Driving Range Information

 A timely article hit my in box last week about driving ranges and how to manage the tee deck.  Go to here for complete article but I'll try a quick summary in this post.  Basically, the article references a method players can use to limit the divots and speed the recovery time for a driving range tee to keep it in good shape during the season.  The number crunching I love is the one that compares the two styles of hitting balls.  The willy nilly, all over the map style of hitting balls removes 4.1 sqft of turf after hitting 30 balls versus the linear style of divot removal which only removes 1.4 sqft of turf after hitting 30 balls....a 65% reduction!  FYI, the recommended size of a driving range tee is 1 to 2 acres minimum (that is 43 560 to 87 120 sqft) to allow for sufficient hitting areas and recovery of the hitting area.  The tee we just built is about .35 of an acre or around 16 000 sqft (versus 0.12 or just over 5000 sqft which was the size of the old tee deck).  Obviously, we were limited based on the area available but I think we should be O.K.  If I can get the message out about conserving turf by controlling divot removal the tee should always be in good shape, I hope.

Driving Range Opening Date

Looks like we will open the range this coming Wednesday, May 30 or at the very latest this coming Friday. At this stage,  the sodded tee deck is fairly established and is not the real hurdle.  The time line I mentioned in the March 14th post  did not happen exactly as planned but we are more or less where I had hoped.  It took us longer to get the area prepared and we didn't started seeding until May 10 (versus May 4 which I had planned).  The good news was there was germination happening after 9 days (May 19th) and a definite green sward by 14 days (May 24th).  The seed blend we used was a Perennial Rye and Kentucky Bluegrass blend.  Rye can germinate in 7 to 10 days at optimum temperatures and Kentucky will germinate in 14 to 30 days.  Before opening the range my hope was to have the rye well on its way and the Kentucky starting to grow but, as previously mentioned, preparing the seedbed took longer so we were late to seed.  Not an ideal situation but not the end of the of the world either.

We still need to repair the netting, add sand to the practice bunker, and complete the tie in around the edges.  The way it is going with regular on course maintenance taking up most of the mornings we will probably work on the range during the latter half of our days.  I just added some picks showing various stages for you to browse.

D-9 Pushing Material Last Fall

Trenching in Irrigation
Fall 2011

Trenching in Control Tubing
Spring 2012

Preparing for Seeding
Spring 2012

Finishing off Seeding and Watering it in
Spring 2012

17 Days After Seeding

Not a lot of pictures.  I missed quite a few good pictures showing the process since I wasn't always enough on the ball to remember my camera plus some of the pictures I did take are sort of boring.

Most likely the new seedlings will require babysitting for a bit and we may have to visit some of the irrigation heads but hopefully the problems and inconveniences are few and far between.

You may be finished but we're not

Sort of the same theme as last year at this time.  Now that the golfing season is done we are are in a race against Mother Nature to get everything wrapped up before the weather goes funky.  We still need to finish aerating fairways, scout and fall beetle trees, finish installing irrigation on the driving range and prep for seeding in the spring, begin our winter disease prevention sprays, collect all the accessories on the course, deep tine aerate the greens, install tree protectors on the planted trees, blow the city lines on the golf course, find the buried steel sleeves and install the fencing around the greens, tarp certain greens, finish installing new fuel tanks at the shop, and ????? all before the snow flies.

Frosty mornings play havoc with most of what we need to do but we work with the weather by starting those jobs that can be done without driving on the turf.  I am sorry to say, but it is nice not having any golfers around since we are free to move about without having to watch for balls or people, especially when it comes to tasks such as falling trees and applying control products for disease prevention on the turf.  I'm not the only one that feels that way.......somebody must have sent out a memo the day we closed.

Sow and Cub #1 Fwy

Some of the many deer all over the course

Driving Range Update

We finished the sodding of the tee deck in that pouring rain of a couple of Fridays ago.  We were covered in slimy goo so there was no pictures of the process but here is one of the end result.

