Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Part Deux, Puffy, and Overlayed



 As meteorological summer began in June, we thought we were in for a hot and dry summer. The end of June and into July brought copious amounts of rain.(As wise men once said it never rains in July). Along with the rain storms came tremendous damage to THEM things which created some issues for our staff but they stepped up and handled the situation as best could be expected.(As seen on Social Media I will not use the word Trees as I now refer to them as THEM. Its a coping mechanism so work with me here)

Well, Part Deux happened again last week but luckily to a smaller extent.We struggled a bit through some horrific weather last week but have made it through to the other end. We hope to have the rest of our mess cleaned up for the holiday weekend including getting some support posts put back up on the tennis courts to stop any further damage. The new wind screens are being removed for the season to reduce any further damage to the existing structure until we get it shored up and strengthened for next year.

 1 green after tree fell on irrigation system causing 2 heads to come on. I came back to turn off irrigation not knowing this had occurred. Happy I came back.

 Over the last few weeks, our greens have struggled from soft and puffy conditions. Temperatures have averaged more than 3 degrees above normal including that all important night lows which has not allowed recovery time of our turf. Consistent and regular rainfall on our greens which do not have drainage has led to soft surfaces and fat/lazy grass plants who do not like to give up additional ball roll out. We have been forced to not mow greens on a number of days because of the rain or damage which has occurred on the course. We have also had issues with scalping out in the middle of greens and over the top of our hole locations. We use a plate that we stand on which reduces the heaving of the greens as we pull out the 8" plug from the green but we continue to have issues. Also, with an inch or two of soil at the bottom of our hole this creates great suction when the greens are wet. We attempt to reduce this suction using various techniques but sometimes to no avail.

                              This has been experienced many times this summer at Glen Echo
 

 Heat and moisture leads to high microbial activity in our sub surface's and the release of additional nutrients for plants. We attempt to control this growth by the use of regulators but that has been very difficult for us to accomplish over the last few weeks. High heat shortens the window of the chemical's useful life and then chaos hits the course either in 1-2" rainfall and or high wind conditions and we've missed some of our windows for spraying. One of the chemicals is a product which has to dry on the greens and the other must be watered in which also creates its own set of issues. When you are already wet do you add more moisture and possibly make your greens sick just to control growth. Sometimes you just have to do nothing until the environmental conditions change. We anticipate with cooler weather the next 7 days to get back on track with sand topdressing, brushing mowing and rolling. 

We are looking forward to more of this!

  We had hoped to have some cart paths back filled with soil and sod added in the worst areas between 1 tee and 4 but have not been able to accomplish this to date. We hope to begin this process as time allows. To a man and women, we are much appreciate of the effort to clean up our cart paths. You can do all you can to have great turf but having your equipment banged around with heights of cut set at thousandths of an inch can lead to issues on our best surfaces. I see staff members driving down the middle of a fairway to avoid the rough nature of our paths. Some have mentioned, why not concrete? Well, if we had a choice of course we would go with concrete but the cost is astronomical in comparison. Our local superintendent has a text thread where we throw out questions or look for guidance. Been told by a reliable source that has been doing concrete over the years that replacement of asphalt and going to concrete would be easily into 7 figures. I would like to have the most modern bent grass on our greens and complete drainage in each green but it can't happen right now. 

                                                                 The old and the updated!

From November through March, we have a tendency to have some large equipment on our paths.Our dump truck is 7'10" wide. An 8' cart path leaves you no room for error. An 8'4" cart path basically the same but does give you just a little wiggle room. Our backhoe is over 7' wide and our lift is nearly 8' wide and heavy. We work in the winter during freeze and thaw conditions which is the norm around St. Louis since we don't stay nearly as cold. As we are driving on our existing roadways you literally see them flex up and down.creating more path repair work the next season. Kind of makes you sick to your stomach knowing to accomplish your work you have to tear up something and create more work. Over laying these paths will help to strengthen our existing surfaces and allow us the time to continue to improve our facilities to the best we can make them.


