Snow and Ice, what shall we do?

We made it through the heavy rains of October, two cold snaps in November, and our first snowfall of the off-season.   The latest weather event kept us off the course for a few days as the snow and ice stuck around due to consistently low overnight temperatures in the 20's for almost a week.

Hole #1 the morning of November 29th

Every year we look for opportunities to improve certain things on the property, processes within our operation as well as the headquarters that we operate out of.  It has always been my belief that a clean, organized and professional environment has an impact on how our team views their jobs.  Employees that take pride in their surroundings are more inclined to perform at a higher level, morale is increased and a feeling of structure is established which breeds efficiency.  All of these positive attributes ultimately translate into a much better golf course for our members.  

Hole #6 with snow and ice on December 2nd.

With that being said, we took advantage of the recent weather and spent some time giving our head mechanic, Lou a hand in giving his shop a complete face lift.  The last time we gave this area a good deep cleaning and fresh coat of paint was eight years ago during the winter of 2006-2007 so you could say it has been a while.  The crew spent a lot of time scrubbing the years of built-up grime off the walls and floors before putting a new coat of paint on virtually every surface.  Check it out.

Before.

After.

Up close look of the two part epoxy paint we used on the floor.  Isn't it beautiful?

Speaking of beautiful....look at this sunrise that I was able to capture standing on the 13th green earlier this week.  Again, one of the reasons that I love my job here at TPCSR.

#13 Green Sunrise.

Looking Ahead to Fall

The agronomy staff has been very busy the past few months and we are finally in the midst of wrapping up a very successful summer on the golf course.  As a whole, myself, and the rest of the team are very pleased with how the golf course is emerging from what is being touted as one of the hottest and driest summers in Seattle history.  After the 90 degree day we had yesterday, we are set to break the all-time record for the most 80 plus degree days in a single season if we get one more day above 80 degrees this year.  Thanks to our programs and practices that we had in place this past spring and summer, the turf will go into the Fall season playing great, healthy and primed to harden-off very well for the winter.  

If you have been on the golf course lately, it is obvious that Fall cultural practices are already underway.  As it is with every year, following the conclusion of the club championship which was held over the weekend of the 6th and 7th of this month, we work very hard to capture whatever nice and dry weather we have left to complete practices that are targeted at removing thatch, reliving compaction and promoting gas exchange within the rootzone on all short-cut turf.  The dry conditions also help the work move much faster for our staff and leaves all surfaces cleaner, maximizing our bang for the buck and giving you, the golfer better post-aeration playing conditions.

This year, we have chosen to remove thatch on our fairways using our verticutter, then following behind with our newly purchased deep tine aerator to loosen our soils.  This is a method that we have not had the luxury of employing in past years as we did not have a deep tine aerator.  However, now that we have both of these machines, we are able to get the best of both worlds, remove thatch up top where it has the most impact on ball-roll and use our deep tine aerator to do the rest: relieve compaction, create drainage channels and promote gas exchange which all lead to healthier, better performing playing surfaces.  For more information and highlights on our deep-tine aerator, please view my previous post.

Results of Verticutting.

Verticutting and blowing thatch off fairways.  The large orange machine is the verticutter,
 a PTO- driven tractor attachment called the Wiedenmann Super 500.

The areas that receive extremely concentrated amounts of traffic and compaction, namely our tees and approaches get a little bit more love which translates into a combination of the traditional core removal, verticutting and deep tining.  Tees and approaches, no matter what the year will always need a little bit more TLC as they are very small patches of turf that are essentially bottlenecks for traffic from golfers and maintenance equipment.  With that said, these areas need every advantage that we can give them through promoting ideal growing conditions which also leads to ideal playing conditions.  Hence, we go a little bit more heavy-handed with the cultural practices on these areas.  The cores removed from these areas will end up in all of the skybox footings that were dug out for the Boeing Classic on #14 and #18 this past Summer.  Once all footings are filled and compacted, we will overseed and fertilize these areas to promote germination of new turf.

We will wrap up the month with greens aerification which is scheduled to take place on the North-end practice greens beginning Sunday evening the 28th and continuing all the way through Wednesday, October 1st.  We will be testing our equipment and methods on the nursery and South-end practice greens in the next week or so to make sure we are ready to go at game-time.  As with every year, there is a disclaimer that states we may need to move these dates up or back as it relates to the weather.  One of the most important things we do when we aerify the greens is incorporate new sand into the profile through the holes we make with the aerifier.  The only way that the sand is able to make it's way into those holes is if it is dry.  That being said, if there is rain in the forecast, the sand will be too wet to sift down into the holes.  We will be watching the 10 day weather forecast as the 28th-1st gets closer to see what Mother Nature has in store for those days.  If the weather does not look good, we will need to make some adjustments to the dates in order to capture dry weather.  Any adjustments to these dates will be communicated as soon as feasibly possible.  Please keep your fingers crossed for good, sunny weather!!

