Aeration and Course Update

To start off this update....The bright spot on this challenging week was Divot Day.  We had a fantastic turnout Tuesday morning where divots were quickly filled by a small army of loyal members.  Big thanks to all those that participated!  We are blessed to have such supportive members and our staff and I appreciate you more than you can imagine.  

Two full days of aeration have been completed and the process went very smoothly.  We have some excess sand to clean off but will be ready for play a little sooner than advertised.  10:00 tomorrow we'll be open for play.  We applied almost 70 tons of sand to the greens and used both the deep tine machine as well as the walk behind aerator set to a 2.5" depth.  

In addition to aeration, we were able to grind over 300 stumps with the help of Danny and Mark from State College Lawn Care.  They've been fantastic partners for nearly 5 years now and do an awesome job in a very short time.  Our team will be working over the next few weeks to clean up the spoils and backfill the holes.  This is a task we'll do daily after our morning tasks are complete and the course is full of play.

While we were aerating and the stumps were getting destroyed, Tim from Grounds One, tackled the entire course with the root pruner.  All tree lines were addressed to help gain back lots of lost turf area and eliminate cart path damage.  This was a day and a half of effort that will pay off big time.  Pruning tree roots every other year is much less expensive than replacing concrete.  

While all our carefully planned projects went smoothly, our not so trusty irrigation system decided to throw us another curveball.  The meter that counts the number of days since the last irrigation break has been reset to zero.  Tuesday when we arrived shortly before 6 AM the shop parking lot was full of water.  The main 6" irrigation line beside the back tee on 9 had broken.  The pumps ran all night creating a river that ran across our parking lot as well as the other direction towards 9 fairway.  Once we completed aeration Tuesday evening we swapped the tractor around from aerator to backhoe.  Today, Alan, Mike, and Will repaired the problem and we are back up and running as of this evening.  It was a 10 hour day for 3 of our best guys that were sorely missed on the task of greens aeration clean up.  My last update said things seemed to be functioning smoothly in the irrigation department, but I obviously misspoke.  

"Need any help down there" -Bean

Topdressing is the first step

The soil reliever is the second step

The pro core follows the soil reliever. 
Will got over 40,000 steps in 2 days!!!

The root pruner helps keep our paths from breaking

The stump grinders make our fall leaf mulching safer
and improve the look.  Nothing worse than a course
full of rotten stumps. 

Beside the back tee on 9 Tuesday morning

Our 30 year veteran, Alan isn't afraid of mud.  
Mike and Will helped him get our leak fixed.

A power wire beneath the pipe is the culprit.  Evidently
a short caused an arc or generated enough heat to crack the pipe. 
We cut out 6' of the 6" mainline, replaced it, and repaired the wires.