Still Thankful

Just a day after Thanksgiving we are reminded that the golf course does not take days off.

Grass still grows on a holiday, leaves fall on a holiday and yes, pipes can break on a holiday. The picture here is not a new water feature at 14 green but a busted valve late on the Friday after Thanksgiving. At least it didn't happen on Thursday afternoon. Just a part of the job and yes, we're still Thankful!

It got pretty cold here this week with a few frost delays. Please check in with the golf shop if you have an early tee time and cold weather is expected. While we can live with a little frost in the rough, we will hold players from going out when the tees and greens have frost. Thank you for your patience during these times and please know we are doing what is best for your golf course.


Thanks and we'll see you on the course!

A Lot to Be Thankful For

Sometimes its hard to realize just how fortunate we are to be a part of such a special place. Claremont CC, Oakland, The Bay Area, California, The United States of America... Man do we have it good. To live, work, recreate and raise our families in one of the most desirable places in all of the world. That is special. It's easily forgotten just how good we have it. Thanksgiving is a special time when we allow ourselves to take a break and enjoy good times with family and friends. To think about the many things we have to be thankful for. To give back to those less fortunate.

What am I thankful for? A happy, healthy and supportive family. An amazing place to go to work each day and call my office. A very supportive Membership and General Manager. A great group of people to work with. A good Dog. A short drive home. Food on the plate.

We are Lucky. Thank you. Enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Solid Tine Aeration This Week

As we approach the fall golf season here at Claremont the need to keep things open becomes more and more important. With our current drought situation it's been so long since any real rain (almost 5 months to be exact!) that the soils tend to lock up creating a poor environment for turf and roots. This week we are performing a solid tine aeration to all fine turf surfaces. Yesterday, greens 1 to 12, 18 and the putting green were aerated and sanded lightly. Greens 13 to 17 will be completed prior to play this morning. All tees, fairways and approaches will be solid tined and/ or aerated with the Planet Air as well. We hope to have all areas completed by the end of the week.

The picture here shows the green surface following aeration and sand.

This pic shows the green following brushing, rolling and a few minutes of water.












The disruption for players is minimal from this process while the benefit to turf is great. The holes punched on greens are 9 inches deep and provide channels for good air/gas exchange and allow for water to penetrate deeper into the soil. The machine is set to "kick" while tines are in the ground in effect shattering the soil below and helping to greatly relieve compaction. The end result is a healthy environment for roots and turf.

You can expect slower green speeds over the next few days, especially if you are out early. Greens will not be mowed until Thursday or Friday dependent on how well sand is incorporated into the turf and rollers will be sent out in the afternoon once the greens have dried out from morning dew. This is done to minimize movement of sand and fertilizer around the green and alleviate the need to clean greens following the rolling process. By the weekend, greens will be back to normal and we will be off and running toward the busy September and October golf season and hopefully... RAIN!

Summer Project Season

It's been some time since my last post and needless to say we've been kinda busy. The weeks following July 4th are historically a slow time on the golf course when we perform the cultural practices of aeration and sand top dressing, as well as various course improvement projects.

Summer aeration was much less disruptive than in years past as we were able to get away with a solid tine aeration to all surfaces other than greens. Greens were cored with a 3/8" tine and sanded. They came back nicely in just 10 days or so and are now as healthy as I can remember. Fairways, tees and approaches were aerated with a solid tine and top-dressed with sand at 10 tons per acre. The course is now healed and in top shape following these events.

Projects this summer included work on the 3rd green/bunkers and the re-building of the 5th tee.




























The placement of the bunkers surrounding 3 green results in many bunker shots and each time a shot is hit, sand is sprayed onto the collar and green. What do you expect for a hole named Sand Circle?Over time so much sand had been hit out of these bunkers that grades of the bunker edge, collar and even the green had significantly changed. This resulted in an abnormal transition from bunker to green that made it necessary to mow the green smaller each year so we could keep good turf in the clean up pass of the green. The slopes from the fronting bunker edge to the green became so severe that shots just carrying the bunkers would rocket over the green. When playing nice and firm, this green was very hard to hold for many players.

Work on 3 green began July 13th with the removal of sod from the collar and approximately 8 feet of sod from around the entire green. Greens sod was stored off to the side so it was able to be replaced. Our contractor and in house staff then went to work removing all of the built up bunker sand.

Front right bunker seen before sod removal.

Same bunker - work in progress. We removed close to 24 inches of sand from the edge of the bunker here and between 10 and 18 inches along all 4 bunkers.

Jim Urbina and staff checking grades from bunker to green.

Grades all set and sod going back onto the green... Nice to get the sod off plastic and back where it belongs!

The result is a significant change for this hole. The size of the green was increased by almost 600 sq feet and will play much larger than before with shaping back to original grades.

Buzz checking out work in progress at 5 tee.


The 5th tee box has been on the to-do list of the Green Committee and our Architect Jim Urbina for some time now. The tee was tired, small, 2-tiered and surrounded by old landscaping. Back in the 80's when all the tees were re-done, many were unnaturally built up so as to create the effect of looking down to the target. On the 5th hole, named Hog's Back for the spine running diagonally across the fairway from left to right, the raised tee gave the visual of looking over this feature instead of into it as intended.

Approximately 3 feet of soil was graded off the tee and surround, the rise taken out of the middle and the tee re-shaped to flow nicely from the 4th green to the tee and up to a new turf area shaped for event use. Six inches of new sand was imported and the new tee top graded. The tee top itself was lowered by 2 feet.

During the process tree roots were removed and a wood chipped tree well was established here to use as golf cart parking/turn around. New sod was installed and water turned on. Superintendent and staff were then able to take a breath...

