Progress on #7

Here we are after three days of construction progress at the #7 tee box. Erosion control, wall staking, utility marking, tree identification and removal of trees due to the impact of the new walls are complete. Thursday and Friday we begin removal of old walls.

Scroll down to the bottom of the blog to view an artist rendering of what the project will look like upon completion.

Disobeying Signs

Yesterday we had some golfers sneak out to some of our closed holes. The Vail GCM staff was tired of policing the area, so we had to bring out the "enforcer".

We have 13 great holes for play and it has been fairly busy out there.

Fairway Aerification

It is time to aerify fairways. The weather has been favorable. By the looks of this picture you may not even notice that big green tractor.

I love this aerifier because there is nothing to break, especially with all of the rock in the fairways.

We aerify fairways in three directions with this wheel to disturb as much of the surface as possible. There are 5/8th inch tines on the back and open up great holes. After letting the cores sit and dry out we drag them with a large plastic mat to break up the dirt from the thatch and plant material. Once the dirt is free, we use a large blower to push the thatch into the rough to be disbursed by mowers.

Today we attacked 4 & 5 fairways. The rest of the week is planned as follows:

Tuesday: Fairways: 6 & 7

Wednesday: 2 & 8

Thursday: 1 & 9

The back nine fairways will be aerified next week.

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

Construction on the 7th tee boxes begins today. Holes 3-7 will be closed for the remainder of the season. The 10th tee will be played as the first tee this week. After playing the back nine, holes 1,2,8 & 9 are available for play. I will load plenty of pictures onto the blog as we move through the construction this fall.

5 Days Until Construction

After three and a half years of planning to rebuild this tee box we are finally nearing the construction phase. The plan to be implemented, is truly the best scenario to enhance the 7th hole.

Landscapes Unlimited is already on-site and ready to begin on Monday, September 27th.

Pictured here is the stone that will be used to construct the new retaining walls. This rock is newly named "Vail Stone" which is a replica of the stone outcroppings that are present in East Vail along the golf course.

Yesterday, we conducted the pre-construction meeting. All entities were represented including the engineer, stone supplier, contractor, TOV and the VRD.

For all you golfers out there, beginning Monday, holes 3-7 will be closed for the remainder of the 2010 golf season. This tee box projected is expected to finish by November or when the snow falls. Access through the area is prohibited for the safety of all golfers and guests. There will be construction fence and signage present to warn all public that the area is closed. The teeing ground will be open for play for the spring of 2011.

Auditing Irrigation

We are a year removed from the irrigation installation and it is time to see how things are working. Monday, Rainbird conducted a audit on the system. We chose the 16th green and fairways for the testing. These are the same areas that were tested in 2008 by Colorado State University Extension from Mesa County. It will be great to see the comparison from old to new.

The old system was 55% efficient on the green and a mere 32% efficient on the fairway.

Wade Vecchio, our local Rainbird representative and Brian Keighan, president of Irrigation Technologies were on hand to perform the audit. The cups are placed every 10 feet on the green and are recorded by GPS. Next, each sprinkler head that waters the green is turned on one at a time to simulate a nightly watering. Each head was turned on for 6 minutes. During their cycles, the main flow from the head is tested for pressure (bottom picture). The desired pressure is 80 psi, which passed with flying colors.

The goal for collecting water in cups is to find the uniformity of the application, not the amount of water applied. Our goal is to be above 80% efficient. The fairways should grade higher because they are wide open spaces and the heads are placed in a perfect triangular pattern. However the wind did pick up slightly during the test for fairways, which will skew the numbers slightly.

Greens are different, because the odd shape of the greens and tighter spaces with trees and various terrain. A poor grade from the audit on greens will require adjusting/replacement of nozzles. Needless to say, I expect much higher grades than the 2008 scores. We are in the right direction, this test will tell us how much tuning we still need to accomplish. Over the next year, we will audit every green in-house to ensure uniformity.

Air, Water and Soils

With the dry conditions and warm temperatures we are going to substitute aerification with spiking on fairways and tees. Beginning Monday we will spike all fairways and tees on the course. It will take us all week and then some to complete all 18 holes.

During dry conditions the soils tend to lock up and become very hard. Maybe you have had a hard time getting tees into the ground. Water is having the same problem. Spiking will help loosen the soil profile and allow the water to enter the rootzone. Spiking is not a solution to aerifcation. Pulling cores removes thatch which is highly important. Unless we see some significant moisture soon, we will plan to aerify the entire course in the spring. Greens aerification will begin Monday, October 4th. Stay tuned for course maintenance and closures through October.

Championship Days

A beautiful day for golf. Temperatures have been in the 70's all week, conditions are dry and firm and perfect for scoring. Today began the two-day Club Championship for the men's and ladies' leagues. The greens are rolling at their best for the season and are consistently at 11.5 on the stimp meter. Which is slightly faster than normal. Our goal for the regular season is to maintain green speeds of 9.5-10 on the stimp meter.

For the best test for today's players, we mowed and rolled greens today. With the cooler temperatures, the mowers are not picking up much grass, however they remove any debris and clean up the surface. Following the mowers, we rolled most of the greens, for a smoother and quicker pace.

The stimp meter is used to measure consistency among the greens.

Not every green needs to be rolled to achieve the desired rolling speed. The 10th green is a great example. It was rolling so fast that we skipped rolling it and hand watered to soften the surface.

Players must put some thought into their approach to these greens and they will prove to be a great test for the championship.

Delayed Aerification

Recently we have had extreme dry conditions in the valley which has been good for golf, however we decided to postpone tee aerification. The aerification process does stress the plants and they require more water than normal to heal properly. It has been rescheduled for the end of September during cooler temperatures. Fairway aerification is still on schedule to begin on September 20th. More details to follow as we approach that date.

Tee Aerification Schedule

We are arriving to that time of year. Aerification is the most important maintenance practice for a successful winter and 2011 season. As shown here, aerification promotes root growth, removes thatch build-up on the surface, and allows for sand topdressing to dilute thatch, and smooth out the putting surface. We ask that you be patient with us as we work around weather and daylight to successfully accomplish this tedious process. We schedule these events to have the least amount of impact possible for golfers. Next week we'll begin with tees and September 20th we begin fairways. The tee schedule is as follows:

Monday, Sept. 6th: Back nine tees

Tuesday, Sept 7th: Front nine tees (10 Tee will act as the 1st tee for the day)

The fairway aerification schedule to follow.