Front 9 Opens And Irrigation Timeline

The Front 9 opens today after a week of nice weather that allowed Alpine Irrigation a much needed head start to finish the work on #4 and enough of #3 to open it as a par 4 for a few days. They will be working out in front of the tee and on the tee itself for the remainder of the week. Please advance around the corner to find the tee blocks approximately 400 yds. (white, blue and gold tees) and 300 yds. (red tees) from the 3rd green. Be mindful of the workers in this area and realize that there will be constant motion and noise as they install pipe, wire and sprinklers.

The Club will publish a work progress report from Alpine in the very near future but for now I can outline the next few weeks of work:

• After #3 is completed they will work on #16 and also extend a short mainline pipe down the south side of the 16th hole to the east of the 17th tee complex.
• #17 will be next and a section of mainline will be installed down the south side of the 18th hole and join up with previously installed pipe behind the 13th green.
• The 15th hole will then be worked on with a section of mainline connecting to the 16th hole, running up the north side of #15 and connecting to the mainline (previously installed across the 14th fairway) near the Thor Guard location south of the 15th tee.

During this work holes will be shortened and possibly closed for very short periods if necessary (unlikely but no promises). Expect holes to play as Par 3's such as occurred last fall on #9. 

The Turf Care team will be continuously working on front 9 repairs over the foreseeable future. The task is daunting but we are making some headway. Large areas take priority and then hole by hole work following. The next few months will involve a lot of sod patching, aerating and verticutting/overseeding throughout. Warm weather will certainly speed up the recovery timeline.

Front 9 Notes:

• Greens 2 and 6 are recovering albeit slowly. They will be constantly top dressed and many smaller spots will be plugged out. Larger areas will be monitored over several weeks and it is possible some sod may be used to help with recovery. The greens will stay in play but lower your expectations for the time being.
• There is some plugging required on greens 7 and 8 that will commence soon.
• The new fairway overseer purchased by the Club has arrived and will be put to good use on damaged locations. The Turfco Triwave 60 (google search for info) is now part of an ongoing program to introduce bentgrass on the fairways as we introduce a turf species to compete with the Poa annua. Our approaches are quickly becoming bentgrass dominant so it is hoped we can have some success on the fairways over time.
• Turf from the 8th fairway is being used to replace dead sod or to compliment existing turf on fairways mainlines such as the mainline crossing the 18th hole. We will sod the area on the 8th hole in the near future.
• Haul road repairs (specifically down the side of #9) will commence when the irrigation project is completed.

Last Note:

We have limited options for irrigation scheduling at present. As a result some watering will begin before dusk and run into the early mornings. The new system is slowly coming online and we should have automatic control soon which will help with front 9 turf recovery and also keep us from going insane . Lol. All for now.