All The King's Horses and All the King's Men...

 I have no words to describe the effort and determination that my team has put forth during the last two weeks in an attempt to restore this beautiful piece of property.  We are a long way from reaching our goal but we are on the right path.  When it is your job to inspire your team sometimes it is tough to be inspired.  When you see what my staff has had to endure through this storm and what they have done to support me, I am truly inspired.  Working sun up to sun down for the last two weeks is made a little easier when you know you are greeted by Family at both locations.

We will be opening the golf course for play on Wednesday morning (9/27) and I would like to preface this with a few words of insight.  This will not be our best presentation.  We have not had the time to attend to the finer details that our members are accustomed to. I implore you to take a drop from all lateral hazards and do not attempt to look for your ball in a wooded area.  We have cleared all the playing surfaces but the periphery will take quite a bit longer.  Please work with us as we continue to progress to our ultimate goal of being the best club all of SW Florida.  

I would like to thank the members for their generosity.  Their continuous donations have made a great impact on many of my team members lives.  These guys are my Heroes!  

August (last minute) Update

Leave it to me to wait until the last few days of the month to squeeze in a monthly report.  I was much too frustrated the last four days to be optimistic about anything, that is why I waited for the sun to break through before I passed on this information.  This Tropical system that decided to park itself directly over SW Florida for the past four days dropped closed to 12 inches of rain on Stonebridge.  This brings our total for August to over 20 inches and if you add that to June and July we have endured over 70 inches of rain during that span.  That three month accumulation is 15 inches more than our ANNUAL average. 

"The Sun will come out Tomorrow" "The Sun will come out Tomorrow" "The Sun will come out Tomorrow"  I keep telling my team that we will catch a break and the weather will reward our hard work if we just BELIEVE! 

 Enough with the depressing weather, let's move on to the nuts and bolts of what we've been up to and where we are headed. Below you will find a picture of a little green house that I am sure most of you did not know existed.  This houses our Common Grounds Pump Station.  Or in layman's terms "the machinery that draws water out of the lake to supply the irrigation for all the homeowners and Common Areas".  We had to clear the hedges in front of the building because we are well over due for a replacement on this very important asset.  During our September closure we will be removing the failing equipment and installing a more efficient upgraded pump station.  This new station comes equipped with a built in filtering system and we are incorporating a biological cleaning program that will aid in reducing clogged sprinkler heads and faulty valves.  I will be certain to take a lot of photos during the installation. There is a crane involved, it should be pretty cool.

We also finished up our Cart Path Removal/Enhancement Project.  I never knew what to call it but I think it will make quite the impact this season.  The last few steps were to switch out the soft path material  on #1, #6, #15 an #17 and to add the concrete extensions to the exits and entrances around the tees and greens.  This should help to reduce some concentrated wear areas.  After a little "wheeling and dealing" I talked our contractor into coming back to take care of a nagging issue.  The cart path leading from #13 to #14 had quite a dangerous drop off and a sharp right turn just past my Maintenance entrance.  We formulated a plan to raise the catch basin and concrete the surrounding area to make it safer for our members and guests.  

We are a week away from our last Summer closure.  Typically, we tend to ease into Season, this year will be completely different.  The saturated conditions on the golf course are far reaching, if we are not aggressive in our approach during the last months of the growing season, our turf will not be acclimated to survive the season.  

It has been a trying Summer, but I am not about to throw in any semblance of a towel.  "WE" will make it happen.

Common Grounds Pump Station

New Concrete en route to #14

The Mad Dash to the Finish Line

Today we spent a majority of the day cleaning up the golf course.  After nearly two full weeks focused on major projects and cultural practices there were quite a few detail items left to corral before we could consider the course presentable. The team did an amazing job today handling a very difficult assignment in  a Triple Digit Heat Index.  We are looking forward to getting the golfers back on the course, after all, that's why we do what we do.  

Tomorrow will be a late night with the installation of the TurfHound Mats.  My plan is to write an early edition tomorrow recapping the work done to the course and the expectations going forward and then follow that up with a Final edition of the DR Tee Update.  Be forewarned it will be a very late edition.  The TurfHound rep will not even be on site until the afternoon.  This coupled with the fact that we will have fresh sprigs on the ground that will need to be watered on an hourly basis may lead to a late night.  I was assured by all involved that the hitting stations will be ready for Saturday morning.  I just may still be asleep on them when you get there.

