Western Amateur Recap

I was thinking about what title to use for this first post since the Western Am. Tournament and thought about several:
Six Inches of Rain in Two Weeks Preceding Event Leaves Course Conditions Soft, or, Two Squeegee Sessions in One Day Wears Out Crew, or, Highest Average Humidity Since June 2003 Recorded on Rain Soaked Second Day of Tournament, or, Volunteers from Other Clubs Help SCC Grounds Staff Achieve Tournament Ready Conditions for a 7:30 Shotgun Start, or, Rain Soaked Mid-Tournament Ends Dry, or, SCC Volunteers & Family Provide Top Quality Divot Repair, or, Maintaining Tournament Turf Conditions During Extreme Weather Conditions Leaves Turf Stressed, or, Various Diseases Enjoy Post Tournament Petri-dish-Like Weather Conditions, or, Recovery Efforts Underway to Relieved Stressed Turf Areas, or, Long Challenging Rough Gradually Getting Tamed, or, Several Hundred Enjoy Western Finals, or, Players, Parents, Guests Highly Complementary About Course Conditions and Presentation, or, 2010 Western Amateur Tournament a Great Success! 

They all could be appropriate titles and they all tell a portion of the story, (as far as the golf course, pre- tournament preparations, and now post tournament care, is concerned) behind the 2010 Western Am. Championship.  There was little time for photo documentation during the event but I was able to snap a few shots with camera and phone camera, and was also provide some of the following photos courtesy of the WGA.

 Entrance sign (and tee signs, and many others) being installed

 Jacob and Ryan assembling scoreboard sections

Carpenter Ed making final touch-ups to Leaderboard

Greens mowing (double cut each morning, single cut each evening)

 Fairway Mowing - Performed twice each day

Greens Rolling - Performed twice each day

This was the calm before the storm!

And the rains came...twice each day...no just on Weds. Not a great amount total but two heavy downpours fell on soils unable to rapidly drain from being somewhat saturated from the 5+ inches having fallen in the prior two weeks.

Some of our terrific volunteers from other clubs and suppliers. Josh and Kyle (Interns from Onwentsia Club), Matt (Asst. Supt. from North Shore CC) and Craig (from ProGro Solutions), in this photo above. These four guys worked nearly everyday and we couldn't have done it without them! Others that helped at one or more times include Scott (Supt. Onwentsia Club), Andy (Asst. Supt. Exmoor CC), and several crew members from North Shore CC.

Arthur Clesen Inc., and BTSI provided tasty meals on two days of the tournament...a nice treat!

Jacob (getting waist deep into his work- literally!) and Ryan attempt to clear a drain to help move water off #3 and #13 fairways. Our efforts revealed a collapsed line which will need to be replaced soon.    

At one point we had to take a minute to go fishing!

 

With play resumed...I caught this familiar person wandering around. Something didn't seem quite right about this. I'm used to seeing him swinging clubs, not carrying them!

 Something else not quite right... Shoeless Jay?

One of many member volunteers whom helped replace/fill divots on tees and in fairways.

Thanks so much to all of you!!!

A few spectators during semi-final match

Many spectators enjoy play at #15 Green during final match.  Apologies for the lack of sharpness...Lots of coffee and little sleep for photographer this week! 

In the wake of the tournament we're left with a bit more work to keep us busy... 

 These players do take divots! We've re-seeded already.

 Rough mowing began before the final match ended. Most of the really long rough has now been mown and we will gradually (so as to not damage the turf and not leave excessive clippings) bring the heights back to a manageable length. Currently two large area rough mowers are in use every day.

 Tournament turf conditioning -repeated mowing, rolling, limited fertility, low irrigation inputs - creates significant turf stress and these stresses are compounded when conducted during high heat, high humidity, and high moisture conditions (exactly what we had during the tournament). Solid tine aeration (ventilation), shown above, was conducted on Monday following the tournament, to relieve some of the compacted conditions and help re-introduce needed oxygen to the root systems.

