It has been a while.....

It has been a while since my last post and the golf course has gone through some definite changes. I have been posting a weekly construction update for my members at the following address if any of you did not notice on the right hand side of this blog.

http://www.restorationupdate.com/

Only a few greens are left to be drained and have the gravel blanket and greensmix installed (13, 4, 2, 18, and the practice green).


Installing drainage on 1 green

We did begin the Basamid applications on our fairways, greens, and tee boxes last Friday with the first round going on 13 fairway, 14 green and fairway, and 15 green and fairway. We will continue on with more holes this week. The calibration process for the large Gandy spreader was tedious to say the least, with such a fine granular product it took two fairways to get our target rate of 420 pounds per acre achieved. From there it was 4 days of watering to ensure that none of the Basamid escaped from the profile.


Jeff Mold applying Basamid on 14 fairway


Closeup of Basamid after application


Watering in Basamid on 13 fairway


Irrigation installation has been moving right along all the way from main line installation to bunker sprinklers to programming our central and controllers. Both Duininck Construction and Leibold Irrigation have been easy to work with for us in the Maintenance Department and easy for each other to work with. We have also installed a new bottom pump on one of our deep wells to get us to our target gallonage and pressure, once the main line is complete we will do a flow test to see exactly what we have.


Main line installation between 2 green and 9 green


New Pump waiting to be installed.


The finishing and grassing part of the project is upon us now and it will be exciting to finally get to see some grass again after two months of dirt, dust, and mud when we have gotten all of our "timely rains". One interesting part of the timely rains has been with no irrigation for our roughs it has shown how little we needed to irrigate this summer.


15 green close to being finished


The next week will be action packed as the Basamid applications continue, grassing begins and the final parts of construction wrap up. Seeding did begin on Saturday with 13 fairway getting 1#/1000 ft2 of Dominant Xtreme 7 bentgrass and 1#/1000 ft2 of SR 5130 Fine Chewings Fescue and the first couple of greens (14 and 15) should get done during the early part of the week.


Seeding 13 fairway


Chris Brands and Tom Lehman will be on site as well to approve finishing work and guide the final rough shaping that is being done. It has been quite a run for Tom since he was last on site, playing every week since July 1st and it sounds like he will be playing all the way up until he plays in the Jeld Wen Tradition on the weekend of August 21st and 22nd, you don't hear of many players playing 8 weeks in row!!! Very impressive!!!

Busy Two Weeks

It has been a while since my last posting and it has been a very busy two weeks. I have posted a link to the club's blog site in the right hand margin that has a weekly construction update I do for our membership, as well as some other interesting material relating to the project, especially the commentary on each hole from Tom Lehman.
The golf course is completely engulfed in construction right now ranging from turf removal and rough grading to greens construction and sprinkler installation. Duininck Construction has drainage and gravel layers installed on the 6th and 12th greens.


12 green with drainage

Greens 15 and 17 have been cored out and are close to being drained. Greens 14, 13, 8, 5, 3, 4, 11, and 10 are all at various stages of rough grading. New fairway bunkers are popping up throughout the golf course as well.


Fairway bunker on 8th hole

The irrigation installation is also in full swing with a little over 50% of the course having the main line installed and pressurized.


Main line valve installation

This week Leibold Irrigation has started pulling pipe and installing sprinklers on 12, 16, and 15. By this time next week our old irrigation system will be shut off permanently.

My seasonal and full time staff have found plenty of things to stay busy with, including scalping bluegrass for the sod cutters, removing ornamental beds to make way for the new 18th fairway, applying Primo around trees, fencelines, and anywhere else that will save us time from mowing and string trimming. Jeff and Kevin have helped Erik Christiansen with irrigation staking during his two visits also.


Jeff, Kevin, Erik Christiansen, and Dave Lindsay staking irrigation on hole 5.


This week we have also started to work on scalping our fairways in preparation for the Basimid application. We have lowered our height of cut to .300 to start with and started verti-cutting at .600 below surface. We will keep working the height down and opening up the canopy as much as possible before we aerify and then apply the fumigant.

Each day and week gets more exciting as we work through the golf course and one of the more exciting things we found in my opinion was old aerification holes and sand layers from the old pre 1996 6th green while drainage was being trenched in last week.


White silica sand from old aerifications and sand layer below from some previous activity.

Old Greensmix Depths.....

As long as I have been employed at Edina Country Club there was always the question of, "what is wrong with those greens?" I could always give the answer of we think it is this or that. The "birdbath" areas that prevented water from draining off the putting surface was always pretty evident, especially during the spring of 2009.
Now that we are getting to see the old greens de-constructed and get some definitive visual evidence that was always suspected. This past Friday and Saturday Duininck Construction started to carefully remove the old greensmix (sand) from the 17th green. Other greens that have been de-constructed have shown some irregularities, but not to the following degree. Construction Superintendent Travis Quisberg notified me of three things that he found in the green on Friday night and I took the following pictures on Saturday morning.