Once we are able to complete all of these aforementioned fall cultural practices, the agronomy staff will be doing further work preparing the course for the winter which includes our annual mowing down of the fescue to promote plant health and control of unwanted species growing in the fescue areas.  This will be something that you will see continue quite possibly all the way through the end of October and early November as we have almost 75 acres of the stuff and much of it is on very steep terrain, making it slow-going.  We also plan to target a few areas in the fescue with a herbicide to keep the weeds from overtaking certain areas.

All in all, despite the busy summer, we have no plans to slow down this month as we have a lot of work ahead of us.  With as successful of a season as we have had, it is important to remember that this kind of success does not come without a solid foundation of agronomic practices that set the stage for future success and as I have outlined, that is what we are now turning more of our attention to right now.  Cheers, I hope all of you have enjoyed this summer as much as I have.  See you around the course!

Let me tell you a secret . . .

The crew has been busy this week punching not just the time clock but all the closely mowed turf too.  You may or may not have noticed this because the impact of what we have been doing on play has been so minimal.

On the fairways and tees we have been using our newly acquired Wiedenmann deep tine aerator at a depth of 6 inches and a 15 degree kicking action that fractures the soil each time a hole is made.  As far as the greens go, we use our porcupine spiker attachment that is mounted underneath our Tru-turf greens rollers at a depth of 1.5 inches.  All of this busy work is part of the program that we have put in place to maintain turf health at an optimal level as we get ready to battle the summer heat and peak golfer and equipment traffic in July and August.  The goals of this program include:

1. Water penetration.  This helps wet spots dry out and dry spots become more receptive to water that is applied, creating a more consistent playing surface.
2. Compaction relief.  The golf course has been subjected to increased cart traffic, equipment traffic and foot traffic as we have moved from Spring to Summer weather.  By making holes in the surface and fracturing the soil, we are creating pore space to encourage deeper and stronger rooting which will help the turf tolerate heat and traffic stress this summer.  
3. Gas exchange.  Oxygen will be allowed into the soil while built-up carbon dioxide is able to escape, creating a healthy growing environment for the turf which leads to a stronger turf plant.  

Punching tees on #8. 

Our Wiedenmann deep tine aerator in action on #1 fairway.

One of the reasons we love our new deep tine aerator so much is that it is so easy to use year-round because the impact on play is so minimal but the benefits are incredible.  Take a look at the two pictures below, the first one shows a fairway that was punched that day and the second one is a fairway that was punched three days ago.  See, what I mean by low-impact?!  Isn't it great?

Fairway that was punched on the same day this picture was taken.

Fairway that was punched three days ago.

We also love our porcupine spiker.  We used to have to put small tines on our greens aerifer, send out an operator to walk the course with a slow moving machine to aerate then send a roller behind him to smooth out the surface.  Not anymore!  Our porcupine spiker attachment allows us to do two things on one- aerate and roll.  The manpower required for this practice is reduced and we can do it much faster and more often which will help us keep the greens healthier year-round.  The impact on ball-roll is nonexistent as evidenced by the photos below.  Dare I say if I hadn't told you that we did this practice you may not have even noticed.

Porcupine Spiker attachment under our Tru-turf roller.

Close-up of a green that was spiked today.  Tomorrow you probably
won't even see these holes.

What holes?  Greens are healthy and rolling true!

Spring Project Recap

It's already the second week in June and looking back, the month of May practically flew by despite it being one of the longest months of the year.  During May the staff was very busy with some projects that will have a huge impact on the long-term aesthetics and playability of the golf course and I wanted to take a moment to do a quick recap of these projects.

#1:  Drainage Project on the 18th hole.  

The installation of 4,000 linear feet of 4" perforated drain pipe on this hole is now complete.  We were able to tackle the most saturated areas, mainly at the interface of the fairways and rough and the bottom portion of the fairway.  With the change in the weather, the course has dried out and will stay that way as we head into the summer months.  The immediate benefits will be most noticeable this winter when the rainy season returns.  Our ultimate goal with any drainage project is to improve the playing conditions during the shoulder seasons when the weather bounces back and forth between wet and dry weather cycles.  We are very pleased to say that we have installed over a mile of drainage since January 2014 (6,000 linear feet).  This is the most drainage we have ever been able to install in one year since the construction of the golf course.  

