As you may recall, the Medal tee on #9 got lumped up last summer when a municipal water supply line ruptured beneath it ("It could have been worse"). Given that a good bit of the tee remained useable, we opted to wait until the off-season to regrade it, and we tackled the project this past week.
The process started by stripping the existing Bentgrass. You might never realize how large some of our tees are--until you pick up all of the sod from them.
With a good amount of thatch accumulation on this par 5 tee, we actually went over it twice with the sod cutter. The first time was to harvest the Bent, and the second was to strip the layer of organic matter beneath it. So, yes, if you think picking up this much sod once is fun, doing it twice was really something! Once the sod was removed, we had a contractor come in to re-level the surface.
After grading was completed, we had the pleasure of replacing the Bentgrass.
One of the final steps was to roll the tee. Until the tee is ready for use this spring, we will be shifting the Medal markers to either the front of the Palmer tee, or rear of the Honors tee.
One thing we typically take for granted in January is not having to look over our shoulders when working on the course. That has not been the case this month, as the mild temperatures brought out plenty of members, and had us dodging balls like it was April.
No comments:
Post a Comment