Winter Projects--Greens Irrigation Renovation Project Finished

For the past three winters Willie and his crew have been renovating the irrigation system around our greens to add part circle heads which will only water the putting surface.  This has been a long project in the making but will help, and has already helped, us to reduce our use of water and electricity while at the same time providing a better playing surface for our golfers.

Willie and Jonathan, with help this year from Barry, have worked tirelessly in all kinds of weather to add new control wire, pipe, and Rainbird irrigation heads to the greens loop. So why have we gone to all this trouble?  When the golf course was constructed full circle irrigation heads were placed around every green.  These heads, as the name implies, make a complete 360 degree rotation watering both the greens and the surrounds.  With the new heads we are able to adjust where the water is applied and we can water only the greens without watering the surrounds at the same time.

Installing these new part circle heads will help the playing conditions of the course, especially play around the greens, but will also help us continue to reduce our use of water. In the past in order to get 0.2" of water on our greens which might be needed to water in fertilizer or a fungicide we would have to run the full circle irrigation heads for 5-7 minutes watering both the green and the surrounds.  Many times the surrounds did not need any additional moisture and that would make them soft and difficult to play through or maintain.  With the new part circle heads we can place the same amount of water on the greens in 2 minutes with no unwanted irrigation on the surrounds.  Having these new heads in place will reduce our water use on the greens by over 1 million gallons of water annually and will reduce our use of electricity to operate our pumps as well.

I am very proud of the dedication and hard work Willie and Jonathan, and Barry this year, have shown to this project and to continuing to improve the golf course.  We are very lucky to have crew members who go out of their way everyday to take ownership of the golf course and give it all they have.

As I have said this has been a long project and a lot of hard work has gone into it.  We will be sodding the trench lines over the next week and then adjusting the sod as it settles.  If you are playing, please do not step on the sod or play off of it until spring arrives and it starts to green up. These areas should be played as Ground Under Repair until further notice.

Spring has sprung

After a long difficult winter the golf course is beginning to come to life as the temperatures begin to climb. This past winter has been the toughest since we have had our Champion greens but they look very good coming out of dormancy.  It has especially been good to see the golfers return to the course in large numbers.  This week we scalped down the greens to get the "winter coat" off of them and get them ready for summer.

#10 green after mowing

Willie and Jonathen installing new sod on the irrigation
trench lines

Our major winter project was to install part circle irrigation heads on several of the greens and Willie, Jonathen, and Eric did a great job with this project.  We were able to get ten holes completed this year, which with the weather issues that we had, I am very pleased with.  The final step to this project will be to sod over the trench lines that were created during the process.  We have gotten several of the holes done this week and will continue next week to finish it up.

Newly sodded trench lines which will blend in quickly

This upcoming week, the week of March 10th, should be a very exciting week for us at the course as we are hoping to welcome two new members to the Bear Trace family.  Eloise and Elliott have been tremendous parents this winter keeping their two eggs safe and warm in the bitter cold and snow.  Eloise sat on the two eggs throughout the winter snow storm keeping them from harm.  They are a great pair and we hope and pray the hatching process is successful.  March 11 will mark 35 days since the first egg was laid which is the normal gestation period for American Bald Eagle.  If you have not been watching we hope you will tune into www.harrisonbayeaglecam.org this week to watch the excitement.

Spring has sprung and there will be many more exciting changes and improvements to the golf course this year.  We hope all of you will come out and join us and enjoy our great course and all our hard work.

Winter course improvements

Some people think the golf course maintenance department staff take the winter months off since there isn't any mowing to be done but that is far from the truth.  In most all cases the winter months are our time to renovate and refurbish the golf course so we can spend the majority of our time during the growing months maintaining the turfgrass.

Our irrigation renovation project of installing part circle irrigation heads around the greens is rolling along on schedule.  Willie, Jonathen, and Eric have been working hard and have completed the renovation work on nine holes so far.  This project will be most beneficial to the greens as we will be able to apply the correct amount of water needed to the putting surface without overwatering the surrounds which is a benefit that our golfers will enjoy.  The environment is going to benefit from this upgrade in that we will not be using as much water to maintain our greens.

Reducing the amount of water we use on the golf course is important but we also need to protect the water supply that surrounds the golf course and where we get our irrigation water from.  Surrounding all the waterways on our golf course we have created vegetative buffer strips which help to filter chemical, fertilizer, and soil residue from entering the water.  During the winter months when TVA drops the water level in the lake is a great time for us to do work on these areas which might have gotten overgrown through the years.

Most areas can be done with hand tools or a bush hog on a tractor but then there are areas like #3 green and #5 tee slopes which pose a safety issue of working on these steep slopes that we have to call out the "big guns" for.  We rented a BrushCat from Bobcat of Chattanooga which allowed us to remove the overgrowth of trees and shrubs in these areas.

