Maumelle Classic morning preparations

It takes a couple of weeks of preparations to have the Course ready for a tournament like the Maumelle Classic. However, the morning preparations  during the actual tournament is some of the most important action!
We utilize every member of our crew, most of them on the greens.
Here are pictures of most of the jobs that we accomplish in front of the golfers.

We have 4 crew members walk mowing greens.

We have 1 crew member walk mowing collars. Here is a greens mower and the collar mower on 7 green.

Lorenzo on the bunker rake and Jose on the Triplex Greens mower completing the second mowing, he follows the walk mowers. 

Alfredo is on our greens roller this morning.

Cande and Oscar are both mowing fairways.

Today Mike had to drag in the clippings left by the fairway mowers.

Andy Changes the cups and paints them with the "Hole in White"

When everything is done on the greens We will use the Stimp meter to measure how fast they are rolling.

Today they were rolling nearly 12 feet.

wildlife seen on course

I am lucky enough to be able to be out on the course when it is quite and I frequently get to observe wild life. Here are a couple of pictures I have recently taken of a few of my friends.

The next picture is an interesting one. I had nothing to do with the demise of the skunk, I just simply came across this laying in the rough just as you see it. No other remains in sight, no sign of an attack, just the head. Interesting.

Bathrooms!

The water issues mentioned in the last post were not the only water issues we have been dealing with over the last few days.
Wednesday I was finaly able to get some much needed help to repair the main city water line coming off of our meter and feeding my shop, office, and bathrooms on #6 fairway. Once the line was repaired under our entry road I attempted to install a pressure regulator onto out meter to prevent another blow out. While my crew was digging out the meter we encountered a root problem and broke the line coming into the meter. oops. The city wter department had to be called for a repair.! Everything is now up and running!

Hole in our entry road where pipe broke.

Meter Hole before problem.

Meter hole after problem.

 

Transfer pump

Our pump that we use to transfer water from 13 pond to the irrigation pond on 2 broke down last Saturday. It took me nearly all week to get it working. But it is now up and running! A big Thank you to two of my Crew, Alfredo and Jose who really came thru yesterday with nearly a full day in the pond!

Alfredo and I working on installing the check valve.

The old intake pipe and float.

The check valve that we had to clean, fix and re install.

Sod project on 12

Most of the sodding will be finished today. We will then have to keep the area extremely wet for the next week or so to help the turf take hold. After about 1 week we will begin mowing the area so we can slowly bring it down to fairway height. This area will be back to normal by the Classic if not sooner!

Collar work.

We after numerous requests we have begun attempting to improve the transition from the green to the fringe cut. To do this we are using a mower set at a height of cut between the fringe cut and the green. This will help when the ball comes to res near the edge of a green so the taller turf will not disturb the putter stroke as much. We will see a little scalping during the lowering process but this should be temporary.

MGA sponsored project on 12!

Once again the MGA has helped us with funding for a much needed project. We are removing old turf and regrading several areas on 12 fairway that have help water and been mud holes for quite some time. This work should be completed by the end of next week, and will be playable in just a few weeks.