Coming to an end...

My blog will soon be hung up for good, well at least this one.  In the next couple months Wing Point will have a new website which will feature a Greens Department section under the members only part of the site.  It will basically take the place of this.  The new website will be a one stop shop, so to speak.  Members will be able to view their statements, pay their Wing Point bill, make reservations, check the events calendar, and of course have the opportuntiy to read the goings on in the Greens Department.  All signs point to the new website being a major upgrade on many levels.

I hope everyone has enjoyed the insight I've tried to give on the things we've done.  The funny thing is, the time I've been doing this blog, we've actually needed something like this to communicate things about winter turf loss and project updates.  I certainly had plenty to tell the members that were interested in reading my blabber.  I had fun with it and look forward to continuing it.  To all those non Wing Point secret admirers out there, and you know who you are, you'll have to call me if you really care to know what we're doing at Wing Point.

One more thing, who is this crazy person that posts all the comments in Japanese text???????  I haven't figured it out.

See you soon on the new Wing Point website...

Been a while...

Sorry to all my loyal followers!  The tail end of the irrigation project resulted in a lack of blogging.  In other words...a lot of hours at work!  We are 95% done.  The irrigation install has been complete for 2 weeks, but clean up is still getting done.  We've ran the system 3 times with very few issues, which have already been resolved by the contractor.  On that note, I must say that it was an absolute pleasure to work with James Milroy and his staff.  Dealing with a second generation irrigator really paid off.  James will turn 40 this week, he's been installing irrigation since before he was a teenager working for his father.  Wing Point is just the most recent on his long resume of golf courses he's installed irrigation.  Some of those courses include Seattle GC, Overlake GCC, Meridian Valley GCC, Chambers Bay GC, The Plateau Club, all of the Bandon Dunes golf courses, etc., etc., etc.  We finished 5 weeks early after starting 2 weeks late, we are under budget, and my life is back to normal again!

The remaining areas left over from construction will be seeded this week.  The bunker on #10 will be sodded this week, then sand added in a few weeks.  The 5th tee will open for play next week.  The 14th and 13th tees will be a few weeks out. 

It's been a long winter that started with turf loss on greens.  In our industry, they say the 2 most stressful things for a superintedent in his/her career are turf loss on greens, or going through an irrigation installation.  I made it through both in the last 6 months.  Our greens are back to normal with the exception of the thin turf conditions on #10, and we now have a state of the art irrigation system that should last for decades to come.

Greens and fairway aeration

The new process is quickly showing us how much better it is.  We mowed today!  I watched a few putts rolling and they seemed pretty good  for just 2 days after aereating.  I'm excited to see how long it takes for them to be back to normal.  #10 is really close to opening.  My plan is to open it on Monday, April 19th.  We will aggressivley verticut it this coming week and topdress it with sand again.  It will still have thin areas, but I believe they will fill in over the next month with our usual spring green up.  We will be fixing any bare areas from the winter turf loss during that week as well by cutting them out and replacing the area with turf from the chipping green.  I think we will likely see the greens completely back to normal in about 2 weeks time.

We will be trying to finish all the fairways, tees and aprons this week.  Milroy will be finishing up the irrigation as well.  Some fairways are still too wet in areas, so we're hoping the rain subsides so we can finish the aeration we started last month.

Greens aeration is complete

Mother Nature gave one back to us yesterday and we were able to finish all the greens easily.  The new process looks really good at this point!  We still have about 2/3 of the fairways, tees and aprons to aerate and are waiting for things to dry back up to finish those off.  We only have half of #12 fairway, and all of #10, 13 and 14 fairways left to finish the irrigation.  They will likely be done next Thursday, then the following week we will spend on cleanup, testing and tweaking.  We're almost there!

A few updates

Aeration

The greens have been aerated...for the most part.  We had a surprise delivery of the Kiln Dried sand on Monday.  The delivery was called off last Wednesday due to the forecast this week, unfortunately the message never got to dispatch!  I was by myself shaping the new bunker on #10 Monday morning when my mechanic called me and said the sand was here...I thought he was kidding with me since he knew we weren't expecting it.  He does that sometimes when he knows I'm stressed to lighten my mood.  This time he wasn't kidding and it didn't lower my stress level!  I had NO plans on aerating since last Wednesday when I called off the order. Oh well...

