rooted.

Becky came up with the idea to make some additional planters out on the course from the hollowed trees that were removed this winter like she has been using at the Field Bar the last few years. Should be a colorful addition to a few tees on the course this season.

                                                        10 tee with 3 new planters

Last but not least. Greens are healing well from aeration. They were brushed and rolled today after Wednesday evenings rain. We don't do much to them except brush and roll when they are dry. 

11 days since our first and 4 days since the second. If they grow enough over the next few days, we will put a mow to them next mid-week. Biggest issue effecting growth is the fact that we are in the middle of growth regulator time because of seed head development as well as trying to keep the poa annua in a stunted position with another regulator.Yes the greens are a little extra sandy but as they begin to grow through the sand this should give us some excellent smoothness to our surfaces. I would expect the greens to be in great condition for opening day coming up next Saturday for the Men and the following Tuesday for our Ladies.

Greens Aeration Final and Other Work

Completed our last 3 greens this morning. Process included mowing, verticutting, pulling cores, picking up almost 2 million cores, applying soil amendment, topdressing, blowing sand in holes, brushing, rolled this morning and fertilized.  Video explains most of our work. Being a working member in the aeration process, the video leaves much room for improvement including camera(need to buy a Go-Pro) and maybe a Phantom 3 or 4 drone with some overhead video which will help us in our operation. I placed a link to YouTube for those of you whose devices do not open the embedded videos.

Also, we aerated the cool season tees, holes 2,3,5,10,11,14,17 and filled some of the stump grinding holes with soil in preperation for sodding. Short video and a couple pics below as well.

https://youtu.be/483zo9IEMLQ





https://youtu.be/HpJTLXsnDGg





https://youtu.be/5YodaG3OqE8

Compacted below, pile of soil for me to spread under the watchful eyes of you know who in the background!

Smoothed and ready. Might need to add just a bit more dirt but we will see.

Course Work This Past Week

The staff has been busy this past week finishing some of our approved tree management work. We've also been picking up a great deal of limbs, raking up sweetgum balls and other debris on the course. Becky has returned to begin work on bed clean up and other horticulture activities.

Interesting information, went back to a September 2009 PowerPoint I did for the green committee and 7 of the 20 trees removed in main play areas this year were mentioned by me as trees to watch. Well, we watched them and their structure continued to worsen creating a hazard and time to remove. Two were Silver Maples near the tennis courts and one Sweetgum which was removed so that we could then replant 1 tree in an area that would allow for full, proper and mature growth instead of compromised, leggy and weakened structure. The staff were also working down along 3 fence line where some dead trees were removed near the tee area to prevent damage to the fence and protect staff and golfers from debris dropping.

I also finished the remaining spraying of our fairways/tee areas for pre-emergent and non-selective weed killer to kill poa annua which has been popping up over the winter.

As mentioned in the blog post yesterday, I was able to get our seed head control out before a big warm up this week and rain. Wind came up pretty fast this morning and a flat tire on the spray rig but finally got it completed.

Hollowed  Silver Maple that was removed.

An even larger Silver Maple that was compromised even more.

This Sweetgum was near the other two trees and was tall and thin and was removed to allow a new tree to be put in place of the three trees.

This was the area in question along #18. We will get the stumps ground out and then place a tree somewhere in the area near the stump on the left. There are large Pin Oaks to the right which you can see the outline of limbs coming into this picture.  

Stump Grinding Completed Today

Tim Crews from Crews Grinding Services from Springfield, MO came in today and ground the stumps from the trees we have removed so far this winter. We still have a few more trees in play areas to remove and a few along 3 fenceline that we will be saving to last. It took Tim a little over 3 hours to grind about 12 smaller stumps and 12 others that were pretty large(3' up to 8' in diameter). We will use some of the dirt material to throw back into the holes and will remove the parts that are mostly chips to reduce the amount of settling within the hole. Over the next few weeks we will cover them with topsoil and then sod so they will be healed in by the time the summer heat arrives.

We removed a couple of the smaller ground stumps this afternoon. The crew will work full speed ahead tomorrow trying to get the remaining material picked up before the rain and snow comes in overnight Tuesday into Wednesday. Wet and packed soil is much harder to deal with than the loose material we have right now.

Interesting note, Tim was going to a couple of other clubs after Glen Echo where he was going to be grinding over 100 stumps between the two clubs by the end of the day tomorrow.

