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!!!