Gray Hawk Warranty Work Complete

Duininck Golf was recently back in town to finalize some of the finishing touches on the Gray Hawk rebuild. With any grading and drainage installation project, soil settling is expected and ours was no exception. Last year's dry conditions made the soil very difficult to work with, so we expected a little more settling than in past years and we were right. A small crew was brought in to regrade the basins to recapture the intended slopes. In addition, some inlets were lowered and irrigation heads were leveled. Then, these areas were seeded and hydromulched. With a little warm weather and moisture, we hope to have these areas well on their way to being grown in by the time the snow falls. 

 

Is this the end of the settling? Most likely not. The course will continue to settle for many years to come. The rate of settling will change from year to year based on many factors, including seasonal moisture rates and the severity of freeze/thaw cycles, but we will continue to address the problem areas as they appear. You can play your part in helping reestablish these areas by keeping cart and foot traffic out of the roped and staked areas. 

1Gray Fwy

 

1 Gray Fwy

 

 

1 Gray Fwy



6 Gray Fwy

 



6 Gray Fwy

 

 

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Gray Hawk Construction Update

 The construction on Gray Hawk will wrap up over the next couple of days. All that remains are "punch list" items and the leveling of a few irrigation heads. All and all, the project went very smoothly.

The dry soils made shaping, grading, and backfilling a bit more difficult, and I will be interested to see if we have more settling this year than in years past.  

Green, tee, and fairway germination rates have been the highest and most consistent we have seen with any of the renovations. We will mow fairways for the second time tomorrow at a height of 1". The more we can mow these fairways, the faster they will reach their desired density. We are pushing them a little more this year by using biweekly foliar Urea applications. The low overnight temperatures expected at the end of this week could slow their progress, but we will have to wait and see.

I couldn't be more pleased with the way greens are growing in. We made a couple of minor changes to the way we prepared the greens to receive seed and they have made all the difference. Greens have been mowed six times and are down to a height of .190". We will start mowing them daily until growth slows and hope to get them down to a height of .150" by the end of the season. Their density gets better by the day. Topdressing and foliar fertilizer applications will be the key to getting the greens as mature as we can before winter. Rolling will also become important as we try and smooth out all the humps and bumps created during the regrassing process.

As the grow in continues, my focus will shift toward tree replacement. With all renovations, there has to be some tree removal and it is important to replace these.  Now that the holes are taking shape and we can envision how they will be played, we can start to add trees. This is one of my favorite aspects of the process. The correct placement of a tree can have a long lasting impact on how the hole looks and plays.

#5 Gray Hawk from 200 yards



#6 Gray Hawk from 300 yards

#7 Gray Hawk from 200 yards

#2 Gray Hawk green 30 days after seeding

#2 Gray Hawk green 30 days after seeding

Course Update

 

I'd like to apologize for the lack of posts in the past couple of weeks. Last week was spent aerifying the course which is a process that always seems to eat up most of my time. A huge thank-you goes out to the members of my crew for putting in the long hours it takes to complete the job. I would also like to thank all the golfers for their patience during this process.

The greens are healing from the aerification process fairly quickly. With cooler weather in the forecast, we expect this process should speed up by the end of the week.

Now that aerification is finished, we will shift our focus back to over-seeding thin areas on fairways, tees etc... This seeding will likely continue for the foreseeable future, as I would like to move out into the rough and repair areas that were lost to the drought.

As we approach fall we are beginning to prioritize our list of late fall/winter projects. Here are a few of the things we want to address:

1. Add and/or move specific irrigation heads to provide better coverage for years like we have recently experienced.
2. Improve or add drainage to some low areas on the course. An example of an area would be along the west side of the cart path running between #1 Black Bird fairway and #2 Black Bird tee complex.
3. Re-edge bunkers on the Black Bird course.
4. Raise and level low irrigation heads throughout the course.

The renovation of Gray Hawk is moving along very well. All fairway and tee box seeding has been completed and the sod work is drawing to an end. All of the greens are growing well thus far. This is the most consistent germination we have had throughout the three years of renovation work. The hot temperatures we experienced the two weeks following seeding may have slowed initial growth a bit, but the cool nighttime temperatures have helped alot. The cooler forecast for the end of this week should real kick things into gear.

With all the major tasks completed, we could use a good rain to help things fill in. 

 

 #4 Grow-in underway

 

#7 Fairway bunkers are sodded

 

#7 View of green complex from 200 yds

 

#3 Fairway just prior to seeding

Course and Construction Update

We were fortunate to catch some cool weather and rain last week which has really helped the course. The over-seeding process began last week and most of Red Feather and Black Bird fairways are complete. We have really started to see some good germination in these fairways. This process will be put on hold temporarily as we gear up for aerification next week.

 

Our aerification process will be very similar to the one we used this past spring.We will again be pulling 5/8" cores on the greens and 1/2" cores in the fairways and collection areas. In addition, we will core all the tee surfaces this fall. This is something that hasn't been done since I started at Indian Creek.

 

Construction is going well and deadlines are being met. All of the greens were seeded earlier this week and the sodding of the greens complexes will be complete by the end of day on Friday. Once the green complexes are sodded, we can really start throwing water to the greens. Gray Hawk is slowly shaping into a great golf course. I firmly believe we saved our best for last.

 

All in all, it appears we have survived the summer and are well into the recovery period. For now, let's hope for cooler weather and additional rain. Take a look at some pictures of the construction process below. I hope you all enjoy your Labor Day weekend. Football season is here - GBR!!! 