Did a little slow motion action on the grinder at the 8' diameter tree along #4. Kind of a cool look at the chips flying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmtgAqPSts4

Tree Management Follow Up #2 Two Leader Pin Oak

The fellas dropped the two leader tree Pin Oak along #2 this afternoon. One leader if it fell or split apart would have gone directly perpendicular across the cart path/into the fairway and the other into the rough. When the men dropped the remaining 12' of the tree, it popped open like a watermelon. The cracked area was at least 6' long. This tree looked healthy on the top but both myself and one of our areas top arborists said it should come down. You brought me here to make the tough and correct decisions. I am relieved this evening that this tree is on the ground.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD481t4ATD0

Tree Management Program

Additional tree management work is taking place this week and over the next few weeks as we move through our list of approved removals. We will also be involved in pruning lower limbs on trees to raise canopies as time allows throughout the late winter and spring.

Our work this week concentrated along #2 fairway and #3 tee. We have two severely compromised Silver Maples and a Pin Oak dual leader tree that has cracked and is being removed. We will be spending $ 1,000 in April on cabling two other Oaks to slow their potential development of a large crack which will require their premature removal for safety purposes.

We will be placing a tree along #4 near the large Pin Oak that we finally removed once the stump is ground in the next few weeks. What I mean by finally is that I've had major pruning completed on this tree since I arrived 8 years ago in an effort to not remove it or an attempt to delay the inevitable. With my contractor/arborist out evaluating trees with me a few weeks ago, he said that tree was the worst he saw on property in a high traffic area and we should not wait any longer. 

I understand the concerns of folks who think trees are more important that about anything else but when it comes to hazard trees, we are left with no other option but removal. My efforts are to eliminate the potential for tragedy as well as completing the work in the proper time of year. The proper time of year saves us time and money for our operation. Large removals during the growing season increases the cost of removal by at least 25%-50% which includes increased contractor fees and lost time of my staff who should be managing turf. In the end, the biggest inconvenience is to our membership and guests.

Additional removals are planned with a couple of Ash trees and three planned for removal on 18 in which two are hazardous Silver Maples and a Sweet Gum nearby. Once these 3 are removed, a new hardwood tree will be planted in their place. We will also be adding trees in our planned nursery behind 17 green as we move closer to spring.

Stump grinding will be completed in the next few weeks once we get further along in our removals. Grinding stumps a few at a time would increase our costs by two to three times since we don't own our own grinder. I did just speak to our contractor and told him I wanted this work completed much earlier this year than in the past so we hopefully will have everything ground before the end of February.

The dual leader Pin Oak near the red tee on #2

Same tree with limbs removed. Stub will be removed later today. Tree is 300 yards from green.

Crack that was 3' long in the dual leader.

Silver Maple about 50 yards past the Pin Oak.

Yes, tree was hollow.

Trunk of tree

This was a very large upper limb that was nearly eaten through by carpenter ants.

All the upper limbs were hollow.

Staff working on cutting up the remnants that were dropped by our contractor.

#3 tee Silver Maple. Back side limb hanging over fence died last season.

Topping of tree by contractor. we will pull it over to prevent it from falling on the fence.

Additional trees along 3 tee that will be removed during the winter. This is an example. Removal will prevent personal injury as well as destroying fence if it fell onto it.

Tree Management Plan

Three large trees were identified for removal this fall due being severely compromised(dangerous) and or near death. Time for their removal. Two of these trees were a Sweetgum and Pin Oak along the roadway at 10 tee and a third tree Oak on the left side of 4 near the 5th tee area. These trees first had to be topped by our contractor due to their size and then we removed the totem pole and hauled out the material.

This work took nearly a week to accomplish. Some of the material was chipped and will be used on property, the oak that we can handle will be split and used for shop heating and sold to members for firewood. Stumps will be ground in late winter when our contractor comes in and completes them in a couple of hours. The oak on 4 was nealy 7 feet across from flare to flare.

Oak on 4 near 5 tee. Large crack in upper left limb. Been watching tree for last couple of years. It was time to remove.

Gamma Tree Service removing all the upper limbs making it easier for our staff to drop the stub to the ground for removal.

Topping Tree Video

Three guys notching and now near the end cut ready to drop to the ground.

Safe and sound and on the ground.

Sweetgum along the Pearson Lane with large wound on trunk and crown was compromised as well. Very hazardous and time to come down.

Chain Saw Melody Link

Sweetgum is down, now working on large Oak near 10 tee. Beautiful tree but lightning strike with huge wound in main trunk and over 1/2 the tree last season had no leaves. Time to go to rest.

Gamma finishing off the top.