"Since You're Gone"....

It's the last week of October and we are pretty much on schedule with all the preparations needed before the snow flies.  The awesome weather has allowed us on the course in good time each day with frost only being a problem over the past couple days.  This time of year frost usually sticks around until "noon-ish" which drags out most of the fall prep activities, especially the fall spray treatments.

Last weekend was the fall work bee (go HERE) with a nice turn out and even nicer weather.  With only a few trees to clean up (dead fir on 2 G, all the weedy poplars back of 14 G) a large number of people were able fill divots on 4,5,6,8,9,11,16,17, and 18 Fwys.  If you missed this work bee don't panic since I'm pretty sure there will be one in the spring.  They are such a huge help.

The crew completed a very minor irrigation expansion located between 6 and 8 greens.  This area is somewhat out of the way but because of inadequate coverage it shows moisture and heat stress early which easily creeps into the neighbouring surrounds on both 6 and 8 greens.  Ultimately, this expansion will continue onto 8 green where we will install irrigation for the surrounds as well as continue to the cart path on the right of 8 green.  I get to hear players complaints about how rough the ends of certain cart paths are and the one on 8 is probably the worst.  The concentrated traffic and no irrigation make more that difficult to keep turf established in that area.  I know from past experience that sodding the end of a cart path with no way to irrigate is guaranteed to fail.

In future posts I hope to cover some of the geeky tech things we do.  This will be the first installment. One of things I like to do is gather information about activities on the course.  This information gathering in relation to fertilizing and tracking pest/disease outbreaks allows us to create a data base which we often use as a reference.  There is numerous companies offering specialized software and devices for just what I describe but in our situation they are not a necessity and are too expensive.  However, as is my style, I'm always trying to cheap out and bastardize a "made in Kimberley" solution.  I started with aerial photographs with mylar overlays and felt pens but a pal gave me an old "I-thing" onto which I was able to download particular apps and now I can map fertilizer applications with GPS and upload to a site which stores the "track".  Go HERE to see the most recent fairway fertilizer (clicking the "satellite" toggle in the upper left corner of the picture gives a real life picture).  My hope is to use this more in the future to track all applications on the golf course that will easily viewed by all.

Home Strech

It's the last week of play and we are still experiencing very nice weather.  I haven't had the question yet, but someone will ask why close when the weather is so good?  Operating costs for all departments is one reason but from my end I need time without play and before seasonable weather to complete necessary tasks (as referenced in the previous post).

Beginning this Thursday the big jobs associated with preparing for winter begin.  We will be winterizing the irrigation and as a result alternating 9's will be closed (go HERE for refresher).  With respect to the irrigation you may have noticed a complete lack of post regarding the usual problems associated with river this time of year (go HERE for 2014 summary).  Last years work and the quiet freshet this spring resulted in us reaping the benefits and not having to put a single minute into moving rocks to get flow by our intake.  We will always need to do maintenance and I plan to have a backhoe down at the river to do a little cleaning as well as take a look at the wet well and see if we need to bring in a sucker truck.  A few words of caution:  apparently I took too much liberty with respect to diverting the river last fall so we won't able to do that again and all we need is a heavy snow pack and a wet spring to have all our river work disappear so I have no doubt we'll be back down there.  On the good news/proactive side we're hoping to plan a site meeting with appropriate people and get the rules/regulations nailed down once and for all so we can plan and with the city connection completed  (we just have to run a pipe to the reservoir) the panic associated with the river should be a little more manageable.

This past week we began/completed jobs I had slated for completion in May!  The flower bed by the bathroom on 7G/8T is gone and will be replaced by a tree and brick work next spring (hopefully?!?).  We transferred some aerating cores to the main driveway that will eventually grow into a lawn.  That tiny job is part of my efforts to formalize/update the front entrance which, IMO, looks unwelcoming and shabby.  With cash being tight its difficult to commit any money to create dramatic changes to an area that few people notice as they roar up the drive way.  Just stand half way down on the corner one day and you'll see what I mean!

Summary of Stuff....

Quick follow up for those of you wondering what going on.  First, after 4 somewhat nerve wracking days with no water the power issue was resolved.  The power company came and opened up the transformer and discovered that the problem was either within the transformer of somewhere along the length of one of the power cables 

The Guts of a Transformer

It turns out one of the cut outs on the last power pole before the line goes underground was only partially disengaged which is why we had funky readings on the power line.  When they replaced the fuse and re-connected there was a little explosion on that line they had just repaired.  More investigating and they discovered that the termination point on that particular line was faulty.  Once that was repaired we had power, thankfully.