Driving Range Tee

 As mentioned previously, we are trying to finish installing the irrigation and get things back filled and levelled in anticipation of seeding in the spring.  A rough accounting of the project up to this point includes: cat work ($7950), irrigation ($2960), sod ($3800), miscellaneous (mostly shipping: $1500), labor ($1700 approximately - defined by the fact that two extra people stayed on extra time to help with our regular fall work), and most  likely the remaining expenses for this phase of the project are those associated with seeding ($1500-$2000) which just over $18 000 (plus the labour costs).  Not quite the $100,000+ the rumour mill was churning out but hopefully it will look like we spent that much!  I guess the hope is we have a nice spring that will allow us to get on the range early so we can seed.  Once the sod is rooted and we have the irrigation working people will be able to hit balls.  The worst part will be picking the balls in the goo but maybe we'll get a quick catch and that will be a short lived inconvenience.

What's new.

This past week has been very busy and my time has been spread pretty thin so some stuff got put back burner. As I threatened last post, we have begun to aerate this week. We will begin with the fairways (see The Down Hill Slide....from 2010 for information on why) and will move onto greens starting the week of the 25th.
The tournament schedule leading up to last week sort of played with our falling spray program dates and, as a result, we have quite a bit of Fusarium (again, see posting from 2010 title Week of May 23 for more info on Fusarium) on the greens but we did get the first of our treatment down at the beginning of the week and now all we have to do is grow out the damage from this bout of disease and keep up with treatments on our normal fall schedule.
If you've played this week you probably noticed the work going on at the range. I was waiting until I posted anything about the project but that is just stupid because if I wait until it is done everyone will have found out for themselves, or worse, through the rumour mill about what is going on. I'll treat the project like the "River Updates" and rehash the week and give notice of what is to come the following week so people know what's what.

Driving Range Update
Firstly why the range and why now? The "why the range" was touched on in last weeks post (see Update). Why now? The quick and dirty answer might be something along lines of "best bang for the buck". Few other projects discussed by the Strategic Planning committee and presented to the Board of Directors had the same cost to potential revenue ratio (if there really is such a ratio?!). A new green or new tee would update the layout but, unless you're planning to do nine new golf holes, I'm not sure how much more play building or updating a single tee would bring in (not saying we don't need to do that, but that is whole new topic!), A driving range can add to the bottom line of a golf course in many ways. People buy driving range passes on top off their regular seasons pass and if your range is suitable people will come and practice even if they aren't members. The more people that hang around the club the greater the exposure and the better off the club will be in many aspects including membership numbers and extra revenue. Furthermore, a suitable range opens up numerous opportunities for offering special lessons and even the development of multi day clinics which again means more people spending time at KGC.

Right now the bulk of the work is stripping the old sod and moving material. We don't have the equipment to do that so we brought in a bulldozer to rough shape the range.

Pushin' the old tee deck

Prior to stripping material we dug out all the irrigation heads (24 in total) and will re-use those when we add back new pipe to the range. We also took the time to remove the perennials on the back of the tee and will use those around the golf course.

Bucket O' Perennials

Next post will have some information on how much material we needed to move but until then the following picture shows how much material was moved after one day (and, FYI, at the point this picture was taken we weren't even half way!)

Wildlife
On Thursday we got to watch the cubs and their "mom" devour some of the chokecherries around the putting green. Next to 3 green they demolished the Schubert chokecherry tree. I think I may have to admit that a Schubert is a poor choice for a tree at KGC.

River Watch

September 24

The flow is so low now that we can't even pump 130 GPM any more. At present, we have had to use one of the control valves to limit the pump station output to 100 GPM. I guess the good news is the reservoir is mostly full and the water demands are somewhat limited. I am not having much luck getting hold of the necessary government departmental representatives to line up the required permits to perform the obviously needed work at our intake. I'll keep trying and, hopefully, things fall into place before next April or, worst cast, next August.