 

Sodding green side bunker on #7 Gray Hawk

 

Seeding collection area on the back of the green on #5 Gray Hawk.

 

#2 Gray Hawk green complex after sod and seed.

 

Installing a riser to match irrigation head with new grade.

 

#4 Gray Hawk green complex after sod and seed.

Gray Hawk Construction Update

 

Below are a few pictures of some greens complexes prior to sod installation. Greens were seeded today and we hope to have all of the greens complexes sodded by this weekend.

 

#1

 

 #2

#3

#4

#6

 

 #8

Irrigation Installation

 

A few pictures of the irrigation installation on the upper practice putting green.

 

 

The trailer containing all the signal and common wire for the upper putting green.

 

 

Wire pull

 

 

 Pipe and wire after pull and ready for head install.

 

Connecting signal and common wire and preparing for the install of the swing joint and head.

 

Installing the swing joint, head, and quick coupler.

#3 Gray Hawk Construction

 

 We built two new bunkers on what was the upper left shelf of the old fairway. We also graded and softened the slope that used to split the old fairway. This will really tighten up the landing area off the tee by taking away the option to bail out to the left.

 

We rebuilt both greenside bunkers and have created low mow collection areas around both sides of the green. We also built a 1200 square foot expansion onto the back left of the green. This expansion has created a very difficult pin location when tucked behind the new bunker. This will be a great hole.

#5 Gray Hawk Renovation

Keep in mind I used my paint brush program to edit these pictures. The greens and bunker edges will vary once they are cut in the field.

Above you can see the new bunker we installed along the right side of the fairway. 


 

The illustration above shows the green expansion we have built onto the front and left of the green. This will provide an additional 1800 square feet of putting surface.  The addition will break from back to front with a 2% fall. This will allow a longer iron shot to land softer and have a better chance of holding the green than before. 

We moved the green side bunker to allow for the green expansion. We also rerouted the cart path around the back or the green. The blue line represents its new location. Moving this cart path has really cleaned up the approach area of this green.



# 3 Red Feather Before and After

 #3 Red Feather 13 months ago

#3 Red Feather as of July 25th

Drain Tile Installation

The following pictures show the installation of an 8" drain basin and drain tile on #7 Gray Hawk. This stretch of tile runs from the left side of the #7 green to a storm sewer near #8 Gray Hawk.

#1 Gray Hawk

CLICK ON THE PICTURES TO ENLARGE

A view of the work from the red tee box. The right fairway bunker and right green side bunker have been rough shaped and the left bunker shaping is set to begin.

A view of the greenside bunker from 70 yards out.

Installing a drain basin.

Course Update

We have survived the first half of the dry, hot summer relatively well. During this dry stretch, we have focused most of our attention on the areas between the cart paths and, to some extent, left everything beyond that to Mother Nature. Attempting to keep the entire course watered and lush would be nearly impossible, but we have done our best. Our prioriy has been to provide playing surfaces with enough moisture to keep them healthy, without creating soft conditions.

The playing surfaces have maintained their density relatively well. I would not be surprised if there is a slight thinning of some of the construction areas on Red Feather as natural selection thins out the weaker plants. To offset this possible issue, we will spot fertilize these areas carefully, not to overstimulate growth but to help the turf remain strong and viable. We may also enforce some cart path rules on certain fairways, but there is no need for that at this time.

Leaving our greenside roll-off areas at a higher height of cut on Red Feather has proven to be a good move. This may not provide a puttable surface yet, but it has allowed these areas to continue to fill in and should put us ahead of the game heading into next season.

Greens speeds have picked up slightly. We are rolling around 9'-9.5' on a daily basis. While not lightning quick, they should be more consistent and smoother than they were a few weeks ago. I understand and share the desire for quicker greens, but understand that speed will come with maturity. The most important thing to remember is in order to ensure consistency between courses, I must maintain all the older greens in the same way as the new ones. This will continue through the grow-in of Gray Hawk. We cannot have a course setup in which our 2-yr old and 3-yr old greens putt differently than our 10-month old greens.

Right now we are mowing greens at a height of .140", which is higher than most courses. We do this to help the younger turf maintain its root mass. Shoot height (grass blade height) and root mass are directly correlated. Once all 30 of the greens have had a year to grow in, I expect to be mowing around .125". I assure you that within that .015",  there is an additional foot of ball roll. This would give us green speeds of 10'-10.5', which is plenty fast for greens with our contour.

With the renovation of 18 holes complete, it is easy to see the finish line. However, we still have nine holes to go so your patience is ever valuable. I cannot stress enough how much we appreciate your understanding. Please remember that the purpose of these renovations is to provide you with the best product in the area. 

To help put things into perspective, I have included the following pictures. The first is of the green on #5 Red Feather during the last week of August 2011. The next two are of #5 Red Feather nine months later when we opened the course. Within those nine months, we had about four actual months of growing weather. These greens are still very young.

August 2011

            

May 2012



Finally, I've joined the Twitter universe! I'll be posting daily weather forecasts and links to blog posts, among other things. You can follow me @icturftalk on Twitter by clicking the "Follow Me" button on the left sidebar.



Gray Hawk Contractor

We are very excited to announce that we have contracted Duininck Golf to perform the Gray Hawk renovation. We previously used Duininck on the Red Feather renovation and we were extremely pleased with their work. The following link takes you to their site if your interested.

http://www.duininckgolf.com/

New Bunker vs. Old Bunker

This picture is the old bunker on #9 Gray Hawk which holds water and washes out.

The new bunker on a renovated hole, #9 Black Bird, drains water and doesn't wash.