The Power Pole Causing the Problem

While all the problems with the power was going on the city began installing our back-up/emergency connection to the Matthew Creek line.  Luckily, they are completely in charge of this stage and we are just watching

Exposing the Pipe

Ready for "Hot Tap" of 4 inch Connection

 Lastly, we are removing the berm installed a few years back to prevent people from parking on the side of the driveway.  It's already a narrow road and when people would park on the side the roadway was made so narrow vehicles coming down would have to cross over onto the other side of the road.  We had signs but cars would still park there so we built the berm to remove that option.  It worked but it was also "uglyish".  My hope is the habit of parking there has been broken and I can seed the area and make a nice boulevard for guests to admire as they drive up.  The front entrance is somewhat trashy, IMO, and needs a little smartening up but with cash being tight and so much needing to be done elsewhere it doesn't make much sense to spend money on such an area.

Removing the "Neevey Berm"

There you have it.  Lots going on and mostly all good.  FYI,  #7 probably back in play this Saturday not because it's better but because its time.  Hopefully, the extra TLC over the past couple week will translate into a quicker rebound.

The Little Dutch Boy.....

I am running out of fingers to plug the all the holes that seem to be popping up all over the place!   There's been lots of good things (weather, successful volunteer work bee, staffing) I could comment on but its the problems that are keeping me busy and distracted.  Here's a brief summary of the what is happening out on the course:

• Winter Clean-up:  We are slowly getting all the tree litter cleaned and with the help from volunteers last Tuesday a majority of the front nine holes were raked.  The biggest problem for completing the clean-up has been breakdowns.  Aside from the tractors front wheel falling off (bearings and planetary gear issues and now, as of Friday, a starter problem) both of our large capacity sweepers have been experiencing issues (broken sweeper shaft on the old Jac and list of costly engine problems on the vacuum sweeper) and both have spent most of the time sitting waiting to be repaired or being repaired.  The nice weather has the rough growing and needing to be mowed but with all the debris still to be swept up we're only able to mow those areas with the least amount of tree litter scattered on the ground.
• Winter Damage and Temporary Greens:  We've had no time to address the winter damage on any of the greens.  Some only require a few hours of plugging to be 100% but others require substantially more work.  Plugging is time consuming and my staff has been spread thin attempting to keep up with the maintenance and routine preparation required once the course opened for play.  As a general rule, players have been very understanding but I still need people to be patient regarding #7 green.  This green is a temp not because I'm worried about how it putts but because I'm worried about how play will affect its recovery.  I've heard the comment "Oh 7 looks fine.  We've played on way worse!" but again its the growth not the play that's my concern (at least at this point in time).
• Staffing:  The early opening has forced my hand and I've had to start some staff sooner than normal but I am also attempting to stick as close as possible to the budget and have adjusted the level of maintenance down to match the staffing numbers.  I am regretting that choice already but we are having to spend more money on equipment repairs early this year and I attempting to be prudent in other expense areas where I feel I have some control.
• Out of Left Field Stuff:  Up until this week most of the surprises have been equipment related but if you've been following the saga at KGC breakdowns have been a typical occurrence over the last couple years.  The seriously major issue that is now on our plate happen just yesterday (Why does sh*t always seem to hit the fan on Friday?).  At one point Friday morning something occurred which tripped a fuse on our 3 phase power line that feeds the river pump house as well as the irrigation pump house at the pond on 16 tee.  Usually, its just a twig that has landed on the power line and crossed phases but this time after the overhead power company repaired the fuse we only had power restored to the river pump house and partial power to the irrigation pump house (FYI, KGC owns the above ground power lines that feed the irrigation system and when we have a problem BC Hydro will not fix it.  We have to call a private company to repair it and we pay through the nose!)  Initially, I thought the problem was a 3 phase monitor inside the irrigation pump house but an electrician was unable to pin point the problem and suspects there may be a transformer issue.  That's a $15 000  to $20 000 replacement, I think.  So again we needed to call the private power company but by this time it was Friday afternoon and no one was answering their phone.  We'll have to wait until Monday.  Until then we have no irrigation but luckily it is only April and a few days without water is feasible but if problem isn't easily solved we may be "in dutch" (full circle, I love doing that!)

In Like a Lion.....

You know the old saying.  I guess we just have to wait until the end of the month to see if it's true.  The impact of this type of snow and cold over last couple weeks on the course should be negligible.  It's put a bit of brake on attempting to do any work on the course but the good news about March snow is it seems to melt faster with the longer and warmer (?) days.  Things are still frozen and since we've been cold there hasn't really been any more ice develop.  Possibly this snow may provide some insulation so any heat coming from the ground might warm the surfaces under the snow and help melt any ice that has already formed....probably just wishful thinking.

