Kudos to my maintenance staff

 Far too often the golf course superintendent gets the credit for the hard work and ingenuity of his or her maintenance staff.  I am very fortunate to have a great golf course maintenance staff as was demonstrated the other day when a 100+ foot tall Willow Oak tree fell across the fairway on the 13th hole.  We were notified by the clubhouse that the tree had fallen at around 12:30 and within 30 minutes the crew had mobilized on the site, removed the tree, cleared the fairway and we were back in business.

During the winter I watched a video on Turfnet about keeping putting green cups from getting discolored by dye used when applying chemicals and fertilizers to greens by a liquid application.  I showed the video clip to two of my crew members and asked them to come up with a solution for us which would prevent our cup liners and target rings from becoming stained with chemical dye and having to be replace so often.  It was discovered that a Toro 780 part circle irrigation cap was the perfect fit to cover a putting green cup.  They used some old flagsticks and cut the bottom of the flagstick off so they could use the bottom ferrel to hold the irrigation cap at the proper height and for it not to move around.  A little epoxy on the top of the flagstick section and we had our putting green protectors. 





Putting green cup before spray application

 


Putting green cup protector



Protector in position



Putting green cup following application
No staining and the liners don't have to be replaced as often

 Another suggestion from my crew was to use the sand we removed from the sand bunkers this winter during our bunker renovation project to topdress the fairways.  Mitch has been spreading the sand for several days and there is still a lot of sand left to spread.  Good use of the sand and we can hold to the adage "Reduce..Reuse...Recycle"



One of the many piles of sand removed from the bunkers

 

Sand being spread on the fairways