A few irons in the fire

Its been an extremely busy and productive stretch the last five weeks and we have taken full advantage of the great weather.  Tees and approaches were aerated, greens vertical mowed and fairway aeration is completed.  This concludes all major turf disruptions till next spring.  I sincerely appreciate the membership staying off the fairways during the aeration process.  The reason I restrict cart traffic on fairways is to make the clean up process faster and easier and the end result is providing you with a better lie in the fairway. 

The cart path on the 9th has been graded and the washout was sodded with a layer of synthetic turf laid on top.  The synthetic turf will help with wear and tear on the turfgrass from cart traffic and everyday use.  Another small improvement is the green expansion on the 1st green.  We enlarged the green a few years ago and I feel that adding more putting surface in the front will lead to better cup placements. 

A rumor has been circulating that we are installing a helicopter pad down at the maintenance facility.  In fact we are in the first phase of constructing a concrete equipment wash pad. The second phase of the project will start next spring.   We will construct a filtration area for the equipment rinse water.  Rinse water will filter down into a bed of long grasses which will trap any grease or fuel contaminants. We are also planning on a installing a concrete self contained chemical mixing and loading pad all of which is part of the Audubon certification process.

The month of September brought cool and dry conditions which provided us with perfect conditions to play golf.  As I finish this post we are receiving a well deserved gentle rain to start off the month of October.  The season is closing out quickly but there are still plenty of good days left!