Mainline Break on Driving Range

This past Friday we had an 16 inch mainline break out on the Driving Range. For those of you presently at Mediterra, the large mountain of dirt on the driving range is the result of the work currently being done to fix the break.

This type of event is something all golf course employees fear. There is always a lot of damage that occurs, and the repair process usually takes a couple days. Normally you have a section of the golf course that can't be watered until the break is repaired, so we where thankful of the rain we've be receiving over the past week.

With the help of Liebold Irrigation, the break was repaired Tuesday afternoon, and we'll have all our irrigation back up and running at full speed Wednesday. The next step will be grading and re-grassing the area that damaged from the mainline break.

South Course Closure Weeks 4 & 5

The fourth and fifth weeks of the South Course closure brought the end of our maintenance practices, and the begginning of preparing the golf course for re-opening. We did have a couple practices to finish up, and they include aerification of the rough and pencil-tining of the greens.

Aerification of the rough helps provide relief from a season's worth of compaction from cart and machine traffic. The aerification helps provide water, air, and nutrients to the roots for improved plant growth. The picture below shows the #15 South after the rough had been aerified. The same machine that was used to aerify fairways is also used on the rough.

The pencil-tining of the greens involves using a solid-tine to poke small holes in the rootzone. This helped us smooth the greens out after both the aerification and verticutting that occured earlier in the closure. The holes from the process are very small, and that is where it received the name "pencil-tine." These holes will also serve as avenues for new root growth, oxygen exchange, and also help with water infiltration. Below are a couple pictures of this process.

Summer Update - South Course 3rd Week

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The third week of the South Course closure brought the completion of verticutting and aerifying the tees, collars, and approaches. Above you can see the machine that was used for the process of aerifying these areas. We had the machine set at 1" x 1" spacing, which pulls 144 cores per square foot. This process removes a lot of the dead and decaying material (thatch) that can produce so many negetives for both the turfgrass and also the golfers playing. The process of verticutting and aerifying also will help smooth the surfaces from the previous season.

The above pictures show a completed tee and also a close shot of the material being brought to the surface through the aerification process. These surfaces are normally back to normal within 7-10 days.

The above pictures show the process we use to drag the aerification cores back into the tees. We use a steel drag mat pulled my a utility vehicle. The steel mat separates the soil from the thatch, and the soil helps fill in the holes. The thatch, which can be seen on the upper right picture, is simply blown off with a blower.

The above pictures show the verticutting of the collars and approaches. We went over each area twice, really removing a lot of the thatch from these areas. Following the verticutting, the same aerification process that was completed on the tees was completed on the collars and approaches.

Overall, things are progressing very nicely. We continue to receive the normal afternoon rain here and there. Finished the month of May with almost 6" of rain average on the property.

Continue to check back for more updates.