Salvaging construction sod

Construction on holes 2 and 13 started recently. We are working in an area that has the least amount of disturbance to play and therefore allows the construction crew to work earlier in the season. As portions of the tees on #2 and 13 have been demolished, we have taken the opportunity to salvage some good grass and use it other places on the golf course.

First, we stripped some Bermuda grass from #2 tee that was behind #1 green. This tee had been converted to Bermuda grass about 5 years ago and had good performing turf. However, with the renovations, new turf was installed. Instead of throwing all of the good Bermuda grass away though, we salvaged enough to make a repair in another area of the course. You may remember that this is not the first time we have saved sod from construction. Back in 2014 we used fairway sod to renovate some tees on holes 5-9. You can read more about that here. There is a drain about 20 yards into the start of #8 fairway where soil had eroded away from around the drain. We were able to clear around the drain, seal the leak in the pipe that caused the washout, and use the salvaged Bermuda grass as sod after completion. We used very little sod, as you can see in the picture, but nevertheless, the Bermuda grass that we used was healthy, adapted to our environment, and free.

We also need ryegrass sod for come collar areas where Bermuda grass is intruding. You can read more here about the problem and some steps we have already taken towards a solution. We were planning on waiting to use the approaches form holes #11 and 13 for the majority of our work, and we will still use that material. But, we also salvaged a small section on #13 tee, without removing any teeing ground. Again, even though it was only a little bit of sod work that we did, we were able to cross several Bermuda areas off of our list. We renovated collar sections on holes #6, 7, and 12. This work consisted of sod we weren’t necessarily planning on using and finished 3 areas ahead of schedule.

Being able to repurpose sod already on site is a huge boost. Our to-do list gets shorter and we save time and material costs.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

In addition to repairing your own ball mark on every green, please repair at least one other as well.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org