On Tuesday of this week the golf course received 65mm of rain (25 mm equals one inch) and took it like a champ. This is mainly because of the dry spring we have had. The soil is not saturated and is able to absorb more water in greater amounts. The other reason is the amount of work we have put into the drainage on the golf course this spring, particularly numbers 7 and 8. Last year it would have taken a few days for that area to drain. By Wednesday afternoon the trap on eight and surrounding area were wet but playable. To give you an understanding of how much water 65 mm of rain is, in comparison to our irrigation system here are some numbers to peruse.
One fairway sprinkler head has a 90 foot radius of coverage and can deliver to that area .4 inches or 3000 gallons of water to that area in one hour. Converted to mm per hour that works out to 10mm or 3000 gallons of water per hour. One fairway head would have to run for 6.5 hours to equate to the 65 mm or a staggering 19, 500 gallons of rain fall received on Tuesday. To extend that further, there are 147 fairway heads on the golf course, and our pump station can run sets of 14 at a time. This means that the irrigation system would have to run for 65 hours consecutively to deliver the 2,866,500 gallons of water to achieve the rainfall amounts on Tuesday. This would not include watering any of the greens or tees. It's an amazing amount of water. A more common rain, say a half inch, would equate to 78 minutes of run time per head or 3900 gallons. A normal irrigation cycle, which is 20 minutes per head on average, produces about 3.5 mm or 1000 gallons per application.
Why don't we just run the irrigation longer to meet the equivelent of a half inch of rain? Mainly because the cycle to run all the heads for that duration would take longer than the number of hours in the night. The other reason is the cycle/soak progression set into the program. If you were to run the system for 78 minutes then the water would puddle up, wastefully run off, and washout the bunkers . Our automated system cycles for 10 minutes, then allows the water to soak in for 15, then cycles again for 10 more minutes.
The rain on Tuesday had washed out the bunkers but fortunately our summer staff had started at the course. Our four summer students work from mid June to September, 6 hours a day, 12 days on and 2 days off. They primarily mow greens, tees, collars and approaches and rake the bunkers. Here they are.
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| Derek Tully has returned for his third year after a brief hiatus at the airport as a baggage handler. |
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| Alex Arsenualt returns for his third year at the golf course. |
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| Brian Jones joins us for his first year at the golf course. |
Just a quick note about the staff and interaction with golfers. We train the staff to be watchful of the tee when working on the golf course, however sometimes when caught up in what they are doing they fail to notice the golfers. Please wait for the staff to be aware of you before you hit your ball. The staff do wear hardhats, but this should only be a secondary measure of safety, this first being awareness. It is appropriate to yell "fore" loud and clear before you hit or if you think you might hit somebody. The staff is trained to react to this warning.
Although hard to imagine after the rain on Tuesday, there are areas on the golf course that were beginning to show signs of heat stress from the lack of percipitation over the last two weeks. There are notable hotspots on the greens where the turf show signs of heat stress. Numbers 1, 6, 8, 9, and 16 greens all have what we refer to as hot spot areas, where the sub structure become hydrophobic. These areas dry out more quickly than other areas on the same green. To combat this from happening, we take extra steps to care for these areas. One such precaution is to vent the area using 1/4 tines on our 648 aerator. The tines break through the thatch and create ports where the water and nutrients can infiltrate the root zone, with little interference to putting.
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| The tines. |
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| The result of the venting. This is before the mower has gone through. Once mowed the area putts very similar to the rest of the green. |
The irrigation system does not cover the entire golf course. All of the greens, tees, fairways and target greens on the driving range are covered. There are also some areas in the rough where irrigation has been added. We still continue to add heads in areas where the current irrigation doesn't reach. Once such area is the trap complex between one and nine. Kyle continues his sub-terranean adventures by adding an irrigation head to this area. Because the trap complex was added after the initial irrigation, the pipes in this area are very deep. Thoughout the summer we will continue to add heads in this area to improve the quality of turf.
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| The umbrella was to keep the rain off the solvent welding job at the base of the hole, not to protect Kyle's pasty skin. |
The goose management program is in full swing. The steps we have taken thus far:
1. Erected almost 2000 feet of goose fencing around 12 and 13.
2. Installed the plastic eagle sihouettes on poles around the golf course to intimidate the geese.
3. Installed the predator flags around the golf course to dissuade flying geese from landing.
4. Sprayed four applications of Avigon in the areas where the geese common.
5. Staff have been trained to remove goose droppings around these areas before mowing.
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| Tuesday morings haul. Fairly typical for each day. |
6. Deticated an additional staff member to clean goose dropping from 1 to 2 pm during the week.
7. Deticated a staff member to pick up goose droppings on weekends between 2 and 4 pm in addition to their regualr shift.
One thing we will try in the future is the use of laser pointers to shift the geese. I was sent this by a friend and it seems to work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0DKdOKhClY
If any members have laser pointers and would like to bring them be our guest. Apparently the green ones work the best.
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