Golf Industry Trade Show and Conference

Last week, Randy Gai and I had the great fortune of attending the Golf Industry Show in Las Vegas. The Show is put on by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America  and  despite this years conference location being known as Sin City, the focus of our four days in Vegas was on education, new equipment and technologies and the many networking opportunities that are available at any Golf Industry Show. The following details my week at the show.



Tim Powers on the right; Superintendent at Crystal Springs GC in Hillsborough
National Award Winner for Environmental Stewardship
Congrats to my Friend and former Boss
























The week started early Monday with an all day seminar titled Reducing Chemical Use on Golf Course Turf. Professors Frank Rossi and Jennifer Grant from Cornell University put on a very educational and entertaining seminar with much of their talk focused on alleviating the amount of stress that our turf encounters at different times of the year thus reducing the need to treat chemically. I'm all for the reducing the amount of chemical use on our course and intend to seek out any methods that will help us do so.

A Plan Based Budget Will Help You Succeed was the title of my class on day 2. Full of much needed info and advise especially for the greenhorn Superintendent, the best aspect of this seminar was continual discussion between the more than 60 Superintendents from all over the world.

Wednesday the doors of the Trade Show opened at 9am for all the Superintendents, Assistants and Course Owners and Builders to look at the many new products and equipment available. The trade show floor is massive and it's quite difficult to take in everything in just a day. Much time was spent re-connecting with industry friends and networking with other Superintendents and we ended up walking the floor all day Wednesday and half of Thursday.

Thursday morning was the highlight of the show for me. The GCSAA hosted a general session for all attendees and the keynote speaker was none other then David Feherty. Click the link below for a short interview and highlight clip from his time with the GCSAA. Beware, the language is colorful to say the least.  In listening to Feherty for over an hour, we all came away having laughed, cried and feeling very lucky to be American.

http://www.gcsaa.tv/lasvegas/?obj_id=2013&gis_filter=1

I will say that I'm very happy to be back home. It's always nice to come back to California and back to Claremont and I intend to apply the many lessons learned in our department. We Superintendents are truly fortunate to be part of such a special profession and I want to thank the membership at Claremont for their continued support. I leave you with this: "What They Think I DO" as a Golf Course Superintendent.

Thanks to Brian Boyer, Superintendent at Cinnabar Hills for turning me on to this. So funny and so True!!

Thanks and we'll see you on the golf course....

New Faces in the Turf Department

I am happy to welcome Corey Beelke to Claremont Country Club as our new Assistant Golf Course Superintendent.

Corey's previous position was at Bayonet & Blackhorse in Monterey where he was Assistant Superintendent and prior to that, Corey was in Oregon at Eugene Country Club. Corey brings with him over 8 years of well rounded golf maintenance experience and single digit handicap as well. Welcome to Claremont Corey!

The other new addition to the the Turf Department is of the 4 legged variety. Introducing (thanks kids) Buzz Lightyear:

Buzz is a 12 week old Black Lab/Border Collie mix and is our new mascot for the Turf Department. While he has much to learn and little golf course experience, he has shown great potential and one day will give MacKenzie a run for her money keeping the course free of geese. Let it rain and we'll see you on the course!

Winter Update

Winter. What winter? With a rain total for the season of 3.75", all of which came in October and November and with temperatures in the high 60's, winter has yet to show her face. The last of the rains came and went in late November and since then, the staff in the turf department have been hard at work preparing the golf course for play. This time of year is when the staff is taking vacations and time off to rest up for the long season ahead. Please keep this in mind when you play the golf course as there is just not enough people to attend to all the details as if it were the summer. That being said, I am happy to say that we have kept the golf course in great playing condition and we've managed to complete a few good projects.

16 Tee Leveling and Re-Sodding:

Due to root encroachment, traffic and age, the back half of the tee on 16 had become uneven to the point we could no longer place tee markers on level ground. The turf was stripped, the ground leveled and the tee re-sodded. We hope to have the tee open for play in the coming weeks.

Drainage Addition #7 Approach:

Using our new trencher, the staff installed over 300 feet of new drain pipe to the approach on #7. This approach has been a notoriously wet area in both summer and winter and with this drainage addition we expect the area to play firm year around.

