Winding Down

Russ, Steve, and Jamie our team members from the Penn

Looking at our blog it appears I let things slide in September. It is hard to believe another season has come and gone. The course opened for play on April 27th and closed for play yesterday October 20th. Taking into consideration rain events that closed the course during the season we were open for play a total of 177 days this year. This is only 5 days less than last season, when opening day was April 4th.

bringing our block valves up to the surface

The last six weeks have been busy for our turf care crew. All tee decks have been core aerated, double verticut and cleaned off. Greens and collars have all been aerated, topdressed, and dragged in. We continue to replace worn out irrigation heads and block valves. Many of the valves on the back nine are over 3 feet deep.So when we do decide to replace a valve we bring it up closer to the surface so that if the valve needs to be serviced we can have easy access at it.

Steve, Jamie, and Russ continue to work their way around the front nine pruning all of the low hanging limbs and deadwood from the aging poplars. They have amassed a large pile that will require us to perform a burn this fall. This practice has definitely reduced the amount of limbs that come down during a wind storm, thus saving us time on cleaning up after these events.   

Brad from Fusion Inc. fusing up the new tee

Installing the new tee in the muck

If you have driven out to the golf course in the past 3 weeks, you may have seen Andrew or myself working in the ditch along the highway by the 16th hole. The reason for this is we had an irrigation mainline tee that had failed and started to leak. Upon exposing the tee which took us many days and the aid of a hydro vac truck we could see that the tee had been leaking in 3 different spots. We removed the PVC tee and replaced it with HDPE. I am happy with the repair and do not think this area will ever been an issue again.

Sacha and Bella working on ball washers

With blowout complete and the course closed for play our staff is busy collecting course accessories, cleaning them, and making sure they are ready for next season. John is busy in the shop servicing our fleet of 72 Yamaha golf carts and getting all our mowing equipment ready for winter storage. By the end of the week we will have applied our final fungicide application on greens and select tees. Depending on the weather topdressing of the greens and tarping of the back nine greens will start late this week or early next week. Our goal is to have the course ready for winter by November 1st.

John working on the fleet of carts

I feel good about the progress we made on the course this season. I wish we could have done more, but with limited resources we did all we could do. A huge thanks goes out to our great Turf Care Team and the solid effort everyone put in on a daily basis. Our goal was simple, to leave the golf course better than it was the day before. Most of the changes may have been minor and cosmetic, but at the end of the day I feel like we accomplished our goal.

The Home Stretch

Setting up the course for the Alberta Golf tournament

Glancing at the calendar it is hard to believe there is only 9 weeks left until we blow out the irrigation system. The month of August at Dinosaur Trail has been a busy one, with many tourists visiting the course along with a few big tournaments.

Last week we hosted the 2013 Alberta Golf Men's Mid Amateur Handicap Championship. Our turf care team did a great job preparing the course for the two day tournament. I was happy with how the course played as we spent the last 3 weeks improving the playability of a handful of holes and working on every bunker to ensure they were consistent. Thanks to Tom Zariski and everyone from Alberta Golf for running a well organized event. They did a great job of making sure the course was setup for all our members and guests following each round of the tournament. Congrats to Scott Ouellette and Jeff Skytt, two local guys who finished first and third respectively. As well thanks to Graydon from Clark's Supply for allowing us to use a few of there mowers to prep for the tournament. Without the use of 322 Eclipse mower, the greens would not have rolled as quick as they did.

The other day I had a member ask me if we could speed up the greens. The answer to that question is yes we can, but with our limited resources and the small crew we run, this is not always a reality. Most days we have 7 to 9 team members working on the course, this includes Andrew and myself. On the weekend we maintain the course with 3 crew members. Most crew members work 12 days on and 2 days off so the reality is that we can only do the basics on weekends which includes course setup, mowing greens, raking bunkers, and housekeeping. Thank you to those members who support our team on a daily basis with their positive comments. I would like to think we are doing as best as we can with the limited resources we have.

 TDR300

In the past few weeks you may have seen Andrew or myself walking around greens probing them with a purple device. This purple device is used to measure the amount of moisture in the soil. Andrew has done a great job of logging all of the data on a daily basis and using this to determine the water needs of our greens. We are starting to see positive results in using the TDR 300 moisture meter as we have reduced the amount of water we apply to greens which helps us conserve water and save on electricity costs for the irrigation system. As well it helps us keep the greens firmer and faster to improve playability. We have focused on hand watering greens as much as we can to ensure we do not over water. It is easy to just turn on the sprinkler heads, but with the inconsistent coverage most of our greens have, hand watering does a much better job dealing with our problem areas, without over watering the majority of the green.

This season has been much less stressful then last year. A big reason for that is the great support I get from our Assistant Superintendent Andrew Smith and our Mechanic Johnny Vandermaas. Just as I continue to grow as a Superintendent, Andrew has done the same as an Assistant Superintendent. I am really happy with the way he has progressed into a manager. I know any time I am away from the course, it won't miss a beat. Usually when he sets the schedule for the day, most times it is exactly the way I would set it up. He makes my job much easier, as his work ethic is second to none. I always tell him I would like to see him stay clean for a day, but I haven't seen it happen yet.

