April 17, 2015

On Thursday Dr. Albrect  Koppenhoffer came to lay out an area on the 7^th fairway where he will conduct field trials to determine the percentage of pesticide resistance on our population of annual Bluegrass Weevils (abw).  Dr. Koppenhoffer has come the last two years during the fall to collect abw adults from our course. Those samples were tested in the lab for resistance, and to our benefit, resistance at Greate Bay was found to be very low. With this preliminary data, he is now taking the testing out into the field – into the real world – where variables cannot be controlled. He will use the data he collects in the field to compare it with the lab data and along with the results he gains from field trials at other courses. From this study, which will be ongoing for a few more years, and maybe longer, we will receive up to date information on our levels of resistance, newer control methods, and expert advice. On the whole, and in the long run, the entire study will help the industry to better understand this small destructive insect, its habitat, life cycle, and how it can be best controlled while lessening the development of pesticide resistant populations.

April 3, 2015

Years ago, long before I came here, there was a water feature in front of the 12^th green. Water was circulated from the 12^th pond to the smaller finger of the pond in front of the green and spilled over a weir into the main body of water. It had been abandoned for quite some time; I believe it was maintained only for the LPGA up until the tournament returned to Seaview Country Club. Abandoned, it was a low area that the pond backed up into and since it was not moving water, became a mosquito breeding area. Although we did our best to keep it trimmed up, it slowly became an unsightly water hazard.

This spring we cleaned up the pond’s finger and rebuilt the rotted weir, and are restoring the circulation system. We are very happy how it is coming out, and are sure that it will improve the 12^th hole, both in appearance and playability.

March 19, 2015

A few days ago we peeled back the winter turf covers from the new tees on 16 that we had built and sodded late last December. They came through the winter exceptionally well – well rooted with light growth and good colour. Due to the rather wet weather through the winter, a few spots of Microdochium patch had developed, but not enough to be greatly concerned about.

February 25, 2015

Earlier this February, Eastern Irrigation began work to replace the irrigation pumps at the pump house because our wet well system was failing. Unfortunately, the record cold weather forced a temporary stop to the project, yet since we began this project so early, we should have no problem getting it finished long before the season begins.

The wet well was built beneath the pump house in 1986 when the present irrigation system was installed.  The wet well is simply a deep cylinder made of galvanized steel, with an intake pipe leading into it from the center of the pond. The pumps, located in the pump house, extend vertically down into the wet well and pump the water into the irrigation piping. Simply, water was pulled through the intake from the pond into the wet well, and pumped out.

Over the years the galvanized steel began to rust and parts of the intake pipe disintegrated and the walls of the wet well became structurally unsound. Divers were brought in to assess the severity of the damage and to give us an idea of how much longer we had before the risk of failure became too great. If either the intake pipe or wet well failed, we would no longer be able to pump water, and we did not want to take any unnecessary chances. If it failed in the middle of the season, we’d be without water when we needed it the most.

The dive took place last winter and it was determined that the chance of failure was too great to risk for much longer. We immediately began to research solutions. The solutions were to rebuild the entire wet well which meant demolishing the pump house and starting from scratch, attempt to insert a liner into the intake pipe and wet well which would only be temporary and also reduce the volume of water that could be pulled from the pond, or bypass the wet well altogether and install new submersible pumps in the pond directly piped to the pressure controls in the pump house. We spent the last year evaluating the three different options, talking with officials from clubs who had faced these same decisions, and visited a course that recently had the submersible system installed.  Our research led us to decide that installing the submersible system was the best option for us.

Prior to arriving here to install the new submersible system, Eastern Irrigation assembled the main components at their shop in Glenmoore, PA. When the site work is done and modifications to the pump house for the pipe connections are completed, the assembled components – pumps, motors, wiring, etc – will be put together and installed.  The system will then be thoroughly tested to ensure good workmanship and that the pumping specifications are met.

The irrigation system is integral to the golf course and if it were to fail the golf course would suffer considerable damage in a very short period of time. The club’s management acted proactively and invested a considerable amount of funds into this system to prevent a wet well failure, insuring that we will be able to pump water for very long time to come.

New submersible pumps, motors in crates.

Tubes and piping.

Preparations inside the pump house.

Piping to the pond.

September 17, 2014

If I found a genie in a bottle who could grant me three wishes for maintaining the golf course, they would be-

Everyone would rake traps after playing out of them

Everyone would fix their ball marks

Everyone would replace or fill their divots

Almost every day someone approaches me and says “how come people don’t fill their divots?”,  “people don’t rake their traps around here!”, and “I wish people would fix their ball marks!”.

You see, my wishes are not selfish – I am just passing them along.  As to why players don’t rake their traps, divots are left unfilled, and ball marks are not fixed, I do not know. But someone out there does.