Miles re-installing the sod on top of a newly-filled drain line.

Installing pipe.

Another huge boulder uncovered.  Too many to count were found!

The weather finally dried out a bit in May, providing better working conditions in
contrast to what we experienced in late April.

#2 Brush Clearing on the left of the 15th hole

As I outlined in a previous post, the canyon on the left side of #15 had become extremely overgrown over the years.  To remedy this, we brought in goats to graze on whatever they could reach and finished by having a logger come in and cut down the remaining sapling trees and bushes.  The result unveiled a nice clean cliff edge that improved sight lines from the tee and fairway and added another dimension to the psychological effect of how one may choose to play this hole. 

Finished Product on #15.

#3 Removal of Pasture-Type grasses on Bunker Faces

Last Spring, I outlined a herbicide application process that we were experimenting with on our bunker faces in an attempt to remove some of the weedy pasture type of grasses.  This grass is coarsely textured and a lighter green color in comparison to the finer textured grasses around it, making it stand out like a sore thumb.  The process worked so well last Spring that we decided to do a full-scale treatment on all of our bunker faces and the results are now beginning to take full effect with many of these patches melting out of the stand.  You can read more detail on the process in my blog post from last Spring here.

The off-color white spots are the areas that we applied Tenacity.

The herbicide works by bleaching-out the chlorophyll in the plant which
makes the plant unable to use the sunlight's energy to sustain itself leading
to death.

#4  Deep-Tine Aerification of Fairways

 Maybe some of you have seen this orange machine behind our tractor zooming around our fairways recently.  Let me introduce you to one of the newest additions to our equipment fleet, the Wiedenmann Terra Spike XF.  This machine is essentially an aeration machine that unlike our old one, has the ability to remove compaction up to 8.5 inches and "kick" the soil, creating a pocket of up to 1 inch below the surface.  Using this machine to break up compaction at a deeper depth than ever before (5+ inches more) will lead to better root growth, help the turf make better use of water and nutrients, improve the flow of water and balance of air.  These benefits will lead to overall better turf conditions year round including shoulder-season drainage.  We plan to use this machine often as the benefits are so great and the impact on play is so little.  The holes that are made by the machine have no affect on how the ball rolls on the fairways and the holes close up quickly.  

#15 Fairway being deep-tined

The after-result.  These holes were healed-over in a matter of days.

These are the tines used on the machine, allowing us to penetrate the hard-pan below
our fairways which will be one of the tools we use to improve course drainage over
the next few years.

The tines are mounted two per block for a total of twelve tines.  We have to change-out
the tines an average of every three fairways aerified because the sand cap is so
coarse, wearing down our tines quickly.

#18 Drainage Project Update

Many of you have been watching the progress of our drainage installation project from the windows of the grille in the clubhouse and seen some of the progress that we have made over the past couple of weeks.  If you are among the crowd following the progress from the grille windows, my guess is it has had a lot to do with the weather we have experience as of late which means it has been WET and RAINY.

As you can imagine, wet and rainy are not necessarily a friendly combination with the heavy equipment required to complete this project.  We have had to use lots of plywood to protect the turf including a trash pump on several occasions when the freshly dug ditches have filled completely with water.  To add to the fun, our soil type has a large number of boulders a bit larger than the size of a basketball.  These slow down the progress as special care has to be taken to pry them out of the way and remove them.

The good news is that we have been able to install just north of 1,000 linear feet out of the 4,000 feet that we plan to install.  To keep the pace of work moving along as smoothly as possible in addition to mandatory worker safety, we have needed to move the tee blocks forward onto the fairway to keep golf balls from hitting the drainage crew and the equipment.

This practice will only occur Monday-Friday with the blocks being returned to the tees each weekend.  We will do our best to keep the yardages as long as possible, however, there may be days where we need to play this hole as a par 3 in order to keep the balls in front of the active work site.  If you remember, this is the same practice that we utilized two years ago when we did large-scale drainage installation on holes #8 and #11 which as you can see today, worked wonders!  Short term pain = long term gain, right?  Your patience is much appreciated as we work to get this course improvement project completed.  Here are a few fun pictures of the progress we have made along the way.

First and foremost, I would like to thank and recognize the team responsible for the
hard work on this project.  From left to right, Sam Bonda, Miles Brownell and
our contractor, Daniel Soushek of Golf Plus Construction.  Great work!