Maintenance Facility TLC:

Our new Equipment Manager Mike Newbould has been given the task of re-structuring and organizing the maintenance facility. With the help of some of the staff, Mike has made some major improvements to an area in desperate need of just that. With the removal of some antiquated equipment and a bit of reorganization, the facility has never looked better or been more efficient. The staff now has their own space for lockers, clothes racks, rain gear and changing area. The equipment all has a specific place and is put away neatly at the end of each day. Serenity Now! for the Equipment Manager... well we're getting there. Thanks to Mike and the staff for the work around the shop.

New Look for Blog in 2012!

I'm sure you've noticed the new look for the blog. The changes came courtesy of Peter McCormick at turfnet.com and I will say much thanks to him and everyone at Turfnet for helping with the blog and for all they do for us superintendent types. It's people like Peter that make this business so special to be a part of.

The Year In Review...





It's that time of year, already! They say time flies when you're having fun and man did this year fly by. Seems like yesterday I wrote the first Claremont Turf Department Blog on January 16th of this year. After 35 posts and over 4,600 page views, after 11 months of hard work and dedication from the staff, after a long, rewarding and successful golfing season, we continue to have fun! Nothing beats seeing all the little things the staff work so hard on pay off and with this final post of the year, I will take the time to review the many practices and accomplishments that played a part in the success of 2011.

 

Fairway Topdressing with Bulk Applicator



Of all the practices that we have adopted over the last few years, it's the cultural practices that have made the largest impact. Cultural practices include aeration, spiking, verticutting, brushing, grooming, topdressing, over-seeding and irrigation practices. While many of these practices are sometimes looked at as disrupting to the day to day playability of the golf course, the results of a solid cultural program speaks for itself. The following is a review of our cultural schedule for the year:

• Greens were core aerated and sanded heavy 3 times
• Greens were deep tine aerated 3 times
• Greens were solid tined or spiked, verticut and sanded monthly from April to October
• Tees, Collars and Approaches were core aerated, seeded and sanded 3 times
• Tees and Approaches were Verticut and lightly topdressed monthly from May to September
• Fairways and Approaches were spiked monthly from April to October
• Fairways were slit-seeded with a blend of Chewings Fescue and Ryegrass in the fall
• Fairways were topdressed with sand 6 times with a total of 1800 tons of sand applied
• Rough was core aerated in spring and fall
• The practice of deep and infrequent irrigation continued throughout the year; Greens were watered every 5 to 10 days throughout the growing season with each watering equalling a 1/4" rain event; Fairways and Approaches were watered heavy every 4 to 7 days throughout the growing season.

The number one goal for us in the turf department is plant health and the conditions we have enjoyed this year are directly related to these practices. In making plant health a priority, we take a soils first approach to our agronomic plan. This includes the use of organic fertilizer, composted manures and meals, sea kelp extract, compost tea, humic acids, organic acids, molasses and calcium. These products promote a biological diversity and balance in the soil that is key for the development and culture of fine turf.  Moving forward, we intend to use less synthetic fertilizers and less chemicals as we build a more sustainable soil environment.





Drainage Installation Hole 7



The staff in the Turf Department has been hard at work on many in-house projects throughout the year. Projects for 2011 included:

• Drains on holes 7,8,10,13,14, & 15. Over 1000 feet of drain pipe installed!
• Tee leveling and re-sodding on holes 16 & 17
• Removal of the screen and landscape at 9 tee
• Various tree removals, selective tree pruning and maintenance and repair work
• Continued Fescue/Native grass establishment and Hydro-seeding on holes 4,7,8,12,13 & 14



Hydro-seeding on Hole 13



 A handful of new tools and equipment were put into place this year including a new fairway mower, a tri-plex mower for tees & approaches, new walking greens mowers, a greens roller, a drum aerator for fairways & roughs and the all important soil moisture meters that are used to check moisture content in the rootzone. This equipment has given us the ability to prepare the golf course at a much higher level on a daily basis. In preparation for tournaments, we are now able to mow the entire golf course in 4 hours. A huge thank you goes to the Board of Directors, the Green Committee and the Membership for their continued support of the Turf Department.



Soil Moisture Meter




The tournament season here at Claremont was a busy one to say the least. Starting in March with the Tal Smith and finishing in December with the Cross Country, balancing the work needed to keep the golf course in shape day to day and then timing everything to peak for the bigger events is an art and science.  With a little luck from Mother Nature and lots of planning and follow-up, this year's tournaments were successful and very rewarding for myself and the staff to be a part of.

