Fairway aeration beginning Monday, July 22nd

We will be aerating our fairways beginning Monday morning weather permitting.  It usually takes us three days to get everything completed.  We do a majority of the work on Monday and then do a couple of fairways each day on Tuesday/Wednesday depending upon what is left. We will be using two aerators on Monday.  The actual aeration goes fairly quickly but it is the clean up the takes the most time.  We will be using our flail unit to break up the cores and then drag behind it.  The fairways are blow off and then mowed.  The aeration can take around an hour depending upon the size of the fairway and the clean up process can take 1.5 to 2 hours to complete.  The biggest issue we have is dealing with dew that slows down the drying process and usually delays the beginning of our clean up until about 9-10 a.m.

We will also be aerating the zoysia surrounds with our rough aerator and will need to do the red tees and range tees with our verti-drain machine.  Not sure if mother nature will let all this work happen but we will try.

We appreciate your patience during this most important process.

Rain day, still a work day

While the seasonal staff were called off for the day, the full time staff still have work to do cleaning equipment, sharpening blades and etc.  Still in the process of hiring a mechanic so we are catching up on preventative maintenance issues.

Nick steam cleaning his rough unit.

Golf Cart Repairs

The staff spent part of Thursday morning removing 48 dead batteries from various golf carts that we had tested about a month ago.  The new batteries were placed in 12 carts.  Other batteries that we still good in some carts were moved around to insure that all carts are now operational. We have 240 batteries in our carts.  The carts were new in March of 08 so we've completed our 5th year and heading into the 6th.  We will test the remaining older batteries as various times during the season and will change them out as needed to reduce potential breakdowns on the course.  As the chargers for the carts continue to age, we will be monitoring them as well.  Carts that do not receive proper charging will breakdown as well.  The staff from Battery Outfitters who is a Master Distributor for Trojan Battery helped us with delivery of the new batteries and removal of the old batteries for recycling.  The staff cleaned the older terminals, replaced bad cables as needed and placed a little bit of petroleum jelly at each connection to help reduce corrosion.  Batteries for our carts is a significant preventative maintenance expense but it will allow us to get longer life out of our carts over the next few years before we trade them in for a new fleet in the next 3-4 years or so. Barrett and the pro shop staff has been cleaning carts from their winter storage and should have them in good shape for when the weather breaks this golf season. 

Course supplies refurbished and on the course

Part of our winter work involves painting, staining, coating and repairing our equipment that goes out on the golf course to assist you with playing your round of golf.  With the arrival of March, time to get this spruced up equipment back out on the the course.

We use a product called Vinylguard which is a vinyl shrink wrap material that is applied with a heat gun and placed on the flag poles.  It renews them and improves their overall look.  We also replaced the ferrule that fits into the hole making a tighter fit and helping to keep the flag in the hole during windy days.  A new flag stick costs about $ 17.00 each.  New coating and ferrule about $ 8.00 which allows us to get 2-3x's the life of the pole.

Same Vinylguard material is placed on the bunker rakes.  Fiberglass rakes look fine for a few years but then begin to fade and splinter which is not pleasant on the hands.  We cover them with the vinylguard giving them a new look.  This material costs about $ 3.50 per rake.  Much cheaper than buying new rakes and will last for at least 4-5 years.  They can then be recovered for another series of years.  New rake handles cost about $ 15.00 each.

Marine varnished tee markers which were brushed and dipped a number of times to get this great looking finish.  We should not have to renew these during the middle of the season like we have been doing in years past with a standard clean coat sealer.

Mechanical repair area back in service

Its taken a few weeks to put the repair area back into service after tearing everything completely out, painting the floor, replacing old wood shelving, organizing the parts and supplies inventory and getting everything brought back into the area.  Shop is better organized and supplies are in more convenient locations.  Grinder will come alive for the next few weeks.

Equipment maintenance shop improvement

Former Superintendent Scott was instrumental in changing the overall appearance of the maintenance facility in 2006 with a general clean up of the complete facility.  The complete replacement of an aged fleet of
equipment and a general cleaning has provided us with a better looking and organized maintenance facility. 

After a few years of accumulating stuff(junk) in the main mechanical repair area plus a floor that is soiled with many years of grease and oil, its time for an overhaul in the most important area of our facility.  The repair and parts area is not large by facility standards, 22'x40'.  Our parts and supplies are stocked in a separate parts room but along the walls in wooden pigeon holed shelving.  This reduces the space in our maintenance area that is already limited and makes it difficult to determine the supplies that we have on hand.   

We plan to remove everything from the shop, all benches, desks and storage bins, clean and repaint the walls, acid wash the floor, patch the cracks and holes in the concrete and epoxy paint the floor a light gray which will sharpen and enhance this most important work area.  The epoxy paint will be light reflective and will be much easier to keep clean.  Shelving to hold parts and supplies will be streamlined and improved.  I will post additional pictures of the improvements as we move forward.

Benches have been removed out of the center background and right side where our parts storage shelf was located.
The equipment lift is the red unit with the cross bars in the middle.  It is permanently set in place.

This is the view from the other side looking toward the reel grinder in the back ground and to the right is the bedknife grinder.

Equipment Maintenance

Our mechanic, Harry White working on one of our riding greens mower units. Harry is rebuilding one of the three reels for the unit. These units are used in the early and late season and during our sanding operations during the season. The reel is sharpened on a regular basis which wears down the reel to the point where it will not make contact with the grass. He will rebuild one unit now and have it ready for the beginning of the season. Harry plans to rebuild the second unit after our deep core aeration is completed in March. The mowing operation after aeration will trash the 2nd set of old reels which will then be replaced.

Harry does a fine job in maintaining our equipment and also operates equipment during some of the busier times of the year like aerating greens, fairways and during the extra mowing required during "The Invitational".

Harry putting reel back together.