River Pump

September 13, 2015

After a very dry August and scrambling for water to fill our irrigation pond, we finally have our new river pump up and running. With just under 3 inches of rain and many warm days, irrigating was a must for almost every day during the month of August.

Before Sam headed for Colorado, he set up an electric pump to pump water underground from the pond on the left of 14 fairway to our irrigation pond. This was very beneficial as we did not have to continuously fill a gas pump every two hours to keep filling our irrigation pond and we didn’t have to listen to the loud motor running all day long. This pump set up is only a short term solution to our pond filling needs as the pond on the left side of 14 is getting quite low as well and the water isn't exactly ideal for irrigating the golf course.

Sam's last and very important project at GFCC on #14

Our previous river pump had been put in briefly and taken out of the river for maintenance issues every summer for the past 4 years. It was not the correct type of pump for fulfilling our water needs. We decided to get a 20 horsepower centrifugal motor drive pump to set down by the river behind the maintenance shop. This pump can run as long as we need it to to fill our irrigation pond and it pumps roughly 450 gallons per minute. On a full night of irrigation we use somewhere around 300,000 gallons of water on the golf course. With this pump, we can put this amount of water back into our pond in one night.

We began the process of setting up the pump by removing a large tree that hung over the river and was in the way for our river pump line. Thanks to Florian and Sons for helping us out with this. We then hauled in some dirt to level the area out and set up the pump and our river line.

Florian and Sons excavating the old style pump down in the river

This pump will greatly help us out the rest of the fall, especially if it continues to be dry. Without this pump and water for irrigating, we would be playing golf on dead grass and dirt.
We will take the pump lines out of the river and store the pump for the winter and put it back in next golf season when we are in need of filling our pond. 

We were able to use almost all of our existing pipe lines and fittings for this set up 

Busy Time at GFCC

September 1, 2015

First and foremost, let me introduce myself to those who do not know me. I am originally from Hutchinson, MN, which is about 60 miles west of Minneapolis. I attended college at North Dakota State University in Fargo where I received my Bachelor’s degree in Turfgrass Management. I have previously worked for the Crow River Golf Club in Hutchinson and at Bully Pulpit Golf Course in Medora, ND. I am pleased to be your interim superintendent for the time being and I am confident that my crew and I will keep the Grand Forks Country Club in pristine shape for the remainder of the season.

As we all miss Sam and his family, I believe that he set me up for success here at GFCC. I have gained a considerable amount of knowledge and learned many valuable skills from him the past year and a half.

We all know that at this time in the year staffing is always hard to come by. With school starting a week ago, I lost a few of my staff members and all of the others cut their hours in half. I have been able to hire a few more part time workers, but have only one other full time staff member. With that being said, there may be some days during the week where we are mowing later in the day rather than early in the morning for staff reasons. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We will do our absolute best to keep the course looking as good as it does now.

We have completed greens and tee aeration for the fall. This is a very beneficial time to aerate. Aeration will help us get the turf healthy for the remainder of fall and into winter. The holes we created provide oxygen deep down to the root system of the turf. Aeration also relieves soil compaction and breaks up the organic layer that is under the turf. The greens will be a little bumpy and sandy for a few days, but with extra rolling and water, we will have the greens back to normal very soon.

Please feel free to stop me out on the course to introduce yourself. I am always up for suggestions and questions that you may have. I will do my best to keep the blog up to date to keep you informed about what is happening around the course.