This is a shot of the bank on #3 green before Mitch began the renovation work.  As you can see the overgrowth is blocking not only a great view but also much needed air movement on this green, especially since it sits in a hole and has restricted air movement anyway.

It took Mitch only a few hours to safely and efficiently clear the lake bank off.  A project of this size would have taken us weeks to clear by hand and we would have had a tremendous amount of plant debris to remove.  The BrushCat allowed us to remove the material safely and cut it up into mulch which will serve as a barrier for any water movement down the hill protecting the water supply.

With just a little hand work to remove some trees that were too large for the BrushCat to handle we now have the air movement we need for this green restored along with the view of the lake which will be very nice in the summer when TVA brings the lake level back up to summer pool.


I am very thankful for my crew who take on the responsibility of maintaining the golf course with such passion and dedication.  I tend to get the credit for the condition of the course or the environmental projects that we do but it is truly the guys in the trenches and on the equipment that make Harrison Bay what it is.  They are the ones who deserve the credit.

Greens Irrigation Project Has Begun

 
 
It has been a couple years in the works but this year, after the shown success on #5 and #16 greens, we will be working to install part circle irrigation heads around the remaining greens.  We began on #13 green and will work our way around the course during the winter months, hoping to have them all completed by the spring golfing season.



The process of placing additional irrigation heads around the greens will allow us to direct the water directly to the greens surface and eliminate the over-application of water to the putting green surrounds.  This will save us over a million of gallons of water each year and will cut our nightly watering window in half saving electricity to operate the pumping system. 

Those are the benefits for the golf course and the environment but what about the golfer.  Well,  with the ability to place the water where it is needed and the proper amount we will be able to provide firmer and faster putting surfaces while also being able to reduce the surrounds from being overwatered and saturated making "bump and run" shots and run up shots more effective.

Willie and Jonathen will be working on different greens throughout the winter and we will wait until the spring before we sod over the trench lines to allow them to settle and the sod to root better, so until that time please play these areas as Ground Under Repair.



Just a quick reminder that you can get updates on course conditions, weather delays, and projects by following us on Twitter @BearTraceHB. 

Time to put the mowers up

Friday marked what will most likely be the last mowing of the fairways and approaches for the 2013 growing season.  It has been a great year even with all the rainy, cloudy weather we experienced during the summer months. 

Improvements to the golf course this year have included projects such as the renovation of our short game practice area behind the cart storage building.  This area which is also used as a greens nursery was in dire need of repair and with the help of our friends from Champion Turf Farms is now another asset to our golf course and a great place for our golfers to practice.  Chipping Green Renovation

As we did on #5 green two years ago, this year we installed part circle irrigation heads on #16 green so we could better control the amount of water applied to the greens surface and to be able to apply it only to the green and not the surround.  As a result, these greens which used to be our worst are now among our best.  We are planning to continue this process on other holes this winter.
#16 Irrigation Renovation

Renovation of the bunkers continued earlier this year as we finished up the removal of old sand, installation of new Sand Mat bunker liner and installation of new bunker sand to finish up renovation of all the greenside bunkers.  Only a few fairway bunkers are left to be renovated and some maintenance of adding some new sand to the renovated bunkers and the nightmare of maintaining the old bunkers will be a distant memory.

One of our biggest improvements to the golf course this year has come in the form of the new electric golf course maintenance equipment we got through our "Electric Equipment Initiative."   The new electric equipment has made a tremendous improvement to the golf course not only in the conditioning of the course but in reducing point source CO2 emissions and undesirable noise.  We thank Ms. Lori Munkeboe of the Office of Sustainable Practices and our Director of Golf Mr. Mike Nixon for thinking of Harrison Bay as a great place to implement this project.  We are hoping to continue this project at another State Park golf course in the near future.
Electric Equipment Initiative Goes Public

Along with our Mallard Duck nesting tubes and our wild turkey feeders, my favorite environmental project that we do The Harrison Bay Eagle Cam Project was a tremendous success this year.  With the hatching failure that Elliott and Eloise experienced last year to see the two little eaglets hatch, grow and fledge this year was doubly exciting.  The Harrison Bay Eagle Cam Project has reached over 211,000 unique viewers in 69 different countries since it began.  We are grateful for all our sponsors and supporters we have had over the years and are especially grateful that the USGA Green Section has once again provided major funding for this years operation.  Hopefully within the next two weeks we will have a new pan/tilt/zoom camera installed beside the nest and a microphone installed so we can hopefully hear this years brood calling out for some fish or turtle.  Two Weeks Since Eaglet Hatching

Most of all I have to thank my fantastic staff.  Without their passion and dedication to the conditioning and playability of the golf course we would not be in the position we are today.  Although I tend to hear the great comments from the golfers and guests, the golf course maintenance staff are the ones that make the golf course what it is and they deserve all the credit.