So, we decided to accept the delivery, all be it reluctantly.  The weather was OK Monday so we decided to drop everything we were doing and just go for it...we got 1 1/2 greens done and then it started raining.  Tuesday was cloudy and there was severe weather 2 blocks north of the golf course all the way to Hansville, but we got lucky and stayed dry.  We finished 6 greens.  Today was suppose to be 56 degrees and sunny...NOT!!!!  We got all the greens we wanted to do excpet #11 and #13.  It started raining about 2 o'clock and wasn't letting up, so we had to quit. 

The shady greens that don't accumulate thatch through the winter, #4, 10 and 15 were going to be done differently anyway.  So, we got almost all of them done.  We'll finish the rest when the rain stops.  The new process we are doing is very slow and my personality certainly doesn't fit it's tedious nature, but the end result should be much better with a much faster recovery time.  Stay tuned on that...

The process:

1. Aerate with 1/2" diameter tines spaced 2"x1.5" apart.  The traditional method was 5/8" diameter spaced 2"x2" apart.  More holes closer together + smaller holes = same amount of material removed, but more potential for holes closing if driven on before sanding.
2. We never drive a vehicle over holes that have not been filled with sand.
3. All sand (Kiln Dried which has zero moisture content) is worked into the holes by using the backside of a wide rake, nothing else.
4. No vehicle is driven over the newly aerated turf until all holes are filled.
5. Double verticut at 1/8" depth to create more area for sand to settle into the turf canopy.
6. Drag a cocoa fiber mat over the green to brush the sand into the canopy.
7. Allow Mother Nature to water the sand in, or handwater the green to achieve the same effect.

The result???  No excess sand left on the green to be "worked in" for the following 3-4 days.  I am hoping the process will equate to a healthier root zone (more holes) and a smoother/faster recovery (smaller holes + less excess sand).


Irrigation

Milroy has finished all of #17, 18, 11 and #12 tee.  If the weather isn't too bad tomorrow, they will finish #12.  That will leave #13 tee and  fairway, #14 fairway, and #10 fairway.  They should be done by next Thursday.  That will only leave some cleanup and a couple of days of tests and fixing issues.

What is actually left to do on the irrigation?

We are getting close!  The light is glimmering at the end of the tunnel.  We only have these areas left to install sprinklers...

• #10 fairway
• All of #11
• #12 tee and fairway
• #13 tee and fairway
• #14 tee and fairway
• All of #17
• #18 tee and half the fairway

I am pretty sure Milroy will be completely wrapped up and gone on April 22nd.  We should all be thankful for a strong El Nino season.  Even with a 2 week delay to the start, we will finish 1 month ahead of schedule thanks to good weather in February and March.  We will still be cleaning up on our end for about 2 weeks following Milroy's departure.  Let's hope for warmer weather ahead so the seeded areas can germinate quickly and we can enjoy an unblemmished course by Memorial Day.

Winter is back...and aeration is postponed

What a change!  We had 1.75" of rain over a 24 hour period Sunday/Monday.  The course was pretty dry until that.  The forecast ahead looks pretty wet, which means we will be postponing the greens aeration until the weather turns around.  We were scheduled for Monday, but it may be the following week from what we are looking at.  In circumstances like these, we sit back and wait for a 2 day stretch of dry weather to go ahead and aerate.  It's crucial that the sand remains dry so it can drag into the holes easily.  Wet sand causes bridging in the channels that the aerator produces.  This reduces the efficacy of the process which is trying to fully replace the thatch that is removed with the sand applied afterward.

Front 9 irrigation is done!

We are fully operational on the front 9, putting green, cayman range and short game area.  We should be finishing the back nine in about 3 weeks.  This is well ahead of schedule!  We will be seeding #9, #1, and #2 next week.  We hope to aerate those holes as well, but the weather looks really wet, so we may postpone that. 