Sod installed on slopes

Ready for mats

Ready for Sprigs

Off color Rough due to lower Height of Cut

New soft Path material on #15

It's beginning to look a lot like..... a  Driving Range Tee!

If you squint just right and tilt your head slightly, it looks like we are ready for some grass.  The rough grading was completed today and the sod will be delivered tomorrow.  We will be sodding the the surrounding slopes for stability and grassing the tee top with sprigs.  We had a brief battle with Mother Nature this afternoon and we all agreed to allow this project to proceed to completion without any more delays. (Did I just Jinx myself?)  

Rough Graded 90/10 sand mix

slopes to be sodded

The Calm before the Storm

Typically these last few days of a maintenance closure are usually reserved for detail work and presentation in preparation of re-opening the golf course.  The July closure is always a bit different.  We are still "knee deep" in projects and our contractors keep throwing curve balls at us.  I have to give all the credit in the world to my team.  As our plans seemingly change hour by hour, they have risen to the challenge and accomplished every task without hesitation.  We will forge ahead and focus on healing up a battered golf course and providing an enjoyable playing experience for our members and guests.  

Now for our daily Driving Range Tee Renovation Update:  the new concrete slab that will support the State of the Art Turfhound Synthetic Mats was poured today.  The installation of the mats has now been moved to Friday(contractor curve ball).  This has the schedule looking like this: Wednesday - Final grade and shape of entire tee and surrounds, Thursday - sod all slopes, Friday - install mats and sprig tee surface,  Saturday - listen to our members rave about how great these new mats are.  Always the Optimist, Forever the Realist!

New Concrete for Artificial hitting area

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

I am hoping this adage is true to form.  Jim Glase has assured me that it will not rain the remainder of the week and we will finish on time. This means the concrete slab will be poured on Tuesday, the Pavers will be set on Wednesday and Thursday, the Mats will be installed on Thursday  and the sod and sprigs will be put in place on Friday.  Call me a dreamer, but I am really putting all my efforts in presenting a quality golf experience for our members and guests.  Unfortunately, this new and improved driving range tee   may be a few days behind schedule.  The golf course as a whole is recovering nicely from an intense round of cultural practices.  Be prepared to play on some sandy fairways and greens that are not 100%.  We appreciate your patience during this closure. This is the most aggressive and disruptive of them all and to throw in a DR renovation makes for an inconvenience for everyone.  

Below you will find a photo a piece of a equipment dropping piles of 90/10 mix to be evenly distributed throughout the tee.  This 90/10 is a greens mix.  We are building a Driving Range Tee in the same fashion that one would build a green.  Going forward, the placement and activity of the range  will be paramount.  I place great trust in the Pro shop staff in preserving the hitting areas.  

As we move closer to completion, we will get a little  more in depth.      

Adding 90/10 Mix

TGI ????

During our 11 day closures we typically don't have a set schedule.  We always start at the same time but we we will usually take advantage of good weather, momentum, timing or other circumstances of need that tend to dictate longer days.  Be it Friday Sunday or Tuesday during a closure, if there is something crucial that needs to be done we will stick it out.  Mother Nature decided to ring our bell early today.  I certainly did not mind, our team certainly deserved a break after a long hard fought week.  On their way out they asked if they could stay late on the weekend to make up for the lost time today.  That's the gift of having a team that knows our goals and what it takes to accomplish them.  

The majority of the course work that remains to be done includes topdressing the fairways and focusing on the play ability of the greens.   Both of these tasks are highly dependent on the weather.  We will start early and stay late to meet our deadlines.  

The concrete extensions are moving along nicely.  Our contractor has performed admirably, pouring in the morning and forming in the afternoon.  We should be able to back fill the edges next week and have them ready for traffic on Saturday.

The Driving Range Tee is on schedule, it is a tight one, but on schedule none the less.  Their crew has finished the drain lines this afternoon and will prepare the sub grade for the sand mix early next week.  As they focus on the DR Tee it may be that the Chipping area improvements are moved to the following week.  

We are looking forward to a busy weekend on the course and a very productive week.  Wish us luck!

A different Perspective