  Some areas were in fact damaged, and here Otto is replacing an area on No. 13 green with sod from our turf nursery, which has been grown from cores from all the greens and will blend quite nicely in a short period of time. You can see the small holes in the foreground from the "ventilation" process. Areas on a couple other greens that experienced thinning have been seeded and topdressed with a sand/peat mixture. We will repeat this seeding work as often as is necessary until full turf coverage occurs.

The 108th Western Amateur is, as they say, "In the Books". A hearty congratulations to victor, David Chung, and a heartfelt, "Thank You", to all those, staff, members, volunteers, and family, who contributed to this wonderful tournament.

Eli Comes to Town

With the rain suspended Derby (over 3 inches fell on early Sat. morning) completed on a beautiful Sunday we are now in the home stretch of making final course preparations for the Western Amateur Championship.
Before I go any further though, I want to congratulate Derby Champions, Jim Connors IV and Ken Coquillette. They shot a fabulous 17 under par on a course that, although rain softened greens were slower than usual for the Derby, had extra challenging hole locations and, rough that was plenty longer and thicker than usual! Indeed quite a score!  I'll blog a bit more about the Derby, prior course preparations, the 3" rain and our work to get the course playable to complete the Derby, and final course preparations for the Western, in a soon to be posted later blog. For now though, I want to tell you about our gazebo work now in progress.

Five years ago, after a rain shelter gazebo was destroyed by vandals, we searched for a company that could build a structure similar to the one that we had at the #12 hole pond on #3 side. Our search ended in the company Rocky Knolls Gazebos, from Rexford, Montana (Northwest corner of Montana about two miles from Canada) owned by Eli Beechy and a few family members. Eli and family are Amish and are incredible craftsman, as hardworking as you get, and just delightful folks, and at that time Eli fabricated the gazebo in Montana, had it shipped here to the club, and the two of us constructed it in the fall of 2005. We were fortunate in that they normally travel, to erect these gazebos, only in the states of Montana, Oregon, Idaho, and Washington, but they have family in Illinois and also Michigan and we were able to persuade him to stop by here and put up a gazebo for us during a planned trip visit to family. So at that time, Eli, his wife Irene, and their two sons, Nathan and Samuel traveled here by train, I picked them up at Union Station and they stayed one night at a nearby hotel. Eli and I erected the gazebo at #7 tee on a Saturday and finished it up early Sunday morning.

 The original Rain Shelter Gazebo constructed in 2005 by Eli and Me

 

 Disfigured Willow and deteriorating Gazebo before removal

Gazebo at #5 Tee prior to removal

Fast forward five years... The rain shelter gazebo at #12 pond was rapidly deteriorating and one of our other rain shelters was also in pretty bad shape. It was certainly time for them to be replaced. I contacted Eli and asked about having two more built (I was thinking he could send kits and I would construct myself) and he said and then, to my delight, asked if I would like for him to put them up as he was planning another visit to family nearby around the first week of August. The first week of August is the Western Am. and that wouldn't work for us but with a little pleading he graciously agreed to shift his plans one week so the timing would work out and the new rain shelter gazebos would be in place before the tournament. Perhaps it was because we established a relationship five years earlier, or because I did my best to accommodate Eli and family five years ago, or because ultimately we decided to have a third gazebo made, but whatever it was Eli happily adjusted his travel plans.


So, in the previous post I showed our preliminary work with removing portions of the old gazebos (and still keeping the roofs in place should they be needed during the Derby) digging footings (8 per) for piers at each location, laying out the exact pier locations and pouring concrete. With this work complete last Monday - Wednesday the concrete would be cured before Eli arrived. Yesterday the truck arrived with the all the gazebo pieces and later in the day Eli and family arrived. They drove this time (they themselves can't drive but they hired a driver, Brent, whom also assits with construction) but this trip there are a few more family members. In addition to Nathan and Samuel, they have a few more brothers and sisters, including Ruth, Paul, James, Martha, and the youngest (7 months old) is Joseph. Large families are common among the Amish as Eli has 14 brothers and sisters and Irene has 13! Eli and Irene are certainly making good progress on building their family.

