#7 Tee

For those of you that have not been out to play golf this week, we have begun to rebuild the 7th tee.  Before we started moving any dirt, we had a couple eucalyptus trees removed on the hill to the right of the tee, and a few others trimmed to get some additional sunlight to the area of the new tee location.  A temporary mat was installed at 97 yards from the green to use while the new tee is being built. 
On Monday we removed the sod from the area and began rototilling and leveling the new tee area.  We hope to finish this process this week, next week we will start hauling in a four inch sand base for the sod. Nest we will level and compact the sand, reinstall irrigation heads and sod the following week.   
When the new tee is completed it will be similar to the tee on #6.   It will be one level, the same height as the curb on the cartpath, slightly larger than #6.  Teeing distances for the new tee will be 112 yellow, 118 for the red, 122 white, and 132 for the blue and black tees. 
I will give more updates as the process continues, we are planning on opening the new tee in 4 to 6 weeks.
Below is one final picture of the tee before we started construction.

New Trees

If you have been on the course this week you probably noticed a few new trees being planted.  We have added a pine on the right of #4 fairway near the maintenance yard and a podocarpus about 75 yards from the green on the right, both were planted for future protection from balls leaving the course.  On the right of the 5th fairway we added three pines for the same reason.  We also added three California sycamores between the 10th green and the new black tee on #11.  Finally two oaks have been planted, one on #11 where we lost the large oak earlier this year and on the left of #16 fairway (pictured below) near where an oak is dying back.

BALL MARKS ON GREENS

We have been noticing more unrepaired ball marks than usual.  Below are instructions on how to properly repair a ball mark.  Please repair yours and any others you come across on the green as a ball mark repaired soon after being made recovers much faster than one repaired the next day. 

 

The right way to fix a ball mark

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Step 1:
Use a pronged ball mark
repair tool, knife,
key or tee.

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Step 2:
Insert the repair tool at the
edges of the mark; not the
middle of the depression.

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Step 3:
Bring the edges together
with a gentle twisting motion,
but don't lift the center. Try not to
tear the grass.

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Step 4:
Smooth the surface with
a club or your foot. Repeat
steps until the surface is one
you would want to putt over.

Channel 7 ABC

Below is the link to the interview from Channel 7 News yesterday on water savings.  Hopefully this will be the end to my 10 minutes of fame. 


http://abc7.com/weather/golf-course-takes-steps-to-conserve-water/240906/

LA Daily News

Here is a link the article in the Sunday LA Daily News about water conservation in case you missed it.

 http://www.dailynews.com/environment-and-nature/20140802/woodland-hills-country-club-beats-par-for-water-conservation

Maintenance Day

Today is a very busy maintenance day on the course.  We are venting or aerifing the greens with 1/4 inch tines.

This allows water and air to get down to the roots, this will help the grass plants to better handle the stresses of our summer weather conditions. 

We are also verticutting and aerifing the fairways.

The verticutting reduces the thatch that builds up in the kikuyu, and will create a tighter and healthier grass plant.  We will verticut the fairways again an about a month. 

The aerifing of the fairways will reduce compaction and allow water to better penetrate the soil, reducing dry spots. 

 

The greens will be finished today, but the fairways will take most of the week to complete.  We will restrict the carts to the path this week to allow the fairways to heal better.  Please bear with us for this busy week as these procedures will improve the health of the golf course and improve playing conditions thoughout the year.

Tee Improvement Project

We have completed the leveling part of the tee leveling project, below are before and after photos of the first tee.  Next, we will begin installing the bronze yardage markers and finish up more concrete block work.