The #5 tee complex is complete and it turned out really well.  The mens tees which had very little tee space has been increased from about 800 square feet to about 3,500 square feet.  The hole can now vary in length of up to 25 yards and is about 35 feet wide.  This should make divots a far less problem as well as making the hole more interesting from day to day.  The ladies tees have been moved very close to the cart path with steps to be added very soon.  The drainage around the tees was a big improvement as well.

The #10 green is still making great improvement, but has a couple more weeks to go before we can open it.  A reminder, we will be aerating the greens as usual on Monday, April 5th.  The course is closed that day.  Thank you for the cooperation.

Course Update 3/20

Sprinklers are installed on all of the front nine except hole #2 and the green on #1.  We anticipate getting #1, 2 and 10 finished next week.

We are fully seeded and cleaned up on holes 3 thru 8.  All fairways, tees, collars and aprons are aerated and sanded.  The #5 tee renovation should be sodded by the end of the week.  We will be sodding the tee tops with sod from the 5th fairway.  The surrounds will be seeded.  This approach allows us to use our own Poa Annua grass on the tee tops for a quick and inexpensive turnaround.  The tees should be playable around April 21st when the sod has fully rooted and can handle the daily play. 

Next on the side projects is the new fairway bunker on the right side of #10.  This bunker will likely only affect the long hitters, but should be visually impressive for all players from the tee and clubhouse.  The bunker is already rough shaped and should only take 1 day of solid handwork to get it ready for seeding.  The subgrade is pure gray clay with hardly a rock in site, so we will be adding sand sooner than we normally do since there isn't a need for sodding the bottom.  A sod layer is usually used, then butched down after 3 weeks and sand added.  This creates a barrier so that native soil and rocks don't migrate to the surface. 

In about 2 weeks we will start the work on the ladies 13th tee and the entire 14th tee.  Both will be fairly easy and quick to construct since there is very little dirt to move and most of it will be cut from existing soil.  #5 took so long because much of it was built from spoils left over during the irrigation and drainage work.  Also, we dealt with periodic heavy rainfall which set us back, making the spoils turn to mud. 

#10 green looks like it will make a full recovery!  We now have about 60-70% turf.  we aearted it with 3/8" solid tines again this week.  That was the 5th time we aerated #10 green since January 1st!!!!  That is the biggest reason for it's turnaround.  I think it will be ready for play in mid to late April without needing any significant sod work. 

We are going crazy with the wildflowers this year.  We had such great success with them 2 years ago in front of #13 green, we decided to see how they will do in these other natural areas...

• front of #13 green
• front of #11 mens tee
• all around the pond between #10 and 18
• all around the 18th tee area where the wood chips are
• the water hazard between #12 and 13
• the water hazard across #14 fairway
• in front of the #16 tees
• around a few stumps on #12 near the green, #13 near the tees, and to the right of #15 along the cart path
• to the right of #6 ladies tees
• behind the 8th green along the cart path and around the 4th tee area

All of these areas are either out of play, or in a water hazard.  They will be left natural all summer as long as the flowers maintain their color.

230 sprinklers installed

That's right, we have 230 sprinklers in the ground!  Milroy moves pretty fast.  Holes 3 - 8 are completed.  We will be coming in behind him over the next 3 - 4 days for cleanup, seeding, aerating and sanding.  We have already aerated the 4th and 8th fairways.  We sanded nearly all of the rough on those holes to go along with a good heavy application on the fairways.  They really needed the extra sand since we had to skip sanding in fall due to financial constraints.  We will stick to the plan of sanding only on sunny to partly sunny days so that the sand can be worked in effectively when it's dry.  Once again, thanks for all your patience.  It will be well worth it for decades to come when our golf course remains in beautiful condition throughout the summer months.

Start of aeration

We will begin aerating tees, fairways and aprons today.  As Milroy finishes a hole, we will aerate that hole about 1 day later and then topdress as well.  We will only be doing 1 hole per day.  This allows us to start aerating sooner than we planned, as well as creating a mess just as the contractor is done doing the same.  We will also seed any bare ground the day we aerate.  Once we are done, then we are done for the season.  The greens will still be aerated in early April as planned.  This process means that by mid April both Milroy and aerating are done at the same time, allowing for a quicker overall recovery.