Instead of staying at a hotel Eli asked if I would be willing to let them pitch a tent and stay here near the Grounds Operation Center and so without this being a problem at all, we have some visitors on site for the next couple days. Their compound is in a comfortable location on the lawn area in front of the Grounds Staff  Bunkhouse. As of this morning at 9:30, Eli, Brent, Nathan (the oldest at 11 years) and Samuel, already have one gazebo nearly complete!

Here are a few photos of all that is going on at the moment:

 Hand unloading Gazebo sections bright and early Monday morn.

Lots of materials, Lodge-pole Pine, bark stripped by hand

Eli and boys loading first Gazebo

 Some of Beechy and Cross family enjoying shade on #14 while course closed (little guy in foreground is my grandson Clark Joseph)

 Most of Beechy family awaiting dinner. Brent grilling, Eli supervising, Irene tending to children

(Amish do not take pictures or pose for photographs but Eli and Irene do not mind me taking pictures)

The youngest of the Beechy family, Joseph. ( Posing pretty well here!)

Future Gazebo builder I'm sure!

Making fast progress. Gazebo between #15 Tee /#16 Green

There is a lot of work still to do but with extra help this time around they'll be done in no time. I'll post more later on the Gazebo construction progress and much more.

Tournament Time is Here

It's been way too long since I've posted but it surely hasn't been because I haven't had anything to post about. To the contrary! We've had so many things going on that I just haven't had time. But on Skokie Derby Eve., and the Western Amateur Championship about a week later, it's a great time to update you on what we've been up to for the past several weeks.
I mentioned in my last post that it hasn't been just the past several weeks that we've been getting ready for the Western, but in fact the last several months. Most recently though, we've made the final push to have the course in as fine a condition, both from a playability standpoint as well as an aesthetic standpoint.
Over the past several weeks, which have been especially challenging for turf survival with high heat and humidity at times (leading to high disease activity), and high heat, drought, and wind conditions at other times (leading to moisture stressed turf ), we've had our hands full just trying to keep turf healthy and alive much less carrying out several special projects. With a lot of hard work and many long days (definitely a sleep deprived staff), I think we've managed to do both fairly well.
I'll write more about the difficult weather year we're experiencing, the impact it's had on turf conditons, and reference or link you to some other articles regarding this, but for now the following items have been part of our preparations for both the Derby and the Western Am. It's a photo recap...hope it gives you a little insight into our world.

Asst. Superintendent Jacob applying nutrients and plant protectants

(a frequent activity these past couple months during these challenging environmental conditions)

Miguel & Javier checking sand depths and smoothing all bunkers

Robbie painting rails, posts, and wire of fence at #13 new Champ. Tee area

(planting of native grasses and vines to more thoroughly mask has also been completed)

Gus completing a drainage repair project in area between holes #1 and #10, an area which will be heavily trafficked during Western Am. 

Fairway rolling on Derby eve to provide smoother, firmer surfaces to aid ball roll.

Careful though - don't let that ball roll to far off the fairway. 

Here Freddy is "topping it off" - at 4 inches!

Some other tall rough you'll want to avoid! Here Nestor is finishing removal of seedling and other weeds. He and others have spent considerable time combing all tall rough areas for unwanted plants.

Otto "fluffs" same rough area after cleaning small branches and leaf debris.

With new gazebo being installed soon, it was time for this declining willow to go. 

We didn't want it falling on new gazebo - or on a player!

Rafa and Nestor pause from clean-up activities. Trunk measured nearly 5 feet in diameter.

Miguel, Javier V., and Perez remove center supports so that footings can be dug while still keeping roof in tact if needed for shelter during Derby

Drilling 1 of 24 holes, 12" in diameter, approx 42" deep. This was a day and a half job for 4 of us. Compacted clay with a few rocks and roots to go through (and 90 degree temps) made this a really delightful task!

Another 3 days were spent laying out exact positioning for concrete footings (piers)... 

and then pouring took place.  Several of the crew were involved in this project with Steve as my main assistant. All piers are now in place and curing. Old structures will be removed Sunday after Derby and new structures will be erected next Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday.

Eli Beechy, the Amish-man from Montana will be coming in town. More later on this....

