Winding Down

The season has finally started to wind down. A few weeks ago I moved back to Minnesota and have been finishing the season up at Island View Golf Club in Waconia. It's been a great experience for me because they have gone out of their way to make sure I am learning as much as possible, whenever possible. We have been aerating this week and as you can see in the picture below, one of the arms on the most efficient aerator we had snapped. The process will be slowed slightly now that we are down to one machine.

Our Toro 880 aerator's broke has us down to only our GA-60 only to
finish the fairways.

Deutche Bank Championship

After Hurricane Irene had hit I was sent to help out at TPC Boston for the Deutche Bank Championship, a PGA Fedex Cup tournament. It was a great week that I got to rake extraordinary bunkers, mow greens that had more undulations than I have ever seen, and experience the amount of detail that goes into every aspect such as plugging pre-existing divots in fairways and putting colored sand in ballmarks to try to hide them. When TV and professional golfers are involved many things that you don't even think of on a daily basis become major issues.

It was such a great experience and I enjoyed meeting the entire TPC staff. They were very welcoming to the volunteers and made it known how much our help was appreciated. I am greatful for TPC Boston for having me and enjoyed every minute of being there. The tournament turned out great and everyone enjoyed it.

Bau and I mowed 18 green all week.

Hurricane Irene

Right at the end of my stay in Rhode Island we found out Hurricane Irene was heading our way. We took plenty of precautions as we were expecting worse conditions than we actually received. The original prediction was that we would receive 8 inches of rain and Category 1 level winds 75+ mph. We only received 2 inches of rain, but still had 75+ mph winds. It was techincally classed a Tropical Storm when we were hit but it still caused a lot of chaos and took out the power for 2 days.

We had tons of tree damage on the course and had to flush 4 of our fairways because they were submerged in salt-water from the Narragansett Bay flooding our bayside holes. 17 looked like an island green while the water was rising. It was an incredible thing to see.

The first thing my dad said to me before I went to Rhode Island was "You're going to hit by a hurricane, what are you doing?" Well,  the last thing I thought would happen would be getting hit by a hurricane. Thankfully everyone was okay.

2011 US Women's Amateur

We haven't had much going on since the last post other than preparing for the US Women's Amateur. The heat caused a lot of hand watering pressure and had us on the edge of our seats leading up to the Women's Amateur.

The Day before the Women's Amateur we received 2 inches of rain a few days before the tournament which helped green the entire course up. We mowed our fairways half and half for the tournament per request of the USGA. The first few days were very intense. We had over 150 golfers teeing off of 1 and 10 at 7 am everyday. We had enough volunteers and staff to get the job done and receive great reviews from the golfers throughout the tournament. The tournament was a marathon, it lasted 14 days when all was said and done, compared to the 3 days that CVS lasted.

CVS Caremark Charity Classic

With two months of preperation, the CVS Caremark Charity Classic lasted only 3 days, and was cleaned up in a week. It was such a great experience to see how many people and how much dedication it takes to put on a televised tournament. Over the years the tournament has raised 15 million for charity.

Since the tournament was only 20 players for 2 days, we mowed everything both in the morning and night the entire week leading up to the tournament. One project I was in charge of was repairing our bunkers that had been neglected on 18 green so that they were presentable for the clinic that was being held the first morning of the tournament.

18 Fairway from the TV Truck 150 feet in the air.

Before countless hours of repair.

After countless hours of repair.

CVS in just over 2 weeks

It's been a long time since I last posted, but it's been crazy leading up to the CVS. We had tons of projects going on both trying to improve the course, and member suggestions.

Since my last post we've finish aerifying and its healed almost everywhere, except for some of our fairways that are on a poor soil composition. It took us just under two weeks to complete the entire process.

Since then we have just been doing projects to improve the appearance of the course and prep it for CVS. Projects included adding seashells to our court paths that started to deteriorate, refinish broken split rail fence posts along the outside of the course, and focus on trying to keep everything cleanly cut with straight lines.

It's been awesome watching the CVS compound expand, all the tents going up, and even trophy suites setup along #18 fairway. They started preparing in mid May, but even with a month of preperation, I've been told they tear everything down in less than a week.

They've finished the trophy suites since this picture, they line the whole left side, and a section of 4 on the right also.

Aerification Week

We just kicked off aerification week today at 2:30 pm. I've had the chance to run the Toro ProCore before and have also been the one picking up cores. Te crew was able to aerify and clean up holes 1 through 7. Tomorrow we will finish all the greens and start on either approaches or tees. Aerification will go on for at least the rest of the week to finish all the fairways, possibly into next week depending on the weather.

The highlight of my night was seeing the sunset while mowing. I got a chance to get a picture of Tom watering #4 while the sun was setting in the background.

It may be hard to see, but #4 is in the background being watered.

Sod Work

#9 Tee Box that we moved from under the trees.

We've been sodding the entire week and there's no end in sight. Our focus was cleaning up the tree debris the first couple weeks but now we've shifted to making sure everything looks good around the course. Today we received 4 pallets of Bluegrass sod and it's already gone. Most of the areas we have been sodding are stressed, weak, or dead due to either grub damage or poor drainage.

The Photo above is of our first major sod project, moving #9 forward tee from a shady spot under the trees and off center with the rest of the teeboxes to the center and in line with the rest of the tees. Since finishing we've done #3 cart path, #12 tee box and bank, #12 approach, several stump holes that are near play, and almost all of the rough near the cart path on #10. We have quite a few more projects ahead of us. The more sodding we do, the better we should look for the CVS tournament in June.

GIS 2011

This year I had the opportunity to go to Orlando for the Golf Industry Show. I was able to stay from Monday to Thursday and had an absolute blast. I was able to attend several different education conferences and was able to learn a lot during them. Getting to listen to Nick Price accept his Old Tom Morris Award was also an amazing experience. "Bring bounce back to the game."

The trade show was by far the best part of the trip. A few people had made comments about how small the trade show has gotten over the years, but as it was my first year there, it was quite the scene. 36 aisles packed with equipment, information, and people. Meeting up with our superintendent that day allowed me to find a little more out about Rhode Island Country Club. This year will be the club's 100th year anniversary. We will be hosting the CVS Caremark Charity Classic, and the US Women's Amateur, and to wrap up the year we will be doing a full course bunker renovation (135 bunkers).