NCGA Bootcamp

Racing to the top! This was the theme for the 2010 NCGA Assistant Superintendent Boot Camp. This two day event was hosted at three different locations with eleven different speakers. It was an incredible experience and a great opportunity to learn about such subjects ranging from transporting hazardous material to new technology to advance your course. The event included meals, networking, prizes and even a round of golf. I learned so much from this event and can't wait until next year.
Event Website: http://www.ncga.org/bootcamp/

#10 Bunker Liner Project

Hole #10 has two small bunkers. The take home message for hole #10 is this: Don't judge a bunker by its size. I say this because these were the most difficult bunkers to renovate to date. The fairway bunker was definitely the more difficult of the two. As you can see from the second to last picture, the sand was impossible to completely remove. This was due to the extensive tunnel digging done by the ground squirrels. The entire floor of the bunker contained peaks and valleys including a mix of sand, dirt, and pea gravel. It was near impossible to tell where the original bunker floor was. It was also a great challenge trying to uncover the original drain lines. With five employees working in such a small area, I finally decided to have everybody take a flat head shovel and level the entire bunker, creating a new bunker floor. We dug out old dirt and sand until we found a solid dirt foundation. This was the starting point for our new bunker floor. Once we had our floor established, we concentrated on where the drain lines were going to be placed. It was such a mess initially that we resorted to the addition of drain lines. By looking at many of the pictures, you can see the dramatic difference of the before and after effect . I was very pleased with the way these bunkers turned out and just hope that there aren't any more like these left.

#1 Bunker Liner Project

I was unable to view the renovation of these two bunkers in real time, so I decided to take a couple of quick photos of the after product. I know they turned out great and heard that there was a lot of ground squirrel damage to repair on the left side bunker.

Wall To Wall Fertilizer Application

Today was the completion of the first phase of our wall-to-wall fertilization application. In this phase we completed fertilization of all of the rough areas on the golf course using Polyon. This slow release product will help the golf course "glow" in about one month from now. The second phase will be covering the fairways. The method we use when fertilizing wall-to-wall is a bit different than most, if not all, other golf courses. We apply the fertilizer with walk spreaders. I know some think this may be crazy, but I believe it is necessary. One main reason that it works well for us is that we use a different product on our fairways than our rough. We don't want the Polyon to spread into the fairway and vice versa. Also, it assures that the coverage of product will be near perfect and there will be no waste of product spreading into the native grasses as if you were using a larger PTO spreader or Lely. If anything else, it is a great workout!

#16 Bunker Liner Project

This bunker project went very well. There are three small bunkers on #16. The two bunkers in the front of the greens complex were very easy to renovate. The back one had our first signs of major ground squirrel damage. There were areas of the bunker in the back that needed to be dug up and properly shaped. This was very difficult because the ground under the sand was very firm. Some areas of the drain lines were also contaminated with dirt due to the excessive work the ground squirrels had done. Eventually we shaped the bunker so that it had its original edge and began to line it with the SandMat. The process was slow due to the hard ground. The 10" staples would not penetrate, so we were limited to using 6".

#14 Bunker Liner Project

On this hole, there were a few new things that we were faced with that we had not dealt with on the previous two holes. The large bunker on this hole had a native edge that bordered about half of the bunker. This was a bit more challenging trying to find the natural design's edge. Much of the fescues had grown into the bunkers a bit, so it took more work trying to find and preserve the original edge. Also, because the bunker was so close to the native edge, we found a few small tree roots coming up through the soil and into the old sand. We were able to cut these smaller roots and smooth out the soil beneath and still maintain a good surface to lay out the liner.

You can see a few important examples from these pictures of the methods we used in the whole process. We decided that it was harmless to drive the Toro Workman into the bunker being that the size of the bunker was much larger. We removed all of the sand by hand so having a Toro in the bunker made it much easier. Also you can see the plate compactor that we used to make a nice smooth surface. Finally the top picture shows how clean the finished bunker looks after we put the finishing rake touches to it. It was great seeing the difference a renovated bunker can make.