1. The original greensmix in the right middle part of the green was 17" deep. (USGA construction specifies a depth of 12") This was an area that was usually very dry.


2. The original greensmix in the front middle of the green was 7" to 8" deep. This was an area that was usually very wet.



3. A substantial clod of dirt was found in the greensmix. (Any number of reasons during construction could have caused this).

We will keep investigating as we move along through the rest of the greens and see what else we find.

On a lighter note, we witnessed some of the baby wood ducks leaping from their nesting box in 4 pond on Monday morning.


Here is one of the babies making its first nose dive into the pond!!!


Mom with some of her babies

One Week into Construction

7 Green Rough Graded

It has been one week since construction began and everything is moving very quickly. The first green (number 7) has been rough graded and you can now see the shapes of the bunkers and how they will tie in around the new green. Trees are being removed to make way for new bunkers, fairways, greens or anywhere that they will interfere with the playability of the course or the turf quality. Tees are being stripped off in preparation for laser leveling and/or reconstruction. The irrigation pipe has been staged throughout the golf course, and we should see a lot of installation happening this week.


Irrigation Pipe being Delivered

Congratulations are in order for our Architect Tom Lehman who won the PGA Senior Championship over the weekend in a playoff with Fred Couples and David Frost. Even after his victory, Tom was on site at 10am the next morning ready to look at the work that had been accomplished so far. He explained his vision for the bunkers, greens, and angles of shots so that nothing was repeated and each feature and hole was unique. Here is a picture of Tom standing close to the middle of the new 15th green where a Red Oak was removed. Good luck to Tom as he heads to Columbus, Ohio to play in the Memorial Tournament.


Tom Lehman reviewing 15 Green Drawing

Construction (Destruction) Begins!!!!

May 26th has finally come after much anticipation and the mood around the club is very exciting to say the least. At 7:00 Duininck had their sod cutters ready to go and began cutting away and by day's end they should have 7, 12, 15, and maybe 16 all cut and ready for the grass to be removed. To help Duininck we have lowered a Toro 3500 Sidewinder to 3/4" and scalped down all the rough grass in the disturbance areas. A skidloader with tracks is then used to remove all the sod material and placed in trailers where it is moved to our bury pit located between the 9th, 5th, and 3rd holes. Other activities included silt fence installation, utility marking, irrigation isolation / shutdown in construction areas, and organization of irrigation materials. A photo album will be put up soon of all the pictures, but here are some of the ones from the last couple of days.


7 Green Before Work Begins


Scalping down the Rough


Sod Cutters


Sod Removal


Bury Pit


Silt Fence Installation


Cutting through Road for 10" Main Line


Lots of Pipe


Lots of Valves

Pre-Construction Meeting

Yesterday we had our Pre-Construction meeting to discuss logistics and answer any questions between the Lehman Design Group, Duininck Construction, Leibold Irrigation, Erik Christiansen (Irrigation Designer), and the ECC Grounds Department. Some grassing and sand details for the project are:

1.Greens: T-1 Bentgrass
2.Fairways, Tees, Approaches: Dominant X-Treme Bentgrass
3.Bunker Sand: Ohio Best (Grass Faced with Bluegrass, Sand Flat Bottom Style)
4.Irrigation: Toro LTC Plus (Wall to Wall Coverage)

The meeting moved on to the golf course where we were able to see how Tom views the hole and every feature on the hole especially the trees and that he really takes his time to make sure that the correct things are being done. He explained that two of his goals are to get you to use every club in your bag during your round of golf and to restore and Old World feel to the course (especially around the slopes and surrounds of the bunkers).



Next was the Ceremonial Ground Breaking and picture opportunities for everyone involved. The picture (left to right) is of Mike Powers, Chris Brands, Tom Lehman, myself, Jeff Mold, and Kevin Gruber. We have one more weekend of the full golf course and our Men's Club Championship and then the fun begins next Wednesday.

Equipment Starting to Show Up

Last Thursday and Friday we began to see some equipment and trailers arrive on site and will continue into this week. We are also seeing some orange paint on the ground, due to Construction Superintendent Travis Quisberg using his GPS to plot out some bunkers, greens and teeing locations. From there, Tom Lehman will come in and look at the painted areas and make changes with a different color. It is now only eight days till construction officially starts and it will be a very busy eight days for the golf course considering we are going to squeeze in Women's Club Championship, Senior City League, Men's Club Championship, an outside event on Monday and our final Men's League event next Tuesday. The picture with the white flags is the location of a new bunker on the 15th hole.

Construction starts in 19 days!!!!

After much anticipation this winter and spring of the project starting we are only 19 days away from the start. The course will start to see some project activity within these next three weeks as Duininck Golf Construction and Liebold Irrigation will start to mobilize and set-up, for what should be an exciting summer. As soon as there is some pictures to take they will be put up on this blog and as the summer and project progresses, that information will be shared here, so stay tuned. For now it is business as usual with the maintenance of the golf course and this weekend I think we are going to pay for all the nice weather we received during March and April, law of averages I guess!!!