  Another project (following removal of several disfigured and diseased spruce trees) was new landscape plantings at #9 pond.

New plants include Serviceberry, Chokeberry, Little Blue-stem, Indiangrass, and False Indigo

Cirilo removes a dried divot and fills with...

a green dyed sand, peat, and seed mixture

 

Miguel does a little "Aquatic Gardening"...thins some of the water lillies

& after a Derby eve mowing, to help gain some putting green speed...

(we'll do this a couple times in the morning too!)

The course is... Ready for the 60th Run for the Roses!

Best of Luck to you all!

Ventilating the Greens

With the frequent and above normal amounts of rain over the past seven weeks, saturated soil conditions are present throughout the course. And now, with very warm temperatures upon us, the combination can rapidly lead to turf root loss and diminished quality. In spite of numerous core aeration sessions over the years and nearly 5" of sand topdressing (from 20 years of work) providing a porous surface rootzone, with the excessive amount of rain we've had recently and internal drainage lines on only a few of our newer greens, we recently started a process of Greens Ventilation.This is really just an aerification process but without removing any material and using a special tine called a cross tine. No it's not a special tine that I came up with, I wish I had, it's a special tine that is available from a tine manufacturing company shaped like two intersecting double sided knives. We use our Toro Procore aerator and adjust the depth to approx. 3 inches, and the spacing to approx. 1 1/2" on center.

Rafa beginning Ventilation process

As the tines are inserted, a cross like cut is created and these cuts result in much more area affected and open to air movement into (providing oxygen) and gases out of, the rootzone soil. A great feature of this tine is that while it affects a nice amount of underground area, the surface is minimally disrupted. 

Green surface after "cross tine" ventilating, prior to rolling

Javier rolling 

After rolling the green following ventilating, ball roll is minimally, if at all, impacted, yet valuable benefits of oxygenation (aiding root system support) and rootzone soil drying (aiding surface firmness, and ball roll) are gained. This procedure may be repeated in the coming weeks if our current weather pattern of frequent rainfall continues.

 Putting surface after rolling...surface nearly closed but ventilation channels beneath remain

As soil temperatures rise in the summer months, root growth slows and even ceases. And of course, without roots, plants weaken and ultimately die. Moist and/or saturated rootzone soils warm and retain heat more than drier rootzone soils and so anything we can do to dry and cool the rootzone, and retain roots, is critically important. Ventilation certainly helps in this regard!

Another Stormy Kiltie Days

Last year it was a flood (we played only 13 holes on the second day), about 10 years ago it was a microburst felling 42 trees, there's been other years with strong storms and downed trees, there's been some years with very high temperatures, and this year Kiltie Days once again had quite unsettled weather. Fortunately we didn't get the flooding rains of last year (we had just .75 inches) and it wasn't until most of the days matches were complete, but we did have gale force winds (over 65 mph) and the aftermath left 3 trees, the tops of 2 more, and a huge mess of smaller branches and leaves littering the course. And, there's still many broken branches up in tree canopies, and probably more that we haven't seen yet (but will when they begin to wilt and turn off colored), that will all need to be pruned in the coming days.

 

 The subject of a long Friday night! (fore and aft the sand piles)

 

One of at least 5 causalities of the 65 mph winds

From the time the first storm on Friday passed (there was another overnight) until well into the dark hours of the night, our grounds staff sawed, hauled, blew, and raked the debris and had the course fairly well cleared. The overnight storm then brought down a bit more debris and so bright and early (well, not so bright...but definitely early!) Saturday morning, more blowing, raking, and mulching brought the course to a tidy condition once again. It was certainly a long week preparing for the event with multiple mowing and many other maintenance tasks before and during the practice round and throughout the event, and then addressing the wake of the storm, but I'm happy that this year's Kiltie Days proceeded with only minor disruption and that the rain totals were relatively low.  

It's been a different story over the past two months as the data below shows!

Over 5.5 inches more rain than normal for the past month and a half!

