Winter Tree Removals

Over the past winter, we removed about 30 trees from the golf course, most of which had little impact on the course and have not generated any concern.  A few of the removals, one in particular, some members have questioned.  I want to address these concerns and explain the reasoning behind that removal, and the tree removals in general. 

The tree that has generated the most interest is the ash tree that was to the left of the seventh fairway about 100 yards from the green.  Many people feel that this tree was key to the golf hole in making an errant tee shot difficult to advance to the green on the players second shot, and its removal makes the hole easier.  This tree was removed for the same reason that many others were removed from the golf course, it was an ash tree that was nearly dead.  Despite the fact that this was one of the ash trees that was receiving treatment for the borer, the top three quarters of the tree was completely bare, and given the ash borer damage that we have seen over the past few years, the tree would have been completely dead this year.  In order to avoid having a barren tree in such a high profile area during the golf season, the tree was removed. 

Unfortunately, as the ash borer damage progresses we will be seeing this more and more over the next few years.  Many ash trees that looked fairly healthy last year have either not come back at all , or have very few leaves this year.  So far, the remaining twelve trees that are being treated appear to be healthy, but only time will tell if the treatments will continue to be effective. 

Obviously, the dead and dying ash trees made up a majority of the tree removals this year, but a few other notable trees had different reasons behind their removal.  The silver maple tree near the alternate tee on the second hole was removed to allow full use of the alternate tee.  With that tree there, we were unable able to use the alternate tee to spread out the damage from divots.  The large silver maple trees behind the seventh green and the seventeenth green were both removed for the same reason, turf health.  These trees were blocking sunlight and robbing the greens of moisture with their roots that extended into the green, causing very weak and fragile turf on the back of those greens, and on the eighth tee.

Tree removals are not taken lightly, and all decisions regarding the removals are based upon the improvement of the golf course, whether it is for turf health, tree health, or playability.  As always, the grounds operation is an open book.  If you have any questions regarding tree removals or any other golf course matter feel free to ask me or our superintendent, Matt Harstad. 

Bob Schoenau

Grounds Committee Chairman

The Helicopters Have Landed

The dry and warm spring has caused the silver maple "helicopter" seeds to begin falling very early this year.  They began to rain down in the high winds this week, and really made a mess of things.  It is actually almost a month early for them, last year they didn't start falling until the end of May!


These seed pods are a major problem for the grounds staff and golfers every spring.  Instead of going about our business in the morning and getting everything mowed for play, we have to blow off the greens, tees, an fairways before mowing which consumes a lot of time and labor.  For golfers, the problem is obvious, if a green isn't freshly blown off, they are in the way of putting.  We will do our best to keep the course clean, and the greens puttable. 

Besides blowing helicopters, we also completed a project that we have been putting off for too long.  Monday and Tuesday we installed irrigation on the new blue tee on #13.  Last years wet summer allowed us to put this project off, but the dry spring we are having forced us to get it done so that we don't have to stretch two hoses from the twelfth fairway to hand water it.  In two days we were able to lay all the pipe, install two new sprinklers, and wire everything to the irrigation satellite box.  The best part is that everything worked on the first try!

Tamping the soil on top of the pipe to reduce settling in the trenches.



Good Luck Adam!

This weekend is my assistant, Adam Lencke's, last weekend working at Calumet.  After working here for four years, he has accepted the head superintendent position at the Course at Aberdeen in Valparaiso, IN, and will be starting work there on Monday. 

Over the years working here, he has put a great deal of hard work into the golf course here, and has been an excellent assistant to me.  He will be missed, and I'm sure that he will miss Calumet also, but this new position is a huge step and a great accomplishment in his young golf course management career.  If you see him out on the course this weekend, be sure to stop and wish him will in his new position. 

That Doesn't Look Right

At some point in time, many years ago, a clay tile behind the 12th green was installed to drain part of the shop area.  When it was installed they must have realized (too late) that their line was going to run into a tree.  Instead of slowly moving the line away from the tree, a sharp S-Curve was made with two 90 degree fittings to go directly around the tree.

Obiviously, this drain was always clogging up because of the restricted water flow, and if any debris came through the pipe, it would get stuck in the drain and cause it to backup.  This week, we were finally able to fix this problem for good.

That's better.  Nice and straight like it should be!

Course Opening Wednesday March 14th!

The news you've all been waiting for!  We will open the course to play for the 2012 season Wednesday, March 14th at 9:00 a.m.  Thanks to a warm winter and a warm spring, this will be the earliest opening the course has ever seen.  Right now, the plan is to be open with carts, forecasters are not calling for much rain so I don't see that changing.

Tomorrow and Tuesday the grounds staff will be working hard to finish our preparations for opening.  The greens and tees will get their first mowing, and we will be blowing off the fairways in order to provide you with the best possible early season conditions.  This warm weather will really be kicking our operation into high gear, as most of our chemical schedules are now going to be running two to three weeks ahead of normal and we will be seeing the grass start to green up and get growing.  It's looking like it may be a busier spring than usual.

The warm and windy weather we had over the past few days allowed us to get out and begin preparations for opening the golf course.  Yesterday we were able to finish cleaning off the greens and tees, and finish rolling the greens. 

Adam Rolling 11 Green, with Roberto blowing off 17 Tee

Course preparations were moving along quite nicely until last nights rain, and with the colder temperatures coming in tomorrow, the golf course will not be opened this weekend.  As of right now, we don't have date set for opening the golf course, but the forecast for next week is very promising.  Keep an eye on the blog over the next few days for updates.  Blog readers and twitter followers will be the first to know when the golf course is opening for play!

Hello Winter - For a Few Days At Least

Winter finally decided to show up for a few days, and the frozen ground has allowed us to get to some tree work that has been put on hold until now.  A tree service was here yesterday and today to do some large tree removals and to do some trimming.  All in all, they removed four trees, two of which were causing turf problems.  The first was behind 17 green, and was shading the green from the south, where the strongest summer sun comes from.  It was causing some areas of the green, especially the back tier, to be very weak.  The second was behind the 7th green near 8 tee.  The back of the green has been getting weaker because of tree roots growing into the green and from the tree blocking the morning sun from the east.  Removing this tree will also help the back of the 8th tee, as it will now receive afternoon sun.  Morning sun is better, but getting afternoon sun as opposed to no sun will help this very high traffic area. 

Getting Started on 17

Almost Down

Yesterday, they were able to finish all the removals that we were not able to do in house, and today they have been working on trimming up some tee shots that have gotten over grown.  Tee shots that will now be a little wider are holes 4 and 6.  The tree service will be here for a few more days to begin pruning more of the trees on the course.  It has now been about ten years since the trees have had a good pruning, and many trees are definitely needing it.  We hope to get a majority of the trees trimmed over the course of the next few years.