We of course focus our efforts on our daily work but our biggest event of the season if coming up rather quickly. The Invitational 2021 opening round is about 403 hours away. I anticipate you will see some ever changing conditions over the next 16 odd days. I hope you have pleasant day.

 

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

Cart Path Update

 Good progress on the cart path overlay today at Glen Echo.

The clubhouse circle was completed this morning and the operation was moved to the area of 3 tee and our contractor brought us to within about 200 yards from the first tee.

Thursday play will begin from the 10th tee to allow us some extra time to get through #1 tee. We will be asking members to go through the maintenance area to get to the driving range since we will be stacked with trucks along 1 and into the range area. Our road begins at the guard rail near the cart garage. We will then complete the long range road and parking area and then move out to #3. I anticipate 4 tee to the field bar road behind 7 green off of #4 completed on Friday.

The asphalt that is currently laid is ready to be driven upon. Once the asphalt is rolled a few times it will be ready to drive upon. In the meantime, if you are out on Thursday or Friday, we will provide some guidance in the area that we are working. I Thanks for your patience as we work through this project.

Areas ground on parking lot as contractor prepared to fill with new asphalt.

Rolling the newly patched area.

Laying asphalt in clubhouse circle.

Rolling the area smooth.
                                       Contractor using a paving machine to lay the asphalt. Staff firming up
                                        sides and smoothing out imperfections.


Steamy hot.
                   
Finished product after rolling from 2 tee to 1 green.

From 2 tee onward and up!

Asphalt on the high side of 1 will need some back bill and sod.


Area near the upside but on the low side with the same issue. Soil and sod to smooth out.
 This will prevent damage to equipment and reduce hazardous situations for carts and our members operating them. 

Monday, August 2, 2021

Cart Paths and Fairways

Over the next few days, there are a couple of large scale projects taking place on the grounds of Glen Echo CC.

Sunday evening we began to aerate our fairways. Skip and I came in once the last tee times went off and started pulling cores and then busting up the cores with a Flail mower that has spinning blades and chains and pulverizes the plugs. Today we will begin to drag the fairways with metal drags which breaks up any plugs that made it past the grinding. It will also help work the soil back through the zoysia canopy. We blow the remaining thatch and residue into the rough where it can be chewed up by the rough mower. Earth to earth and dust to dust. The fairways are then mowed. We anticipate this taking more than one day to complete all of our fairways. We normally have 3-4 fairways to complete usually on Tuesday and or Wednesday depending upon the weather conditions and anticipated play. 

Asphalt work will begin in earnest on Tuesday with the front clubhouse circle getting an overlay, Grinding along the edges of the crosswalks in the Pearson Plaza and near the portico will be completed and then a layer of asphalt will be laid in the circle area.We will begin asphalt on the course on Wednesday. The first work will be from the bottom of 3 hill all the way into the first tee and also the path that goes to the range.

Large dump trucks will be taken by our staff out into the field to assist in navigating through play. We will stage them in the parking lot and they will be brought out from there. They will also be brought back in once empty. Once the first section is complete, they will proceed to the second section which will be from the lowest point on hole 3 going forward through 4 tee to where it ties into the path behind 7 green. Those trucks will be staged  in the main entrance area, The new overlay will be 2" thick and we have a total linear footage of about 5,700' at an average width of about 8'.  

We anticipate this work to be completed by Friday. The asphalt will be able to be driven upon the next day. Depending upon weather, we will begin the process of back filling dirt in along the path and sodding fescue to help make a smooth transition with the new grade. We will do sections at a time to give us the best chance at growing the turf in properly since we are still into summer heat. I would not anticipate all the sodding to be completed before winter is upon us in December. Some areas might not need any back fill which will be helpful.

 

 

The sealing and striping of the parking lot is scheduled for Monday August 9th. Once the delays in the parking lot moved closer to our open window for the cart path overlay, the two projects were switched around so the sealing would not be damaged by the large asphalt trucks. This work should take 2-3 days next week.


We appreciate  your understanding during this time.Check you emails for updates and or social media for both the club and my personal accounts.

Instagram joewachter

Twitter jdwachter  Joe Wachter

Facebook  joewachter4