It's rained 15 of the last 22 days, and we've had 3 inches more than normal in May and 2.5 inches more than normal so far in June. Unfortunately more is expected tonight. I'm thinking this 5.5 inches extra rainfall to date, might just have something to do with the rough (and all areas) being very lush, and the fairway and green surfaces being softer and slower than usual! A little drought would be just fine about now!

Seven Weeks and Counting

It's been over two weeks since I last posted (which is indeed much longer than I like) but it seems like it's been so much longer with everything in full swing and many course activities in progress. Time sure flies and before we know it, Kiltie Days will pass, then it will be the 4th of July, then the Derby, and very shortly thereafter, The 108th Western Amateur Championship. A member asked me the other day "When will you start preparation's for the Western Am."? I though for a second and replied, "Well, actually we started preparing about eight months ago!"
At that time, October 09', we were modifying (rebuilding and adding) the fairway bunker complex on #18, expanding a few fairway areas to better incorporate bunkers into fairway contours, extending #17 tee, installing drainage in a few poorly drained fairway and rough areas, building the base for the new cart path (brick edge and crushed brick) at #12 Green / #13 Tee, and much more.
I told the member "eight months ago" but now that I've thought more about it, I probably could have said, "two years ago"!. It was then that we started the installation of the new irrigation system which, if it ever does get dry this year, will give us the ability to water only where needed, or where desired. For example, should the rough start to go dormant we can keep it well irrigated without adding any extra water to the fairways. We could also water the slopes and surrounds of the greens, without putting any water on the putting surfaces. Our goal as we approach the Western, should we get cooperation with the weather, would be to have fast and firm fairways, approaches, and greens and "healthy and challenging" roughs and green surrounds. Our new irrigation system features the ability to water each of these mentioned areas independent of the others. At this point I'm hoping that we get the chance to use it as opposed to the frequent rainfall we've experienced lately! This high moisture and high humidity recently has caused saturated and soft ground conditions and dense, lush and slow turf conditions.  I'm really looking forward to a break from this rain forest-like weather very soon!

Our projects this spring are progressing nicely and have included:

• Repair of winter damaged fairway areas(several seedings and finally sodding using our "home-grown" sod and "harvested" sod from shifting the beginning of #7 fairway) is now very near completion. This damage was the worst I've seen in my 20 years at the club and it's repair has required nearly daily efforts for the past six weeks! It's nice to be about finished
• Extension of #10 Tee and landscaping behind tee complete.
• Grassing of buckthorn cleared area adjacent to #9 tees is complete and seedlings are emerging. We'll soon add some established native plants, Indian grass and Little Blue-stem grasses, to supplement seeded plants.
• Cart Path at #12 Green/ #13 Tee now complete.
 

Otto and Javier near completion of winter damaged fairway repair - they've been at it for nearly six weeks now!

A sample of winter damaged fairway turf being removed

Tee #10 sod work - now complete, including planting ornamental grasses behind tee

Tee #17 - extension now complete

 New cart path complete at #12 Green / #13 Tee

Fine Fescue grass seedling emergence at #9 Tee

Plenty to do in next few weeks:

• Sod any bare spots such as cart traffic areas and tree stump holes.
• Renovate cart path (add brick edge, soil separator fabric, and crushed brick) along side #9 tee.
• Remove deteriorated asphalt on pathway from #11 tee  to #2 green, and replace with crushed brick.
• Erect three new gazebos to replace deteriorated ones at #5, #12 and  at #15 tee / #16 green.
• Replace some of overgrown shrubs at Half Way House.
• Repair and sealcoat main parking lot and lower parking areas (by lower tennis courts) and perhaps paths adjacent to putting green, #1 tee, #10 tee, and near range tee.
• Water-jet several tile lines exhibiting slower drainage.
• Continue to attempt to "tame" the rough, and \conduct all routine daily tasks such as hole location changing, tee servicing, mowing (greens, tees, approaches, fairways, intermediate rough), bunker raking, range tee and chipping area overseeding and set-up, plant protectant applications as needed, and much, much more.

I'll try to post more frequently on these projects, and other activities, as they progress.

 A few of the eight new residents at #9 pond -  Mallard Ducklings!