We are really happy with the results of our summer maintenance period. 3 green and 5 tee opened for play just yesterday (August 6th) and and bunkers will be played as ground under repair until sod takes good root along the edge.

Thanks and we'll see you on the course!

May Newsletter Article - Drought and Water Use

The following article was included in our Member Newsletter earlier this year. As we move into summer, water will continue to be the discussion and I felt it important to share here as well. Enjoy!

On The Course - Maintaining a Golf Course during Drought

As we all know California is in the midst of a record drought. While we did get some much needed rains early this season, rain totals are well below average for the fourth straight year. Temperatures have also been abnormally high during this period. Since January 1, the average high temperature has been 70 degrees with just 3.4” of rain falling. Last month, Governor Jerry Brown mandated a 25% reduction of the use of potable water. While we are fortunate to have a good supply of Non- Potable water to irrigate the golf course with, we must be responsible and show we can and will do the right thing for the course and environment. Over the years, we have accomplished much in the way of becoming more efficient users of water and we are prepared to maintain the course nicely throughout the drought.

One of the best views across the course, Brown grass and all.

We are constantly looking at ways to be more efficient with our use of water. We evaluate the efficiency of our irrigation system on a daily basis. The course is inspected daily for wet spots or dry spots and irrigation run times are adjusted accordingly. Irrigation leaks are detected and repaired quickly. My goal has always been – NO WET SPOTS! This month, we will be going through sprinkler heads in fairways replacing all nozzles and checking pressure to ensure proper coverage is achieved and water is applied as efficiently as possible.

We’ve used hand held and in-the-ground soil sensor technology to monitor soil moisture levels for years now. The use of these sensors allows us to properly monitor soil moisture and insure that the correct amount of water is applied to a given area of turf. Our in-the-ground soil sensor data can be monitored in real time from our desk top and handheld devices.  

With our on-site weather station, we have the ability to monitor weather data in real time as well. The weather station communicates with our irrigation computer calculating daily ET (evapotranspiration) rates. This information is downloaded to the irrigation computer and used to determine appropriate sprinkler run times insuring we are replacing just the amount of water used by the turf and lost to evaporation (ET).

Over the last five years, we have seeded the tees, approaches and fairways at times of aeration with a drought tolerant Chewings Fine Fescue seed. This turf requires approximately 10% of the water needed by many other cool season grasses. Each year, as our stand of Fine Fescue multiplies, we are able to manage more for the fescue and in turn use less water. There will be times when the weaker grasses stress due to drought conditions and this is part of managing toward the desired turf species.

The use of soil surfactants (wetting agents) is an important part of our agronomic plan. A soil surfactant is a material that allows us be more efficient with our water by helping the soil to better hold on to water applied. Surfactants aid in breaking surface tension of tight soil/turf conditions allowing water to better penetrate into the root zone helping to move water deeper and more evenly. This promotes better rooting of turf and a more healthy soil condition. The Club invested in an injection system last year to deliver these materials onto the course via the irrigation system.

Organic fertilizers are an important part of building healthy soils and healthy soils use water more efficiently. These organic fertilizers make up nearly 70% of all fertilizers applied to the course.

If you are on the golf course during the summer months, you have no doubt seen the staff out hand watering various turf areas. There is no more efficient way to deliver water to the desired location than through hand watering.

We have invested much time, effort and resource into providing a high level of turf condition while being environmentally responsible with our use of water. Many of the above practices were implemented years ago, well before the drought. While these changes to our program have resulted in an improved playability of the golf course, they have also put us in position to better weather the current drought.  The majority of increase in the Golf Maintenance budget over the last few years has been directly related to the practices discussed here and I commend the Club for supporting the golf course in such a way.

The fascination with a wall to wall green golf course in California should have changed years ago.  As a responsible member of the community and the golf industry, we should be doing all we can to limit the amount of water we use, mandate or no mandate. Greens, tees and fairways can and will be kept in top condition but we need to get used to rough and areas out of play becoming more natural, un-irrigated and BROWN. As we move through the summer months, there will be more areas of off color turf and that is OK. It will come back when it rains…

Josh Clevenger - Golf Course Superintendent

2015 Invitational Recap

With our biggest event of the year now in the rear view mirror, I wanted to share some pictures and discuss the hows and whys of setting the course up for tournament play.

It was a long two weeks of prep work and set up. Over 250 hours of overtime went in to produce the conditions we had for our Men's Invitational last week. The staff really turned it up a notch and I thank them for their hard work and long hours. The focus leading up to the event was catching up with all the detail work we fell behind on this spring. With the dry weather this winter and into spring combined with a short staff, we had fallen behind with some of the little things around the course as we made mowing and setting up for play the priority. The focus during tournament week was drying the course out and fine tuning the playing surfaces for our major event of the year. This means lots of extra mowing and rolling of greens and daily mowing and hand watering of tees, fairways and approaches. The result of this focus and detail was a course that set up and played as good as I have seen it.

While it's fun to tune the course up for these big events, it is unrealistic to expect these conditions daily. Many factors go into preparing the golf course in this fashion with the most important being the health of the turf leading up to the event. Greens and fairways have been in the best shape that I've seen and Mother Nature was kind enough to help out with some mild temps.  Therefore we were able to push things pretty well to the limit without any adverse affects. All of the aeration, sand topdressings, soil and water testing, inter-seeding, fertility and water treatments and general care and planning over the last few years is paying off nicely with the results being a healthy turf that can stand the kind of stress we put it through. Our goal now is to maintain the health and playability of the course through the summer. We will monitor the health of the turf closely and when we can push, we will. When we need to back off, we will. Please enjoy the course each day you play knowing we are doing all we can to provide the most pleasant experience for members and guests possible.

Thanks and we'll see you on the course!