We started on the left side of the fairway between the bunker complexes to capture
as much water coming off the hill as possible with two trenches following
the contour of the fairway.

This picture shows some of the WET conditions that the team has had to
work with so far.  Notice all the surface water flowing into the open trench.

This photo shows the area between the fairway bunker complexes where much
of the work to-date has been completed.

Daniel has a very organized approach to installation:  dig, install pipe, add gravel,
top with sand followed by resodding all within an hour of opening up a new trench.

This is what 4,000 feet of drainage pipe looks like.  A LOT!

One of the many rocks found.  Nobody gets excited to see these.

And another.

And again.  

#13 Green Views, Goats and Drainage!

If you have a child, relative or friends with kids under the age of 10, you probably know the catchphrase, "To infinity and beyond!" from the Toy Story movie that features the toy space ranger hero, Buzz Lightyear.  I love this because this describes exactly the impact of what I am about to discuss here regarding one of our latest course improvement projects.

In my last post, I talked a little bit about the natural features of this property that Jack Nicklaus did such a good job of highlighting in the routing of the course.  Just like the canyon on the left of #15, the area behind the green on #13 had become quite overgrown in the last 15 years and the fir trees on the hillside were beginning to create a little bit of a wall and dilute the spectacular view off the back of this green.  I found another picture from the early 2000's that shows what this hole used to look like.

#13 in the early 2000's.

Now, flash forward 12 to 15 years and this next picture shows how much the trees had grown over the years, blocking off that once clean edge of the canyon.

#13 in 2014.

This morning, we sent three professional loggers from Cedar Falls Tree Service with chainsaws about 60 feet down the edge of the hillside for a few hours and BOOM!  Look at the difference!  The trees no longer block the view like before.  We now have what I have personally dubbed the "infinity and beyond" green in which your eye follows the approach, rolls onto the green and jumps off into the sky, Mount Si, the valley and everything else- "to infinity and beyond!"

#13 Green in 2014 AFTER tree removal.

                         

Here's an up close shot of what the edge of the cliff looks like now.  Dramatic!

                        

You can even see all the way to the 15th hole with the trees gone!

Pretty cool huh?  We still have a little bit more work to do on the right side between the switchback in the cart path and #14 tees.  On Friday that little grove of trees right there will be cut out and we will then have a nice seamless line running from behind the green all the way down and around the 14th hole.  

While we are on the subject of view lines, we also did a little bit of light trimming on the "V" that  gives you the peek-a-boo views of Snoqualmie Falls from the 12th tee so that view line will also be much better than it was previously.  And of course, the action down on the 15th hole is going great.  We started out with 37 goats in the pen over the weekend and as of today, we added another 27 goats to get our total up to 64 and make quicker work of things.  The plan is to let the goats eat whatever they can and everything that is left over will be cut by hand such as the blackberry canes and the small to medium sized trees.

setting up the chute to move goats from the trailer into the pen.

                        

Notice the difference between what is inside and outside of the fence.  What is inside used
to look like the outside.  These goats don't leave anything behind!

"Selfie" of Assistant Superintendent Tate Berg and one of the baby goats.

Everyone works at their own pace.  You may see some napping but rest assured,
  come 3 AM, they will be logging their hours and doing their part.

                         

Ready for more?  This truck from Golf Plus Construction showed up in the agronomy maintenance yard this morning and unloaded a couple of nice pieces of equipment specifically for drainage work.  This past winter, the agronomy crew was able to install 2,000 feet of drainage in-house using our own equipment.  While this is a LOT of drainage- we have decided to do more, this time with a contractor with specialized equipment that can make quicker work of things.  About 4,000 feet more!  Our agronomy team along with the ownership are committed to improving shoulder season playing conditions and this is part of the effort to keep this initiative moving along.

               

Much of this work will be concentrated on the 18th hole and will take about two weeks to complete.  Our contractor Daniel Soushek with Golf Plus construction has an extensive resume that includes work performed on many area golf courses and he worked with us in 2004 when the left side of the 12th green washed down the hill.  

Our plan is to begin tomorrow morning with a "soft start" and as we move along, things will move along quicker and we will work to minimize the impact on play.  There will be days where we may need to move the tee markers onto the fairway out of the line of work in the name of safety and our contractor's pace of work.  We will be working with the golf shop to direct daily communication and placement of the tees.  