As we get closer to opening some of the planned projects are coming on line.  The clubhouse will receive a thorough cleaning and painting throughout the upstairs dining room, washroom, and kitchen areas.  Also, the wheels have started to turn on the golf clubs water connection to the Mathew Creek water line.  I referenced connecting to Mathew Creek in the past (go HERE) and with money from the sale of assets last fall it was decided that now would be the time to establish an emergency/back up water source.  It's not perfect but for our cash situation it's a reasonable alternative.  It might be extremely fortuitous that we choose this year to finally address an alternative water source since the River Forecast Center shows the East Kootenay at 80% of normal snow amounts.  If we continue to see dry and above normal temperatures for the summer our source at the river might dry up sooner than normal.

We've actually been busy at the shop for a February since the new mechanic we hired started earlier than usual.  Unlike last year when the dude I hired in June sort of got baptized by fire, I wanted the new hire this time out to have the option to get familiar with the equipment and type of maintenance required before staff comes back and things start falling apart.  He's been at it for a month and has cleaned up a lot of  loose ends left dangling from last year and is making very short order of the repair list I created at the beginning of February.

We will start to move out onto the course this month and most likely we'll begin removing snow from the tarped greens (starting on #15) before or near the middle of the month, weather depended.  We also plan on removing some trees (a couple missed green attack Ponderosa pine) on the left of 2 green and some on the left of 12 green and possibly the back of 15 green .  Next time out I'll give some detail and pictures highlighting those events.

Apologies and Brief Review

Obviously there has been no posts for months.  Other aspects have cut into the commitment it takes to update information about the "goings on" at KGC.  I'll quickly blow through what happened over the past few weeks.

The last post about the pine beetle was really the only big news or out of the ordinary news during the latter part of the season.  We found a couple more trees but their removal won't have a very big impact.  We sort of experimented with transplanting some small trees (tamaracks) this year and those appeared to have survived.  Bolstered a little bit by that very small victory we prepared some more small trees this fall for transplant next spring. 

The river worked out.  We had to do our usual grunt work making weirs and dams but really only around 70 man hours and one day with a backhoe and a vacuum truck kept at least one pump working (and the horrible wet weather in September helped out - irrigation wise, that is).  A big percentage of that 70 hours was spent cleaning out the sand from inside the wet well.  I believe the wear caused by the sand is our bigger problem in the long run and we need to find ways to mitigate it.

This was one of those years where my 9 old could have grown grass for you to play on.  We had a hard time keeping up with all the grass.  What makes that interesting is when you compare conditions to last year.  In 2012 the wet June carried us for a long time until about early August which was when the cracks started to show and the turf began burning out and things started looking haggard.  This year the weather helped conditions stay great all year.   Unfortunately, I know I will have an opportunity to lament about our 1980 irrigation system in the future but suffice to say that when there is no burned out areas between sprinklers improperly spaced at 110 feet (versus the specified maximum spacing of 90 feet) you know the weather is having an immensely positive impact on growing grass. 

With respect to the beetle infected trees we fell them once play was done and a work bee was organized to help clean up the branches.  Luckily we had the regular group of 25 or so members (who appear to make up the backbone of these events!) show up an clean all the debris left from falling the trees.  I am depending more on these types of work bees since they really help out and save money.  Keep next spring open!

There is more but I have all winter to cover other topics assuming there isn't a ton of powder days.

Oops...Not Quite What We Planned

There is many areas on the course that receive an extreme amount of maintenance for what they are.  My personal pet peeve is the lack of required irrigation necessary to keep the greens surrounds healthy and playable (SEE HERE for more whining by me).  It takes running hoses, little wap-waps, and lots of time and labour to keep surrounds on certain greens from burning out during the summer.  Adding extra irrigation to a green like #7 isn't an ideal situation but it is the type of project that suits our budget and addresses one of the areas where we do quite a bit of hose irrigation.

We had some control wire left from expanding the irrigation on #6 green as well as some irrigation pipe from the driving range "do again" renovation.  Also, this spring we dug up an inch and half remote valve left in the ground from when we re-did the irrigation around 5 green a few years back.  Combine all these items and the fact that a control satellite is directly beside 7 green, installing a make shift surrounds line around 7 green appeared feasible.

We picked a routing and started work but unfortunately we weren't the first to use that routing and ended up hitting the lateral that controlled the front heads on 7 green.  Actually, hitting it is an understatement.  We demolished a large portion of it: oops.  We spend an extra couple days fixing that and now we're back on finishing the initial project. I'll keep you updated at we go along.
   

Repairing the Line

If you look around the course you will see a bucket load of saskatoon blossoms.  This year, and this observation relates to the turf also, has seen great growing conditions early on and all plants are loving it.

Saskatoon Bush on 15 Green

How the spring growth will play itself out during the rest of the year is hard to say but there is lots of potential!

