Member / Member

Today is the beginning of the men's Member /  Member. We have been prepping the golf course the past few days and the rain has held off thus far. Today will be cloudy with a chance of showers all day. Course setup, cutting and rolling greens, and bunker preparations are well under way.  We are looking forward to having a great tournament; see everyone on the course.

Course update

The golf course is being prepped for this weekend's Member/Member. Today the staff is cutting all playing surfaces, rolling greens, and finishing up prep work. The course is handled the high temperatures and humidity nicely. We have kept the watering to a minimum in order to prevent against any excess moisture which can contribute to increased disease pressure. 

Saturday morning preparations

We are getting the course ready for the weekend. The picture below shows greens being rolled.  Bunkers are getting raked, greens are getting cut and rolled and other detail items are being completed. Forecast today should be a good one.

Course Update

With the dryer weather forecasted the golf course is coming into shape after all the heavy rains. We are prepping all playing services for the weekend.  It should be a great weekend for golf! Hope to see many of you out there.

Irrigation...or Irritation

An irrigation break on the 14th fairway this morning. When dealing with an older system breaks can happen over the course of the season. In order to isolate the fairway we have to shut down several holes. We hope to have the brake fixed today and be back online by this afternoon.

Minor flooding at Concord CC

One of our interns stands at the edge of the Jenny Duggan Brook which rose after the course received 3.5 inches of rain since yesterday.  There was some flooding this morning but the waters are receding with no damage to speak of.  The walking bridge on 17 and the new bridge on 7 have been washed out of place.  Our crew will return them to their original position as soon as the brook is low enough.
Also with all of the wet fairways, there will be no carts allowed on the course today.  The use of carts for Sunday will be decided tomorrow morning, we hope everyone made it through the storm intact.

Opening Up Hole 2

To the right of the 2nd hole an area has been cleared of under-story growth.  This area will be hydro-seeded next week.  The long-term plan is to allow fescue grasses to grow.

Overflow Parking Lot

The refinishing of the overflow parking lot is nearly completed.  The lot located just past the last tennis courts has been a bit of an eyesore and becomes unusable in wet weather.  An outside contractor removed several inches of soil and has replaced it with stone.  The lot will now be accessible to vehicles regardless of weather and will be a nice addition when we have an excess of cars at the club.

Fairway Expansions

Throughout the course we have expanded several areas of the fairways.  These expansion areas will create more opportunity for the high handicap players while making it more challenging for the longer hitters.  A good example is the 1st fairway pictured below.  There will now a larger landing area of fairway for those shorter tee shots, while a longer tee shot will have a higher chance of running through the fairway and into the bunker.  Holes 7, 13, 16, and 18 also have newly expanded fairway areas.

Practice Facility Aerification

The practice range and the chipping green will be aerified today. They will be closed until 10 a.m., the golf course will closed until noon.  This week the staff will be hydroseeding all the tree work and haul roads from construction.

Frost

Heavy frost this morning. Course will be close until noon for critical course maintenance. The range will open at 10. 

Fairway Aerification

Fairway aerification will be completed by the end of today. All the fairways have been aerified and will be topdressed with sand. The topdressing will hopefully be finished tomorrow.  The greens are almost healed in from last week aerification.  Next week we will begin our practice facilities.

Aerification

The front 9 greens are being aerfied today.  We will complete the back nine tomorrow. We anticipate a full course opening on Wednesday. I am looking forward to seeing everyone back out on the course.

Tree Work

Yesterday and today commenced the start of our winter tree work. We will be removing several white pine trees from various locations on the golf course. The goal of these removals is the encourage more sunlight and air flow to greens and tees in these areas.

Winter Work

A commonly as ked questuon is what goes on during the winter?  Well much of the behind the scences work gets completed.   In addition to all the snow removal; all of our tee and green equipment gets repaired and painted.  Also allbof our maintenance equipment get cleaned and serviced.  If the weather allows, the staff will work outside clearing brush and doing minor tree work.

Bunker Project Complete

The bunker project is now complete with a little irrigation work in spring as well minor sod work.  The project was a great success and we look forward to the finish product in the spring. 

Wrapping Up

Pictured is the cross bunker on number 11 being prepped for sand.  This is also the last bunker on the course to be completed.  The contractor will be wrapping up Friday after they have cleaned up everything.  The project was a great success and all that will be left will be minor sod work and some irrigation in the spring.

Bunker Project Update

Pictured left is the greenside bunker on the 13th hole.  Here the crew is working on moving the new sand around the bunker to achieve a uniform depth.  The face of the bunker has already been stripped and prepped for new sod.  Over the past weekend the renovation crew laid 30 pallets of sod on bunker surrounds on several holes.  Great progress is being made and there are only a handful of bunkers remaining to be renovated.

Irrigation Blowout

The irrigation system is getting blown-out this week in preparation for winter.  Typically we do it before Thanksgiving week, however since the bunker project is still on-going we kept the system charged for a while longer.  

Bunker Project Continued

The completion of another major portion of the bunker renovation is almost complete.  The two fairway bunkers on the 14th hole have been combined to make one larger bunker.  Like the other bunkers the drainage and subsurface were reworked and the irrigation will be adjusted to the new bunker shape.  This bunker will be completed shortly, once the sand has been added and the surrounds have been sodded.  We have been very happy with the progress made so far and are looking forward to the completion of the bunker renovation project.