Ensuring the blower is ready to go when the leaves start to fall

Also a huge thank you to Johnny who keeps everything running smoothly. I have worked with a handful of mechanics in my career and none of them take as much pride in their reel grinding as much as John does. He is a guy that stays behind the scenes, but without his troubleshooting and knowledge to deal with our aging fleet of equipment. There would be no way we would be able to accomplish our goals on the course. I encourage our members to stop by the shop and say thanks to Johnny as he a vital cog in the wheel of the Dinosaur Trail Golf and Country Club.

Skimming over the 10th hole

This past Sunday Andrew, Jenn, and myself went up for a plane tour of the Drumheller Valley with one of our members Pete Cardamone, in his 1966 Cherokee 160. It was pretty cool to see the valley and the golf course from that perspective. We went from Horse Thief Canyon all they way out to windmills east of town and back. Thanks Pete for taking us up.

View of the front nine with the back nine in the distance

If anyone has any questions, feel free to stop me on the course or send me an email.

Stop and Smell the Cacti

10th hole today

With the unprecedented flooding in Southern Alberta the past 10 days, I feel very fortunate on a professional and personal level to pretty much come out unaffected by the destruction. Other than having the front nine closed for 3 days due to high water levels overcoming our bridges, the course pretty much came out unscathed from the flooding. Other courses in Southern Alberta did not get so lucky, and many suffered season ending destruction. Our industry is a resilient one, and it was great to see the organization across the province to see these damaged courses get the equipment and resources they need to start their recovery efforts. We are a small course with limited resources, but we have a 2 inch trash pump and a pronovost dump trailer available to any course that can utilize them.

Never would I have thought that my previous course Kananaskis Country Golf Course would have been damaged to the point that it doesn't resemble a golf course anymore, but this is the case. It is sad to see such a great property destroyed, but worst of all it is awful seeing a lot of great friends and colleagues lose their livelihoods. I wish my friends at Kananaskis Country Golf Course all the best as they work towards finding new positions as they deal with this bump in the road.

New A4 sod on putting green

Here at Dinosaur Trail our turf care team continues to work towards improving the golf course. In the past weeks we have re-sodded the area on the putting green we used for fixing the turf on our greens in play and have created a small bentgrass nursery on the old driving range. As well we have started repairing all cart path entrance and exit points on the front nine. Dangerous and dead limbs continue to be removed from trees on the front nine. As a result we are seeing less limbs being knocked down by high winds.

 Overall I am happy with the course right now. We have been getting some complaints about how thick our rough is, but that is due to great growing conditions and a lack of resources. We only have 2 Toro 3500's to maintain the rough on the entire course. These mowers have a cutting width of only 68 inches, and are usually out on the course between 70 and 80 hours a week combined. I apologize to those that find the rough difficult to play out of, but on average we cut the back nine once a week and the front nine two and a half times as the front grows much quicker than the back. Without more equipment or staff we are unable to increase the frequency of cutting the rough. This winter we will look at trading in one of our 3500's for a larger 5 deck rough mower, which will allow us to be more efficient in this task.

Bentonite along 18

With the course finally drying out for the first time this season. We will remove the piles of bentonite along the edge of the 18th hole tomorrow morning. We will also attempt to remove the bentonite that has migrated onto the 18th fairway that has made the normal landing zone from the tee unplayable. We will be attempting to use a brush on the front of a skid steer to hopefully remove the bentonite out. If this is successful the 18th hole will be turned back into a par 5 in the next few days.

Next week we will start adding sand to all our bunkers and address their playability by making sure they have the right firmness and depth of sand in them.


Bentonite in the rough and fairway

 We continue our bi-weekly light topdressing routine on greens and last week we performed a green aeration with venting tines. Tees and collars will be verticut early next week. With the rainy season behind us, and the greens healthy I look forward to seeing them roll better as we will be able to maintain the soil moisture in the optimal range for playability.


One of our resident ducks and her ducklings

 The last few days I have taken the opportunity to focus on areas of the golf course other than the playing surfaces. On the front nine our ponds and riverbanks are full of life as many deer bed down along the 2nd fairway and our ponds are full of waterfowl. A recent addition to the ponds are the new 10 ducklings you will mainly find in the ponds by six.

On the back nine, many of the wild flowers and cacti are in bloom. I am doing my best to take pictures and figure out what all the different species of flora are located on the back nine. It is such a unique environment that everyday I usually see something I have never noticed before .
 


Wood Lily and other flowers in bloom on 13

Thank you to those that have left positive comments about my recent article in our national turfgrass publication The Greensmaster. For those who have not read it and are interested in reading it, it can be found here on pages 18-19. It is article about my first year as a Superintendent at Dinosaur Trail.

In the last two weeks I also found the time to propose the love of my life Jenn Thomas. As usual my timing was off, but in the end she still said yes. We look forward getting married this upcoming January in Mexico.



Jenn and I




Prickly Pear Cacti in bloom

I realize I have been all over the place in this blog, but finally I like to wish all my fellow Superintendents and their turf care teams all the best as they work towards re opening their respective clubs from flood damage. I see pictures on a daily basis of courses that seem overwhelming, but to see the amazing  progress many courses are making on a daily basis is a reflection of the teams each course has and the volunteers that have taken time away from their courses. In order for our profession to progress we must work together and this is a prime example of everyone coming together for the greater good. I have no doubt that every course will come back better that ever in the near future.

K-Country will look like this again