 

Great Work Gentlemen!!!

Why is #11 Lake So Low??

Lately we have had several people ask why the irrigation lake on #11 is so low.  Is there a leak in the pond?  Are we really using that much water on the course at night?  or Are the fish that thirsty?

The answer is that our pump which transfers water from the river to the irrigation lake was not functioning properly.  This afternoon Ken Whitlock of Propump and Control, Inc. came out to the golf course to investigate the problem.  The pump is located in the concrete silo behind #11 gold tee and is about 20 feet in the ground.  The bad thing is that it has to be disassembled and removed from the silo to find out what is wrong.

Kenny, and his many water spider "friends"(I couldn't get a good picture of them but they were huge) removed the motor from the pump and then with some help from Mitch and Willie removed it from the silo.

 

 

What we found was the nut had come loose from the end of the impeller and had destroyed the mechanical seal and damaged the shaft of the motor.  What we thought was going to be an quick fix, just to replace the seal, is going to be a bit more time consuming.  Once the parts arrive Kenny will put it all back together and get us back pumping to get the lake filled back up.  Hopefully we will continue to get these small rain showers so we don't have to irrigate fairways and roughs until it can get fixed.

New Irrigation Installed on #16 Green

 

 With the success of the half head irrigation installation on #5 green last year turning that green from possibly our worst green to one of our best we have been looking for the opportunity to do the same to several other greens.  With the much needed break in the rainy weather we have been experiencing this winter we took Thursday and Friday to install new full circle and part circle irrigation heads around #16 green.

 

 



We replaced all the old full circle heads with new ones and positioned new part circle heads which will only water the greens surface.  This will allow us to apply more needed water to the putting surface without "flooding" the surrounds and making them saturated and undesirable.

 

New pipe and fitting were installed by Mitch and Willie.

All the swing joints, tees, and dead ends which were created during the installation were thrust blocked to hopefully eliminate any movement of the pipe which will cause leaks or blowouts.

Willie and Jonathen performing possibly the worst part of the job, the cleanup.  You never can get the dirt to go back in the hole the way it came out.

Once all the dirt was picked up the surrounds were blown off and we were done.

Installation Complete.  Like we were never even there. 

Thanks to the crew for a job very well done.

2011 Is In the Rearview Mirror

As 2011 comes to an end and I look back at a very successful year at Harrison Bay I have to say I am very pleased with all that we have accomplished this year.  It has been a little over a year since I started this blog and it has been fun to show you what is going on at the golf course.  Our golf course maintenance staff has made several improvements to the golf course this year including the renovation of the front nine greenside bunkers, providing better putting surfaces with the addition of John Deere Walking Greens Mowers to our fleet, irrigation renovation to some of the greens, beginning the renovation process of the native grass areas on the course, and improving and expanding our environmental stewardship activites.  My crew is very dedicated to the golf course and I have to express my pride in thier work.

T

2012 looks to be another exciting year at Harrison Bay.  Our Eagle Cam Project should be up and running soon, the renovation project of the back nine greenside bunkers is in full swing, we will continue renovating the irrigation around some of the greens, renovation of the native grass areas will take place during the summer, and we are going to add some mallard duck nesting tubes to our environmental conservation program in the next few months.  All in all 2012 should be an exciting and busy time at The Bear Trace at Harrison Bay.  We hope everyone enjoys the improvements that we are making to the golf course and if you have any questions or comments about what we are trying to accomplish here just let us know.  Hope to see everyone at the Trace in 2012.  Happy New Year!!!

 

Record Month of August

August 2011 will go down as the driest month on record at Harrison Bay.  We received a record low of 0.02"of rain and had 29 days of above 90 degree temperatures with 102 degrees being our highest recorded temp.  The golf course is surviving and holding up well under the environmental and golfing pressures, mostly due to the hard work of our staff.  Willie has put in some long hours applying wetting agents and extra water to dry areas around the golf course.  We have replaced or repaired 19 heads that were malfunctioning and Mitch and Kevin repaired a severe leak at the front entrance.  The greens are recovering from aerification but the heat is slowing the process down some.  Hopefully September will not be as bad although the forecast for this weekend calls for highs of 97 and 98. 

Stay tuned for some exciting news about the Harrison Bay Bald Eagles. 

Use of Wetting Agents

The Bear Trace has not been spared from the drought and heat wave that has gripped the southern US states for the past couple of months.  With less than 2" of rain falling in the last three months, and 1.37" of that coming in about an hour on July 17th, the golf course is in need of a good soaking rain.  We have, however, been able to keep the golf course healthy and looking good thanks to our use of wetting agents and continual efforts to repair and improve the irrigation system.

