What do you do in the winter?

My kid's pediatrician asked me the other day, "What do you do in the winter at the golf course?"  Kind of caught me off guard with the question, just because I wasn't expecting to talk turf while taking my kid to the doctor.  The answer slid out after a moment of brief hesitation.  But then I started thinking how much I get asked this question come Fall, in different forms.  "Y'all staying busy out there?", "Too cold to be working today right?"' "What are y'all doing today?", "There can't be much to do over there in the Winter?" and many other forms of the same question.
Well, it's the week of Thanksgiving and I'm currently on vacation with my family at the beach and I still can't stop working.  I am taking a break from creating my budget for 2015 right now.  That is one of my big tasks for the month of November.  This also involves the process of early ordering chemicals for 2015, which means that I have to have an agronomic plan in place for 2015 by this point.  I'm not going to go too deep into what I, personally, have to get done. 
I will come up with ideas of things that I would like to change all year long.  Hopefully when I have that idea I have my trusty voice recorder with me so I can make a "note to self" and remind myself later.  Some of the things that we work on are carry over jobs that are just too big for our staff to complete in one season.  We also have repeat jobs that we have to do the same at a certain time every winter. 
I will try to outline the jobs that we will be doing this season excluding keeping up the golf course, which does not stop getting done,

Single Season Jobs
tree work
debris removal
opening up the traffic areas on #6
building new tees on #11 and #17
converting the monument Tee signs into flush in ground tee signs
fixing the maintenance shop ceiling
cut back the bradford pears in the parking lots
relocate and identify the correct teeing areas from the score card
adding new heat to pump station

Carry over jobs
clearing out the riverbank on #8, 16, 17, 18
rebuilding bunkers
repair poor sections of cart path

Repeat jobs
spray roundup and pre emergent on entire course 
repaint all tee markers on course
repaint all hazard markers on course
repaint all OB stakes on course
leaf removal in late fall/early winter
re seal wood products out on course benches, cooler stands, trash cans
reorganize the maintenance yard area
clean out and re insulate bird houses huts and nesting areas
working on repairing faulty wiring in the irrigation system
repainting the pump station

I know that I am missing a few in there but even with the amount of repeat jobs we have a lot to accomplish in an off season with a limited staff, not to mention working on the interior of the club house when it needs attention.  And I know that I will come up with more stuff that I want to complete because I do suffer from my eyes being bigger than my stomach frequently.
With all of that said, that's what we will be doing this winter.

New Bunkers

We have just finished sodding the latest group in the bunker renovation project. This group consists of #'s 17 and 18. On #17 the back green side bunker has been filled in and mounded over. The front green side bunker on #17 has been reduced in size and made much flatter. On #18 we renovated the front two bunkers and removed the back green side bunker. The front right bunker got considerably smaller while the front left is about the same size. There are pictures of #18 green surround below.

There was also a bunker eliminated in this round of work. #1 green side bunker has been removed. It is now rough height Bermudagrass. It is basically a catchers mitt now. If you come up short in that area now you will have a very difficult up and down. I did like the placement of the bunker on #1, but the slope was just too dramatic for a bunker here.

We also laid a lot of sod in other areas while we were finishing up the renovated and removed bunkers. We re sodded the exit from #6 fairway back to the cart path. This area has been a continual "thorn in the side " for us. We also sodded the removed bunker on #11 fairway, the exit to the cart path from the fairway on #12, and we also did some cleanup work behind the pump house on #18 where we did some repair work this winter.

We have already started working on the next round of bunker renovations. #'s 3 and 5 have already been shelled out and we are ready to begin cutting drain lines in them. we hope to button them up soon.