This is an exciting time for the club with the many new improvements happening on the course along with the extensive remodel of the clubhouse that began today.  I will do my best to keep the blog fresh with the latest happenings of what we are doing.  I want to thank everyone in advance for their patience as we work to get these projects completed and hope that you feel the same enthusiasm for these projects as we do.  Feel free to wave me down on the golf course or shoot me an email if you have any questions, I'm always happy to chat and thanks for taking the time to read through this long post!

Goats and Aerification Healing

Just a quick update regarding the goats.  Our  contractor has been hard at work the past two days down in the thick abyss clearing trees and brush to make room for the electric fence that will keep the goats contained.  This has taken him a little longer than anticipated so we are now looking at Thursday morning rather than today for the arrival of the first batch of  goats.

Electric fence just to the left of the bunker complex near #15 green.

      

The  greens are doing great post-aerification.  The photo on the left was taken on Monday and the photo on the right was taken this morning.  It is pretty obvious that the holes are healing pretty quickly and it won't be long before we are back to normal.                           

Remember When . . .

I love coming to work every day and one of the reasons is because I enjoy spending time on our very special back 9 here at TPC Snoqualmie Ridge.  The back 9 is a special place not only because of Jack Nicklaus' phenomenal course layout but the magic of  how he incorporated some of the natural landscape elements to bring some drama into the each hole that you play.  Some of the most striking features that he had to work with include the panoramic views of the Cascade Mountain range that follow you as you rise and fall with the elevation changes and the steep cliffs that line holes #13, 14 and 15.

Jack did a great job using these elements to bring a little bit of a psychological aspect into the game, making the golfer give serious consideration when choosing the type(s) of shots that are played out here.  One of my favorites is from the 15th tee which sits right along the canyon that runs all the way down the fairway and around the green.  I came across the old photograph below some time ago of this hole as it was back in 1998 a few months before the course opened.

In this photograph, you can really see that Jack's intention was to use the canyon as an intimidation factor when selecting what kind of tee shot to play.  The two choices forced the golfer to choose between running the risk of getting their ball swallowed up by the deep abyss on the left but reaping the reward of extra yardage if you manage to stay out of the canyon or playing it slightly safer on the right but sacrificing some yardage and putting the first set of fairway bunkers into play.

Hole #15 in 1998 a few months before the course opening.

Today, this hole still retains the same elements- the bunkers, the extra yardage the only difference is that the edge of the canyon isn't as dramatic as it once was.  Everything in the Pacific Northwest grows so quickly with our moderate climate and aggressive vegetation that this edge has gotten a lot softer over time.  Normally, this would be an off-season brush clearing project however, because this specific canyon is so steep, the work is very slow going and can be a major safety obstacle when operating trimmers and chainsaws on this type of terrain.
                     

Hole #15 as it stands today.  Overgrown and not as dramatic as it once was.

I am excited to say that despite the obstacles, there is a solution that we have never done before here at TPCSR and we will be putting into play this week.  Goats!  Bunches of them!  If you know anything about goats, they love to eat and will eat just about anything not to mention they don't seem to mind steep terrain.   

                     

                   

We are working with a contractor that has worked all over the Puget Sound with clients that include the City of Sammamish, Mukilteo, Issaquah, Maple Valley, Sound Transit and Puget Sound Energy.  The plan is to start down near the 15th green and work our way up towards the tees all the way through the top of the canyon on hole #14.  In order to keep the goats contained and protected, trails for the erection of temporary electric fencing will be cleared ahead of the goats' arrival on property and the fencing will be set up in sections and moved up as they eat their way through the canyon.  

The electric fences will be powered via our irrigation control boxes so you will see extension cords running from these to the fence lines.  For safety and visibility, we will be marking these cords with red irrigation flags.  We will do our best to route these extension cords to minimize impact on play the best we can.  Should your ball come to rest up against the cord, you may lift and place it within one club length no closer to the hole.  As far as the fencing, please do not touch it.  As the name, "electric fence" states- you will get shocked if you touch it.  There will be signage all along the fence reminding everyone of this safety factor.  

If all goes as planned, about 25 to 50 goats will arrive on property early Wednesday morning and be placed in their first pen via a corral constructed behind #15 green.  It is hard to anticipate exactly, how long they will be here but my guess would be two weeks until they are finished.  It depends on how fast they eat and how nice the weather is will affect how fast they move along since they are more active when it is nice and no so much when it isn't.  

We are excited to see the before and after impacts of this project not to mention goats are pretty cool.  I will make an effort to post updates here on the blog of their progress along with some before/after pictures as this project takes place.  We also have a few more exciting projects in the works- but those are for another blog post once we get details finalized, stay tuned!