Scenes from the past 6 weeks

A messy August and hectic September are my excuse for the long delay between updates.  Here is a rundown of the last 6 weeks in pictures....

Luke Helbling, Connor Lantz, Will Balkin, Jordan Klingensmith
2026 World Champions (our annual maintenance team tournament)

We've had better putting surfaces this August and September vs. 2025.  The rains
and heat in August took a toll on specific varieties of the bentgrass, 
but we are bouncing back and working new varieties into these areas.

One of the downsides of outings during wet weather

Luke and Will trying to make water go downhill.  10" of rain made a mess of things

Southshore bentgrass is comprised of 100s of different biotypes.  This
one and many others don't fare well in the conditions we've had recently.

The new sprayer finally arrived.  This is what we use to 
fertilize and treat greens and tees. 

Nasty

Luke and Will mowing 7 bunker slope

Mike, Brody, and Jason took up a broken section of cart path

We have hundreds of tree related cart path issues.  It's time
to revisit tree removals and concrete repair.  

Trying to find the right way to get tiny bentgrass seed where it needs to go

Another weak biotype of bentgrass that caved in during the nasty weather

Some signs of life are starting to appear.  The better weather
has most of these areas recovering on their own, but we are trying to populate
them with better varieties so they survive the next stretch of hot and humid weather.

Kylen is one of our best set up guys.  Here he is early on Labor Day.

Lucy has been a huge help this summer

The area between the practice green and cart path gets
destroyed every summer. The rains in August highlighted a 
big drainage issue that we are addressing with curbs and gutters.

We used the leftover sod to wrap the back tee on 1.  Tee
slopes are a huge area of need as they get a lot of traffic and 
are over 30 years old now.

The finished product.  This area will still need major repair
every year due to the traffic it receives.  Hopefully the new drainage
and curbing will keep it in better shape.

Luke Helbling was a huge part of our team in previous years during his college 
days.  He rejoined us this summer between career stops.  He's moving on, but thankfully we still have 
his younger brother Jacob on our team.  The Helbling family has been an amazing pipeline
of effort and high character for our team over the years.  Luke will be missed.