GFCC: Back Into The Swamp

The last 2 weeks have brought us close to 4" of rain. We have had to pump bunkers more times in the month of October that we did in June, July, and August combined! Combined with continuous leaf cleanup and a very small staff, it seems like we haven't been able to get a single thing done on the course recently that I would have liked to.

Worse yet, going into fall with completely saturated soils, and ditches and river channels already half full of water certainly isn't a good scenario for us going into spring flood season. After all of this moisture in the fall, it is going to be vital that we receive a below average precipitation winter in order to avoid a large spring flood. Definitely way too early to start thinking about that stuff, but unfortunately its always on my radar.

We are slowly getting to a few of the last tees that we needed to renovate this year. 4 tee has been rough shaped and sand capped, and 6, 7, and 11 tees have the old turf surface removed. We need a few more days of good drying so we can get the skid steer back into a few bunkers to get some sand out to cap those tees with. 1 tee will be the last one we do.

Leaves and water make for a horrible mess this time of year.

We are in bad need of adding some significant gravel to our cartpats next
year. Some paths have depressed so far that they are more of a water
channel than a cartpath after a big rain.

After the leaves in the bunkers get rained on, the water washes sand over
the leaves making them impossible to blow. We have to rake out most of
the leaves out of the bunkers after the latest rain.

6 tee stripped off and ready for sand

A great view of the thatch layer that was left over even after the top 1" of
turf surface was removed. This layer is one of the main reasons that
we are renovating the tees by removing the surface and capping
with sand.

Fortunately we were able to sneak in our cartpath project on hole 9 before all the rain came. I am really excited about this area as it will make a great focal point for everyone driving up to the clubhouse. We formed a landscaping bed below the main retaining wall that we will plant full of flowers next year.