Wetting agents are organic and chemically derived products which help to retain or move water through the soil structure.  Use of wetting agents is not a new thing on golf courses but with federal and state restrictions on the amount of water a golf course can use and the desire by golf course superintendents to be more environmentally conscious and conservative they are being used more frequently.  I use wetting agents on my greens on a regular basis which is not hard to do...just add them to the spray rig as it is going out to fertilize or apply growth regulation products; but how do you apply wetting agents to the entire golf course in a timely and cost effective manner. 

7.5# wetting agent tablet compared to a 20 oz. bottle

We use the Aqua-Aid Maxi Proprotioner  tower to apply wetting agents to the entire golf course, or just specific areas, through the irrigation system during nightly irrigation cycles.  The proportioner is set up to use large 7.5# tablets of wetting agents which will be melted down and released into the wet well of the irrigation pump station to be picked up by the turbines and delivered through the irrigation system to the golf course.  A simple electrical timer is used to activate the proportioner so I have control over when the product is being released and when it is not.  This manner of applying wetting agents to the golf course is very efficient and cost effective.

Application rates are based on the water pressure applied to the tablets from the electric valve.  Under the severe drought conditions that we have been experiencing we have been using three tablets every 18-21 days which has allowed us to continue to keep the golf course green and healthy without having to apply excessive amounts of water.  Use of the wetting agents makes the water "wetter" and helps to bonds the water to the soil structure so the turfgrass can more readily use it.  The system is very inexpensive to purchase and operate and if you are in an area that has been hit hard by the summer heat and lack of rain you may want to research its use.

Tools of the Trade



#18 green


I am thrilled at how the greens and the golf course for that matter are looking right now and I hope everyone who plays the course is happy with it also.

Helping us in getting the golf course in this condition are three of my favorite "Tools of the Trade" that many of you may have seen us out on the golf course using.

My favorite tool, and one I think every golf course superintendent should own and use, is the Spectrum Technologies TDR 300 moisture meter.  I first saw this tool being used last year when I volunteered at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, GA for the 2010 PGA Tour Championship.  The moisture meter measures the Volumetric Water Content in the soil in a percentage form allowing for a definitive value to be measured.  There are many different ways to test the moisture level in the soil such as with a knife or a soil probe but both of these methods leaves the determination what is wet or dry to the discretion of the individual.  The TDR 300 gives a value that can not be questioned.  We have found that our greens perform best when the volumetric water content is between 30-35%.  It is surprising how the green surface can look fine but right under the surface drought and stress conditions are possible.  If you can purchase a TDR 300 you will not be sorry.

Another favorite tool is the Check Signature, Inc.  prism gauge.  It is important to know what the greens are actually being cut at compared to what they are set at by Steve Bloom, my mechanic.  Steve will set our greens mowers using an AccuGauge at 0.160" but with the aggressive nature and the use of grooved front rollers and groomers the prism gauge shows that we are actually cutting the greens at 0.100".  Without the prism gauge I can not tell exactly what height of cut the greens are being maintained at and too low is just as bad as too high.

My favorite environmental tool that we have at The Bear Trace at Harrison Bay is ourWatchDog 2900ET Weather Station which provides us with on-site weather information which is relayed wirelessly to the computer in the golf course maintenance building.  It is better to have an on-site weather station so we can determine what is happening on our golf course and not relying on a weather station miles away.  The best feature of the weather station is the evapotranspiration rates which it records for the day.  The evapotranspiration rate is the amount of moisture lost by the plant during the day to evaporation, respiration, and transpiration.  Using this value I can conserve water by only applying enough water back to the golf course through the irrigation system to return the plant to a predetermined percentage.  That means that I may only need to apply 5 minutes of water instead of 8 or 10 thus saving water and electricity and reducing the opportunities for diseases to affect the turfgrass.

Irrigation Renovation work on #5 green

New half heads running on #5 green

The most common complaint that I hear about our golf course during the summer months is how wet the green surrounds are.  The amount of water we need to apply to our greens during the heat of the summer causes us to overwater our surrounds due to the improper irrigation design.  The irrigation heads around the greens are fairway heads which are not located in the proper location.  #5 green was the worst of the greens with a couple of the heads being close to 25 feet away from the greens edge.  As we watered the greens at night we were flooding the surrounds around the green making is difficult to walk through these areas, making it almost impossible to play golf, and restricting our ability to maintain the approaches and surrounds on this green.



Rainbird 751 half head in operation



In an effort to correct this problem we moved the heads to the proper position around the greens and installed Rainbird 751 series irrigation rotors for the inside of the green and Rainbird Eagle 900 series irrigation rotors for the perimeter of the green.  The use of the half heads will allow us to apply water only to the green surface using one set of heads and another set of heads to water only the greens surrounds.  The surrounds will no longer be flooded and we will be able to reduce our water input but not overapplying water to the surrounds. Hopefully we will be able to continue improving the golf course over this summer and improving the irrigation on some other greens which also have similar issues.