Snowfall

The snow started falling in Highlands around 9:00AM and will continue through the early morning hours of Saturday.  Depending on the weather source, we are supposed to receive anywhere from 3-13 inches, a pretty wide margin.  It seems like 5-8" seems to be the most realistic.  Golf maintenance staff are salting club roads and will be plowing later on this afternoon once we get an accumulation.  While on Hudson Road, I grabbed this photo looking down towards the lake.  The circles in the lake are caused by the oxygen diffusers that bubble to the surface.  Moving water takes longer to freeze.

Wednesday

Here is more action from today on practice tee.  With only 10 guys making up our team right now, we are stretched pretty thin with lofty goals for the winter!  The first slab is formed up and ready for concrete.  The second slab will be formed up tomorrow.  We are scheduled to receive 12 cubic yards of concrete on Monday May, 20th.  Once the concrete is poured and has a few days to set up, we be able to remove the forms and get the edges tied in.  Below, you can see the former putting green site has been leveled to match the elevation of the rest of tee.

Snow on the way…

Tuesday

A good amount of work was completed today at the practice facility.  The former green location was leveled by hauling in old greens mix from #14 green.  As you can see below, we are preparing to install concrete forms tomorrow for the first of two slabs that will support the artificial hitting mats.  All this work is being done with our in-house talent.

Above and below, the grading on #17 approach is complete and ready for our architect, Ron Forse, to critique it tomorrow.  He will be on site to look at the final grades of #12 and #14 greens.  The pictures don't do this project justice and I realize it is difficult to see exactly what was done until grass is installed.

Above, on #16, all of the sod below the green has been removed.

Above, on #14, we are working on finishing the shaping of the green surrounds.  Below, with internal drainage installed in the new bunkers on #12, a two inch gravel blanket is installed along the floor of the bunker.  When weather permits, we'll be applying the Better Billy Bunker polymer onto the gravel.  This is a porous adhesive that binds the pea gravel together and allows water to move through it.  Once done, we'll top off the bunkers with six inches of sand, compacted to 4".

Above and below, you can see we are making some minor tweaks to the approach on the 11th hole to reduce the "hourglass" shape of the approach.    

The final three photos show some of the progress being made and the setup being done to start dredging.

Above, we are in the process of installing sand bags that will direct water flow into the newly installed 24" culvert to the left,  Once this is done, we'll be able to pump the water out of #10 pond, allowing us to remove the sediment.

Above, the 1st phase in the construction of a "forebay" in #10 pond.  This will allow us to collect sediment in this pond before if ends up the larger portions of the lake.  Below, we'll need to build a couple 'peninsulas' that will allow the excavator to reach out further into the pond.  The excavator has a 60 foot long boom on it but it still only gets less than half way across the pond. 

Monday

Despite 1" of rain last night, this morning turned sunny, allowing us to continue on our projects.  The forecast isn't looking great, with high winds and brutally low temperatures expected for the next few nights.  We are starting on a tweak to #17 approach.  As you know last year, we restored Donald Ross' swale in front of the 17th green.  After a year of play, we decided to make a slight change to it.  Rather than me try to explain it in words, look at my simple drawing below.  We are reducing the slope into to swale, which will make the feature feel less dramatic than it does now.

Our main objective today is work on the practice tee.  The artificial hitting mats were set aside and we ripped out the concrete slabs they sat on.  We are shifting all of the mats to the far right of the tee and back (if you're standing in the parking lot looking at the tee).  We are increasing the number of mats from 10 to 16.  8 of the mats will be sitting on what was the putting green.  Also, the area that was the putting green is being leveled in order to make the area more suitable for practice.  To level this area, we're able to use the old sand left over from the greens renovation projects on #12 and #14.  I've always taken pride in the fact that we're always able to dovetail all of our projects together and save money and resources by repurposing materials from other projects.  I will also say, we saved a tremendous amount of money by having the soil available to us that was removed from the employee housing location during site prep.  By the end of the winter, the employee housing project will have saved us tens of thousands of dollars in not having to haul and purchase fill soil. 

7-Day Forecast

Employee Housing Update

Until now, the progress shown on the employee housing has been focused on the exterior.  However, a lot of work has been done inside as well.  You can see above, the windows are installed and the building is ready for siding.  Inside, a good amount of the plumbing and electrical is already installed.  The project is impressive and there isn't a minute during the day when you can't hear hammers and drills off in the distance! 

The photo above is the looking up the breezeway, between the two buildings, from the bottom floor.

Practice Facility Update

Next week, we'll be starting on some improvements to the practice tee.  Specifically, we'll be adding 6 more artificial turf hitting stations; going from 10 to 16, total.  Ken and I studied this in-depth since the fall, and determined a way to add hitting stations while also increasing the square footage of natural grass teeing space.  Right now there is a lot of paint on the ground but stay tuned next week for some posts on the work down there.

More from Friday…

On #17, we are removing the sod from the fairway before the approach. We will be reshaping that area of the fairway to create a more gradual slope into the swale before the green.

In this photo, #14 green doesn't appear to be as smooth at #12 green (below).  The reason is a rototiller was run across the green in several directions.  If we were using all brand new sand, this step wouldn't be necessary.  However, since we saved the sand that was under the green and reused it, it is best to mix the old and new sands together, even if they are the same type of sand.  If there is even a slight difference because of age, we don't want a layer to form because the two sands weren't adequately mixed together.  Additional new sand was required because the greens are larger than they were, plus we lost some sand when removing the sod and organic layer.  We are able to reuse about 70% of the sand that was under the original greens.  

Since the shape and elevations of these two putting greens were altered, the irrigation loop around each green was removed prior to construction and then replaced once the final grade was reached.  This shows how much work goes into correctly rebuilding a putting green.

The 12th green looks like it is close to being ready for grass!

Friday

This morning, an additional 30 Rhododendron were planted above the 1st green.  As landscape funds are available, our goal is to continue beefing that area up with green foliage until the color of the pinestraw disappears.

Thursday

Hauling greens mix to the new greens was non-stop over the past 3 days.  The sand is now installed and being packed and shaped.  Below, you can even see drainage being installed in the bunker floor as well.

Below, on #11, more curbing is being installed up the hill.

 

Finally, we started removing the rough around the 16th green surround.  This rough was predominately Bentgrass and was always a challenge to hit from.  This spring, #16 will look like a brand new hole!

Welcome 2025!

7-Day Forecast

Monday

The past weekend dumped just shy of 6” of rain on Highlands.  A majority of it fell in the early hours of Sunday morning along with a lot of thunder and lightning.  The rain did create some erosion on our projects but after a half day of work, it was cleaned up for the most part.  Both greens now have gravel layers installed which means tomorrow, we’ll start hauling the greens mix (a 80% sand 20% peat moss mix) to the new putting greens on #12 and #14.  It’s coming together quickly!

USGA Green Section: Big Stories of 2024

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