Hello and welcome to The Greenkeeper! Today is Monday, October 31st and as we close the books on another month I want to bring everyone up to speed on our ongoing bunker renovation as well as some other work that will begin later this fall.
It's hard to believe we are practically one month into our bunker renovation project with Golf Course Services, Inc. (GCS). Over the past four weeks we've conducted a Club Championship, Member-Guest, and Tough Day competitions. We've hosted two outside outings, and were open for a federal holiday. Yet despite those hurdles we managed to work together to complete 19 bunkers to date, with 4 more scheduled for completion this week.
Please recall, there are 81 total bunkers on property and 10 of those were renovated last season. This leaves us with 71 bunkers to renovate this year and to be on the cusp of having 23 bunkers under our belt in the first 32 days isn't too shabby. But it's not the number of bunkers that's most important but rather the surface area.
Our 81 bunkers comprise about 68,000 square feet of surface area. That's roughly 1.5 acres of bunker sand! By the end of this week GCS will have renovated approximately 16,000 square feet of bunker floor this season, or roughly 24% of total surface area and 27% of the surface area to be renovated this year. In other words, we still have much to do before we complete this course improvement.
In an effort to minimize as much as possible the impact to the events previously mentioned plus the upcoming Carolina Invitational we specifically targeted fairway bunkers and thus a good portion of those recently completed are smaller pot sized bunkers, especially on Hole 7.
A refresher of the renovation process is the removal of excess sand splash build up on the grass face, returning the bunker cavity to its original shape, inspecting the drainage and reinstalling with new gravel, resodding the grass face, installing the capillary bunker liners, installing new G-Angle bunker sand.
As GCS made their way across the heart of the property renovating fairway bunkers we sometimes found ourselves on more than one hole at a time. I am happy to tell you beginning next week following the conclusion of the Carolina Invitational the plan is to return to Hole 17 (Hole 18 is completed) and renovate the two remaining greenside bunkers which will complete Hole 17.
GCS will then progress through the golf course in reverse order, meaning they will next move to Hole 14 (Hole 16 is bunkerless and Hole 15 is completed). Following the completion of Hole 14 they will proceed to Hole 13 and so on. This way any potential disruption to your scheduled round should only be one hole and you will always complete your round playing holes unencumbered with freshly renovated bunkers.
We will continue to inform the Golf Professional Staff each day where the work is taking place and you will continue to receive the regular email updates too. The weather has been extremely favorable thus far with little rainfall. We've only received 5.43 inches combined in September and October and that includes 2.40 inches in one day (Ian). Hopefully this trend continues for several more weeks.
In other news, Arborguard was on site October 24th and removed the large dead pine tree to the right of Hole 5. They are scheduled to return November 7th, 21st, and 28th as needed to complete the prearranged tree work I referenced in the most recent Ross Report. Following the conclusion of all necessary tree removal we will have all stumps ground and patch the areas with new sod.
Sometimes it’s best just to leave it to the professionals! pic.twitter.com/dKdqMd6w6W
— Matthew Wharton (@CGCGreenkeeper) October 24, 2022
And speaking of tree work. In case you hadn't noticed, my team has been busy removing low hanging and downward growing limbs along the boundary of Hole 14 as well as from the pine trees separating Holes 5 and 15. This will permit more sunlight to the turf below and perhaps make a little more room to get an off-line shot back into play.
Lastly, we are now only four weeks away from the beginning of our drainage project on Holes 2 and 8 with the folks from TurfDrainage Company of America, Inc! As I mentioned in the Ross Report, Turf Drain are the leaders in golf course drainage and will install their patented system on Holes 2 and 8 between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Dennis Hurley, from Turf Drain made a site visit in late May spending over half a day evaluating the property and discussing our drainage needs. A drainage master plan was developed and it was decided by the committee and Board to tackle the two most pressing areas first. We are really looking forward to this upcoming course improvement.
A friendly reminder to repair your pitch marks and ball marks, rake footprints in the bunkers, and fill divots with the sand provided in order to help us make the course even better for your next round.
See you on the course,
Matthew Wharton, CGCS, MG
