Water

For those of you who don't know, as of last year we started accepting reclaimed water from the General Mills plant across the river. They were kind enough to want to help a small business such as ours rather than send it back to the city for treatment. They invested a lot of money into getting us the water, which they want us to use. For those of you who already knew this, I have been trying to put out as much water as I possibly can in our 8-10 hour watering window. Unfortunately we have a lot of electrical issues on the course that kind of hamper our ability to put out water. We have 12 satellites on the course that control all of the heads on the course. each controller governs from 1-3 holes (up to 68 Stations). A Station is a wire path from the Satellite to the Sprinkler Head(there may be up to 3 heads per station). The heads and the wire paths are where our problems lie. The wires have been nicked or broken in many places which will cause what we call a ground fault. Some of the heads just have prior damage to them in the form of a blown solenoid, or have been manually shut off. of the 850 heads that we have on the course I would say that 50% of them operate on a programmable basis. Many of these heads will come on if I go out and manually turn them on, but I do not have the time in a week to operate all of the missing heads manually, and I doubt that you as a golfer enjoy coming up to a fairway with 12 heads running in the landing area. Believe me, I wish that I could push a magic button and make this place nice and soft and green all of the time, but the reality is there is no quick fix. I have purchased a piece of equipment called a ground fault locator. Hopefully this will help me track down some of the shortcomings of the irrigation system this winter. The other issue with putting out water is the fact that we do not have a central control unit to run our irrigation system. A central control unit is a computer that maximize and prioritize the amount and location of water that goes out overnight. Now I am programming by the satellites. This means that I have 12 satellites fighting for program time, essentially competing with each other. The central control would coordinate the programing to where the satellite stops the program because it knows that another needs the water.

This is not a lobby for new equipment. I am simply trying to have something out there for the member or other patron who might wonder why we have so many dry spots on our course.

Fishing

I would like to take a moment to remind everyone that there is NO FISHING in the ponds. I know there are a few homeowners that like to catch and release in the ponds on the course, unfortunately I cannot allow this anymore. Due to the reclaimed water source that we are using I cannot risk the legal repercussions of something happening. Now that we have fountains back in the ponds on # 12 and #13 we have to pull them out occasionally for maintenance. Last time I got an old hook in my hand that someone hung on the anchor rope for the fountain. On the positive side the fountains and the chemical applications that we are making in #11-13 ponds seem to be having good effect on the plant life that is targeted for removal. Unfortunately, I cannot make the same chemical applications in the pond on #18 due to the fact that it is the pond that we draw water for irrigation. Chemical label restrictions will not allow me to apply certain chemicals in this pond at certain times. I am constantly looking for a solution for the problem to the duckweed on #18. Just to solve the issue the lime green stuff floating on the surface is Duckweed, The plant like material that puts out a yellow flower is Primrose, pretty at times but a weed none the less.

Finally Green

Thankfully we made it out of the brutal winter that we had, and we're seeing green grass now. Unfortunately, some of the tighter mown areas (below 0.75") are having trouble making it into the new season. You may have noticed that we are in the process of re sodding the collars around the greens where the current turf is weak or non-existent. We are re sodding the collar with Zoysia Grass, which will benefit us in many ways. It will create a border to keep back encroaching Bermudagrass, It will also come out of dormancy earlier than Bermuda will, and hopefully it will provide a better playing surface for a collar mown at about 0.300".

You may have noticed that some of the areas in the fairways look a little sparse. Most of these areas are the same areas that We had trouble with two years ago. They seem pretty confined to landing areas and north facing slopes. Fortunately we have ryegrass out in these areas to fill in the gap for now. Unfortunately, the Ryegrass can help contribute to the fairways coming in slower than normal. The rye and bermuda are competing for food, water and sunlight. the bermuda will win the competition once the temperature gets high enough, and whatever can't stand the heat will be sprayed out by us to give the bermuda full reign of the tees and fairways.