Team Calumet Brings Home the Dom Grotti Cup

This past Tuesday, Adam, my assistant, and I participated in the Midwest Association of Golf Course Superintendents Dom Grotti championship.  The event was held at Prairie Bluff Golf Course in Lockport, and  it's a yearly event for Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent teams.  It's a net score event, and at the end of the day we came away with the championship.  I shot a personal best 80, beating my old best by four strokes, for a net 62, and Adam also played very well, shooting 81 for a net 73.  

Course Conditions, June 21

After receiving another inch of rain yesterday, the golf course is in relatively good shape.  It is still quite soft, but the wet areas are very minimal so carts will be going today with no restrictions.  There are few areas in the rough that still have standing water on them so I ask that you be careful to avoid those areas.  The worst area to watch out for is the rough between 15 and 18 near the 15th green.

Once again, the forecast is calling for more rain today so lets hope that it misses us.  Considering how saturated the course is right now, any significant rainfall will be sure to put a damper on the cart situation.

12 Drainage

Yesterday we started a new drainage project on the right side of #12 near the fence and in the fairway.  It's a little different than the normal drainage projects we do because the water isn't actually going to drain anywhere.  This is an area that is essentially a bathtub and fills up with over a foot of water when we get heavy rainfall.  Unfortunately the nearest place that we can move the water to is the creek which is a few hundred yards away, so that water has to be pumped off the course.  

To make this pumping process easier, we dug a big pit that we can insert the suction hose of the pump into instead of digging a hole in the rough.  In the pit we installed a sump pump liner and surrounded it with gravel so that small amounts of rain can filter out of the pit and into the ground.

The hole with the sump pump liner.  The water in the pit is all ground water that filled the hole after it was dug.

Leading away from the pit we also trenched a drainline to the fairway so that the area in the fairway that holds water would also be pumped down when the pit is pumped out.  We used to have to squee-gee all the water to the low area.  There will also be a drainline that goes to another area in the rough that holds water.

After the pipe was laid in the ground, the soil and sod was put back over the top of the new line.  The fairway drain is visible in the picture.

The new sump pit.

Course conditions, June 11

We finally caught a break and barely got any rain over night.  The difference from yesterday to this morning is amazing.  Carts will be going on the course today with some restrictions.  Carts need to stay in the fairways and on cart paths, there are still many wet areas in the rough.  Also, holes three and six still have a lot of water on them so carts will be restricted to a white line for those two holes only.  The sun seems to be trying to burn off some morning fog, so it should be a nice day for golf.

Course Conditions, June 10

It should come to no surprise to readers of the blog that there will be no carts today.  Early this morning we received another 0.3" of rain.  Although, that's not a substantial amount, more rain is not something that we needed.  There is more heavy rain forecasted for tonight, which puts the whole weekend in jeopardy as far as carts go.

We are going to begin our cleanup work as if it's not going to rain so that we are prepared for play if the rain tonight does not develop.  There's a lot of water that needs to be pumped before the course looks like itself again.  Check here tomorrow morning to find rainfall totals, and the status of carts.

Today's Course Conditions.....WET!

There will be no carts today, but rowboat shuttles are running from 4 Tee to 4 Green!

That picture just about says it all.  Starting at about 2:00 in the the morning last night the golf course got hammered with rain until about 9:30 this morning.  All in all we received 3.25" of rain, and obviously the course is pretty much flooded.  If you haven't already heard, the Member-Guest event that was scheduled to be played tomorrow is cancelled and will be played on July 22nd instead.  Hopefully everyone that was signed up to play can make it to the new date.

I took a walk onto the course  as the rain subsided and took some pictures. I will let them do the talking.

#18 Fairway from the Green

#10 Fairway from the right fairway bunkers looking towards the green

#3 Fairway

#4 Ladies Tee is there somewhere

I know that I have short legs, but water up to my knees is still pretty deep!

Looking from 3 Rough towards 4 green.  The margins of the creek are barely visible.

The only silver lining to this situation is that the hot weather is not supposed to be coming back for awhile.  If we had this much standing water with high temperatures our turf would be in great danger.  You all saw last year what can happen to grass when standing water and heat combine, and I know that none of us want to see that again anytime soon.

It will be interesting to see how quickly all this water goes down.  The weather forecast calls for more rain tonight and tomorrow morning, hopefully we don't get much out of that because the weekend is supposed to be nice.  I will keep the blog updated with information about how the course is drying out, so be sure to check here for the latest information about the course conditions.

Finally, into our routine

It's taken all spring for us to finally feel like we are in the golf season routine.  The frequent rains and wide temperature swings have really kept us from getting into the maintenance routines that we normally follow, but now that the weather has turned, we've been able to stop pumping bunkers and squee-geeing fairways, and get to mowing and maintaining the course.  It's a good feeling to feel like we just aren't spinning our wheels, and getting things crossed off the to-do list.

The biggest thing on the to-do list for the last week or so has been prepping the course for the member guest this Friday.  At the beginning of the week last week, the list of detail work and touch-ups that needed to be done was a long one, now it is has been whittled down to just a few minor things like pulling weeds around the clubhouse and repainting the hazard lines.

One change to the course that you may have noticed this year is the long grass around the creek on the right side of #4 fairway.  There are a few reasons that this was done, the first being the amount of labor that it takes to keep it trimmed.  It takes 32 man hours to keep it trimmed with weed eaters every other week.  That is a great deal of labor that can be better utilized other on areas of the course.  The other reason is that letting it go was the original intention.  When that area was seeded, it was seeded with a mix of wildflowers and prairie grasses, not grasses that were meant to be maintained at low heights.  The hope is that many of these seeds are still in the ground and will come up when given the opportunity, and it appears that this is the case seeing as there are already a few wildflowers showing up and many of the prairie grasses are looking really good.  This longer grass will also encourage new wildlife to show up on the course.  I hope you all enjoy the "new" look of the creek as much as I do.

The new look of the creek on #4

Wildflowers are starting to pop up already

Perennial Plants Looking Great

I noticed some of the perennials around the course and clubhouse looking good so I took a few pictures today.  (To view them bigger just click on the picture.)

'Knock Out' Roses At the Entrance of the Clubhouse

'Globemaster' Allium (purple balls on stems) with perennial Salvia near 4 & 7 Tee

Turning the Corner - Take 2

Back at the beginning of May, I wrote about the appearance that we had turned a corner in the weather department.  Obviously, at the time, I couldn't have been more wrong.  May ended up being the 3rd wettest May in Chicago history, and going out with a bang delivering over four inches of rain in five days here at the course.  Although it could have been worse - there are areas in the western suburbs that received over seven inches in that same time period - it was bad enough to keep us from allowing carts on the golf course on Memorial Day.  Maybe this time we have actually turned the corner into a pattern of good weather.

Today we are having probably the nicest day of 2011.  There are just a few wispy clouds in the sky, the humidity is low, and there is a light 78 degree breeze.  Between yesterday and today, I couldn't ask for better weather to dry the course out.  Nearly all of the standing water is gone, and the only areas that remain wet are mostly out of play areas.  The greens, tees, and fairways have also really gotten green over the past few warm days.  The fairways are especially noticeable.  Even though, it has been almost a month since they were fertilized, they never really greened up very much.  The fertilizer that we use on the fairways has a very temperature dependent nutrient release, and with the cold weather we have had it just hasn't released.  Now it is kicking in and the fairways are really looking good.