Pulling the River Pumps

It took months but we finally got the last job from summer competed.  The wear the pump shafts saw over the last couple seasons required us to remove the pumps and send them away to be refurbished.

Removing Access Hatch

Pulling First Pump Through Roof

Both Pumps Loaded for Repair

The unknown is the cost.  Last time out it cost $10 000 for both.  Until they get the pumps apart and look at the wear the actual cost is hard to say.  Guaranteed it will not be less.  To compliment the maintenance work we completed this fall at the river intake we are looking at ways to mitigate the wear the pumps experience during run off.   One idea is installing a screen sized for the material suspended in the water during run off that is the entire length of the pump (i.e. from the blue pedestal all the way to the bottom bowl).  It's more involved than I'm letting on but the catch with that one is you have to be able to clean it.  Not impossible for us but not that easy either (go here for a reminder?).  The other option is a well but to meet our demands that could cost in the ten's of thousands.  I pretty sure this year will be an exploratory year since grand expenditures aren't really in the cards.

Winterizing the Irrigation System

One of the most important activities we do every fall is winterizing the irrigation system. Under your feet is almost 8 miles of plastic pipe that, on average, is only 24 inches deep. The shallow depth means the water inside the pipe will freeze and shatter the pipe if it is not expelled before winter. Draining the system through low points eliminates some of the water but not all of it. To understand why gravity draining is only of a partial help an explanation of how the irrigation system works might help.

Without going into too much detail, the irrigation system at KGC is a hodge-podge of control methods and piping schemes. The front nine is a "block system" which is best described as a constantly pressurized mainline that supplies a number of laterals irrigation lines in which a single valve controls multiple sprinklers. The laterals are only pressurized when the valve opens and the sprinkler heads are running. The back nine is a "looped system". In this type of system smaller pipe feeds off of a larger mainline at two points (usually at the start and end of a fairway). Each sprinkler heads has a valve and can operate on its own. Water is supplied to each head by the smaller looped line which is constantly pressurized.

The valves in both the front and back hold water and are not drained by gravity alone. Even a little water left at the base of a sprinkler valve can destroy a head. The following picture shows an irrigation head where the ice that formed within the valve at the base of the sprinkler split the casing top from bottom. The interesting part of the picture is how little ice was needed to damage the sprinkler pot.

Damaged Pot

The only way we have to remove unwanted water from the irrigation system is to use compressed air. We use a compressor that able to generate 750 cubic feet/minute (cfm) of air. As a point of reference, a small portable compressor used for air nailers can run up to 2.5 - 5 cfm. We rent a compressor locally and use it for 2 days. We close nine holes at a time for convenience and safety. It takes a full 8 to 10 hour day to completely blow the back nine and only a 6 hour day for the front. This relates mostly to the different control systems we have on each nine ( see April 15th posting for brief explanation of control systems at KGC).

Mixture of Air and Water Being
Forced out Sprinklers

Generally, we have pretty good success with little or no damage the following spring.

The clubhouse, on course bathrooms, snack shack, river pumphouse, and reservoir pumphouse all have to be winterized as well but for those we use a smaller compressor and R.V. anti-freeze to keep the fixtures from freezing. There have been years, like last year for example, where the cold came early and hard. I seemed to have misplaced the pictures I took but the damage last year included frozen control satellites, burst irrigation pipes, frozen valves, and split plumbing fixtures. At this point in time we seem to be ahead of last year with respect to "irrigation winterizing", that is. Hopefully, that hold true for all other processes we have yet to complete!

New Irrigation for #1 Green

During the time that #1 green is out of play we decided to take advantage and update the irrigation heads and control. The irrigation system at KGC is a mish-mash of control systems and design logic. A quick and dirty explanation with respect to water distribution (i.e. pipes) is best said by the phrase "size matters". More of an explanation would make an uninteresting subject even more boring. The control system can be explained a little easier. A irrigation head is kept down by either the absence or presence of a stimulus which can be either electric (called a normally closed system) or hydraulic (called a normally open). KGC has hydraulic on the back and electric on both the front and back. Number one green is has electrically controlled heads but, because "size matters" and because of wiring the old heads could only operate in one particular orientation. What we are planning to do is increase the volume of water feeding the green by looping the pipe and increase control by adding new wire. The following pictures show the process, equipment, and supplies needed for such a project.

First we had to dig out the old heads and add new heads and pipe.


Sometimes you can push the limits of the pipes properties and give it an extra tweak to make a corner!

Adding extra heads means adding new wire too.


We pulled over 3000' of wire from #1 green back to the field controller on #3 tee


The resulting trench requires some clean up but not as much as a trench made by a chain trencher


Where we used a chain trencher we had to screen out the rocks when we back filled

New heads watering #1 green