It's been a great year for us in the Turf Department thanks to the hard work and detail oriented approach from the staff. We are proud of the work accomplished and the condition of the golf course shows just how dedicated these individuals truly are. Please thank the staff when you see them as they are the ones here at 5am every day ready to present the golf course as best they can. While we are very happy with the progress made, we know there is a long way to go in getting the course up to the condition we expect. Good things come with time and we are heading into 2012 with a long list of course improvement projects. Combine this with a continued aggressive cultural maintenance plan and a sound agromomic plan, we expect to see course conditions improve in 2012 and each year as we move forward.

Claremont is truly a special place and I feel extremly fortunate to be working on such hallowed ground. Great course, great people and a great club. Thanks to all of you who follow the blog and as always, any suggestions are welcome and wanted. Email me anytime at jclev66@msn.com or find me on the course.

Have a great holiday season and we'll see you on the course in 2012! No backlapping please....

That Looks Familiar...

I took great interest in watching the Presidents Cup this year for a few reasons. First off, any time a great classic course is hosting a major event I like to see the course as much, if not more than the golf. Secondly, the ties formed between Claremont and Royal Melbourne at this years MacKenzie Cup (the team from Royal Melbourne won the Cup here at Claremont) had me even more interested. In the first few minutes of the TV coverage, I knew we were in for a treat as much of the talk was related to course conditions, the firmness and speed of the greens and the classic MacKenzie design. Perfect for a golf geek like me!

One thing I noticed right away was how the bunkers were maintained. As you can see in the picture above, the bunker faces at Royal Melbourne are packed and smooth raked while the bunker floor is raked as normal. This technique is very similar to what we have been doing here at Claremont for the last two years.

We maintain the bunkers in this fashion for a few reasons. The main reason we smooth rake the faces is to keep golf balls from plugging in a steep bunker face. I, and most golfers would say that a plugged lie in a bunker face is unfair and by smoothing and compacting the faces of the bunker, most of the time, the ball will roll to the bottom of the bunker. Of course, from time to time, a ball will plug in the bunker and all I can say to that is... Don't hit it in there! It IS a hazard. This method of raking bunkers, on most days, allows us to spend less time than usual working in the bunker and gives the staff more time to focus on other detail oriented work. During the golfing season, we rake the entire bunker only twice a week. The other five days, we rake out the bunker floor and do not touch the faces. The time it takes to prepare the bunkers is cut in half on those days when we are only raking the floor all while the look and playability continues to be great throughout the week.

During the winter months, weather dictates how and what we do in the bunkers. Following a large rain event, the priority will be to remove any standing water, repair wash outs and remove any bunker sand that has become contaminated with silt, soil or debris as result of the storm. Once all bunkers are repaired and if the forecast is for clear weather, we will rake the bunker floors and prepare them for play. Many times, if there is another storm on the way, we may forgo re-raking them as they will soon be damaged again. After a large storm, it can take days to repair and re-rake all of the bunkers so please bear with us as we will do all we can to get them back in shape. Thanks and we'll see you on the course!

Josh Clevenger

Golf Course Superintendent

Last One of the Year

Monday and Tuesday we performed a solid tine aeration to the greens. This was our last aerification of the year and an important one going into winter. The following is a detailed sequence of events that we use to accomplish our goal of aerification to the putting greens all while minimizing the disruption to play.

Step 1: The greens are verticut in two directions.This vertical mowing results in shallow lines into the turf canopy where grass and thatch has been cut and removed leaving space for sand to settle into.

Step 2: Greens are sanded then aerified with a 1/4" solid tine tine to a depth of 9". The machine used is called a vertidrain and one of it's many benefits is the "kick adjustment". This allows us to adjust the tines to kick while they are below the surface of the green resulting in fracturing of the soil and a break up of the hard pan layer that naturally develops after a typical core aeration program. The point here is, while the result to the surface is a small 1/4" hole, the process is very aggressive under ground opening up new pore space for water, air and roots.

Step 3: Once the sand is dry on the surface, the green is rolled taking out many of the imperfections and working the sand into the turf canopy. We then brush the green with a mechanical drag brush and roll again. 

The finished result was a smooth but sandy surface and all in all, a very succesful aeration. Thanks and we'll see you on the course.

Josh Clevenger

Golf Course Superintendent