Aerating FYI

We are aerating the greens that were affected by the winter blues again this week.  They include the putting green, #1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17.  They will be rolled out the same day.

Milroy Golf Systems...start to finish

Step 1:  Vibratory plow pipe and wire leaving a thin raised slit in the turf

Step 2:  Cut pipe, glue on fittings, splice wire connections, install sprinkler

Step 3:  Backfill around sprinkler, securing wires and setting sprinkler to grade

Step 4:  Lay sod around sprinkler and vibratory roll the plowed ditch line back to grade leaving just a 2" slit in the turf to throw seed over.  Recovery time for the slit is about 21 days, just like a divot.

#10 Green slowly coming around

January 8th...Ouch!

Today...better, but far from OK!

Sprinklers have been installed!

Today we were able to install 20 sprinklers as a "warm up" for the contractors crew going into next week.  The heads were put in around #4 tee and #8 green area.  We also had the mainline up and running under full pressure with no leaks.  Milroy will be installing sprinklers next week on holes 4-8.  The process is very non invasive and recovery time should be very short.

We are extremely pleased with the progression of the greens conditions.  #10 is still pretty bad so we will overseed it tomorrow.  I think we've seen about as much recovery as possible from the native Poa, so it's time to incorporate some other variety to fill in the voids until the Poa can fully take over again which should be sometime in June. 

Some cleanup begins

I started spreading out all of the mounds of dirt left behind from the ditches.  I should be done today, just ahead of the rain!  We will rock pick the dirt, top it off with a dusting of sand, and then seed all the areas.  The mainline is still really rough and will remain that way for a bit longer.  Many of the ditches were backfilled with mud which is still settling out.  I began rough shaping the 5th tee complex and we hope to get started on it this week.  A bunker has been shaped on the right side of the 10th fairway.  This should look fanatstic from the tee and clubhouse as well as tighten the landing area for the long hitters.

Check this statistic out from KOMO Weather

Updated Friday 1:00 p.m.


...it is shaping up to be the first official sunny weekend in Seattle since Aug. 1-2!* (* -- we were really close on Dec. 26/27, with 27th rating a '4' in cloud cover, which is one point over sunny. An official sunny day is 0-3 tenths cloud cover, partly sunny is 4-7 and cloudy is 8-10. The 26th was a 0, meaning totally clear.)


The temperature that weekend in August? 90 and 89 (coming off that massive end-of-July heat wave). So this should be a bit more comfortable.


It's also way overdue -- did you know the "best" day in January rated a '7' on the cloudy scale?

WOW! 

Updates

Well, we've been pretty busy with lots of drainage projects.  The irrigation is going great.  Monday will be the final day of the mainline installation.  We will probably start installing sprinkler heads sometime next week.  Our own greens crew has been hard at work installing drainage in some of the really wet and hard to get to areas.  We rented a mini excavator for 2 weeks and were able to do work on #4, 5, 8 (curtain drain in front of the green to eliminate puddling), #10 (3 curtains drain behind the green to eliminate puddling), #11 and 14.  Many of the other areas that still remain will be done with our own trencher.  We hope to install drainage on #1, 2, 17 and 18 in a few weeks if those holes continue to dry up enough to do the work.

The large pine tree by the right side of the Clubhouse was heavily pruned in hopes of getting more sunlight to the putting green.  We talked about removing it, but there is an unsightly light pole amongst the limbs and if removed it, we felt it would be quite ugly.  The tree looks much cleanier, however sunlight penetration was not improved at all by the pruning.  Unfortunately the tree shades much of the putting green through the morning hours and results in weaker turf. 

The greens are looking really good.  Still some thin areas on a few greens that sufffer from heavy shade problems.  #10 is looking better as well.  I will snap a photo tomorrow and post it for comparison to how it looked 45 days ago.

Just in case you don't go outside this week, here's the sun.

Moving right along...and the greens are open for play!!!!!

Milroy is cruising right along with the mainline installation.  We are 75% complete on the mainline.  The weather is looking pretty wet over the next week, so we may stop running mainline and start pulling the lateral lines and setting sprinkler heads.  During periods of wet weather, there is far less disruption and mud from running laterals as opposed to the mainline.  Most laterals are "plowed" underground with minimal surface disruption.

We've also installed 3000 feet of drain lines over the past 2 weeks.  Most of #7 fairway, the really wet area between the #4 tee and start of the fairway, the swail in the #4 fairway, #5 fairway along the left, and the new nursery green we are building to the left of the ladies tee on #11.  We plan on putting in about 7000 more feet of drain lines over the next 6 weeks.  Other areas will be the beginning of #1 fairway, most of the #2 fairway, #18 fairway, #17 fairway, a few spots on #13 and 14 fairways, and parts of #11 around the green and as you walk from the tee to the green.  This is quite ambitious, but we think we'll have the time to get it done.

We are opening every green except the 10th green on Friday the 12th.  I feel the greens are definately in a good growing state right now.  We've had very good weather to go along with all of our cultural practices we performed.  Many greens still have thin areas, however they are no longer too weak to hold up to foot traffic.  We are back to mowing nearly every day, which tells us the plant is strong and healthy again.  We have seen daily improvement even with mower traffic on them, so I feel it's OK to open them.  We will not be using pin numbers until after we aerate in April.  I want the staff to be in full control of steering golfers away from the injured areas when setting the pins.  If we use numbers, then we will be handcuffed to areas we would not want the pin to be in. 

I want to thank everyone for their patience and understanding.  The 10th green was hit very hard and we have massive turf loss.  We will continue to promote as much Poa annua to return before we decide to overseed with a different variety of grass.

Aerating a few greens this week....

We will be selectively aerating the greens that are still out of play this week. Some will only have portions done in spots where the turf is still thin and weak while a few of them will have the entire green done again. This will be the 3rd time these greens have been aerated since January 1st and is a big reason for their fast recovery. The worst greens, #10, 15 and 16 will have the plugs verticut back into the turf in the hopes that the organic matter and potential seed bank in the soil will help aid the Poa annua to germintae in the thin areas. We will be topdressing all of the greens with a light application on Thursday. Light verticutting and topdressing promotes new growth and offsets the "scum layer" that develops from the dead grass blades after winterkill.

Updates and pictures

The greens are doing very well. Next week looks like even better weather than the last 3 weeks! ArborCom started the tree/shade analysis on the 4th green today. Many trees are numbered for GPS to input into the computer program. The analysis and recommendations will be made on Tuesday evening to both the board of Wing Point Community and Wing Point GCC in order to come to a resolution on the shade problems.

Above are a few pictures of some recent work being done.

• The top picture is my Assistant Peder Rauen aerating the greens with 3/8" solid tines spaced 1.5" apart to help the greens recover from the winter blues...it's done wonders for the greens. This was the second time we've done this since January 1st.
• The middle picture is our own crew trenching drain lines on the 7th fairway. We installed about 1500 feet of 4" drain line from the start of the fairway to the 100 yard marker.
• The bottom picture is Milroy Golf Systems installing the irrigation mainline on #2. They have installed the mainline on 2/3 of the course in just 3 weeks! I am very impressed by their efficiency.

Project and greens update

The irrigation project is going very smooth. The mainline is done on holes 3-9. We will be going down #10 Monday and connecting to the pump house. This week the crew will be on holes 1,2 and 18. The ditches have given me a unique look into what lye's beneath our golf course. We've installed 6 miles of drainage at Wing Point over th elast 6 years, but not to the depths Milroy is digging. The variations in the soil structure 36 inches deep is really interesting. We are finding out why some areas seem to stay much wetter than others. The amount of groundwater is incredible which goes to show you how much rainfall we've had the last 4 months.

The greens are recovering nicely. 2/3 of them are in perfect shape, but some of them like #5, 7, and 13 need another week or two for full recovery. #4, 10, 15, 16 and the putter are all getting better, but still far too weak and thin to allow golfer traffic. The weather has been wonderful for both the project and the greens recovery, so let's hope it continues.

GOOD NEWS!

We have lift off! Milroy Golf Systems got started on the irrigation Tuesday and they have been moving along at pretty good clip. The conditions aren't ideal, but we do have sunny and warm weather for them to work in. The recent heavy rainfall from the previous 3 months added up in the soil profile. Groundwater is a major obstacle for them at this point. Most of the land across Wing Point Way on holes 4-8 has a 10" layer of sand/silt/gravel about 2 feet deep. Once they hit that layer, it's like turning on the faucet! Outside of the groundwater issues, which they have managed quite well, everything else is going along just fine. They accomplish roughly 1000 feet of installed and back filled pipe per day.

So far we have not had to close a golf hole. Tuesday we had to move the pin back into the fairway as they crossed in front of the #8 green and Wednesday we had #4 play as a par 3 from the 200 yard marker in the fairway. These are both good examples of what we may have to do from time to time.

Speaking of good weather. When was the last time I had anything good to say about this subject? Maybe the El Nino is starting to kick in. We really needed this warmth and sunshine for a speedy recovery of the greens. We are seeing tremendous recovery over the past 7 days since we closed many of them. We have also aerated all of the greens for a second time in the last 3 weeks with 3/8" solid tines which do not remove a core. They are spaced 1.5" apart and penetrate 3" deep. That's a lot of holes! This will allow the roots to breath and expand, thus strengthening them over the next couple of months. The holes should close up in about a week once the greens are rolled a few times.

We will be opening greens #1,2,3,6,8,9,11,12,14,17 and 18 on Saturday morning. They were mildly affected and have come back to full health already. We anticipate #5,7,13 and the putting greening returning to play in about 2 weeks if the weather holds up. Expect #4,10,15 and 16 to be even longer with #10 being closed perhaps until mid April. These are merely estimates at this point based on mild weather patterns.

Let's hope this author continues the feel good messages and doesn't have to write anymore horror stories.

The only solution to recovery

Our greens have been in sub par condition for a few months now. Most of the problems we saw 2 months ago were just the start of a long Winter. Our root system on many of the greens, primarily greens with moderate to heavy shade, were compromised by the effects of a long hot summer aided by a Nematode infestation, and recently a sever cold snap that put many of them over the edge. The worst greens are #10,15,16 and the putting green. We are also seeing gradual decline and thinning on greens #1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 13, 14, and 17. Due to the recent decline after the cold snap, the green committee has decided to shut down all 18 greens to speed the recovery as a whole. We all agreed it was better to do this now instead of waiting to see if they get worse.

The 10th green is becoming more difficult to manage each year as the trees directly south are growing taller. These trees are not on club property. It is becoming an identical problem to #4 and 15 which we have dealt with every winter. #10 however has the unfortunate addition of being the coldest spot on the golf course and also has almost zero air circulation. #10 stays closed days after the other greens are cleared for play from frost.

We can all agree the weather patterns over the past 12 months have been quite extreme for our region. These extremes have spelled doom for our root system. We have roughly 45 to 60 days of poor growing conditions ahead of us before we start to see significant improvement in the greens. The sun is still too low on the horizon and temperatures are still too low for recovery. If we continue to allow foot traffic and mower traffic on the greens in question, we will undoubtedly experience even more turf loss over the next 60 days.

The greens need a break. We are doing everything we can to promote root development right now, but it's a losing battle as long as golfer traffic and mower traffic interfere with progress. We need to accept that we have a problem on our hands and look forward to the spring and summer when the turf is expected to be in perfect shape. This approach is being taken at many other courses in the Portland and Seattle area, as they too have suffered dramatic turf loss and thinning over the past month.

Please be patient in our efforts to bring the greens back to their normal condition. We do not have a timeline for them since every green will react differently and the weather needs to cooperate. Thank you...your humbled superintendent!

After

This is #10 yesterday.

Before

This is #10 on November

2nd.

More greens closing...

We will be closing greens #4, 5, 7 and 13 tomorrow. They will be put on temporary greens just short of the green. The putting green, #10 and #16 are still closed as well. We are very sorry for the inconvenience. We will be doing everything we can to bring the greens back to full health, but I fear we need warmer temperatures and more sun to get to that point. Thank you for your support and patience.

This is a classic photo of nematode damage. Identical symptoms to what we are seeing on a few greens.