Regular maintenance of Master Plan holes

Construction is complete.  All the sod has been laid and crews have all but left Bretton Woods. Now the hardest part of all starts: taking the improvements and integrating them into our maintenance routines.

Nearly everyone has seen and played the holes that were reconstructed this year. Almost all reviews have been positive. The overwhelming feeling from the Grounds department is just the same. While the changes were made to improve many aspects that were lacking from the old course and to make maintenance easier, this does not eliminate the challenge of taking something completely new and deciding how it should be best maintained. New lines to denote where fairways end and approaches start must be marked; step-cut lines must be set; the line between what we can and cannot mow on the bunker face grass must be established. All of this takes time and patience. There will be some times where it may look as though we have forgotten to mow an area completely, or where a certain area appears to have been mowed shorter than it needed to be. This is all part of getting new turf and new holes to fit into Bretton Woods' style of maintenance. For example, new sod on the tees is walk-mowed initially to help smooth the turf but also to discourage the forming of ruts from the tires of a heavier machine. We will not walk-mow forever but lighter machines help the young turf get established. As the sand base of the tees has time to settle and naturally compact it will be able to handle the weight of a bigger machine. We also push mow much of the new rough sod prior to using a heavier machine. Again, this prevents damage done by being too aggressive too early.

As mentioned, we also have new mowing pattern lines to figure out. For example, the forward tees on #3, 4, 15, and 17 each meld directly into the fairway. Marking where each mower hands off duty to the next machine must be painted and our staff must add this into their routine. Our plan is for the fairway to come nearly all the way to the teeing surface. From there the smaller tee mower will take over. There will not be a step-cut line between the forward tees and fairway on these holes. All of the Bermuda sod came to us mowed at the same height from the sod farm. Therefore, anywhere that we will establish the step-cut, we must only let the turf grow. At first this will look as though it has been forgotten. Some areas will grow at different rates than others. It may look uneven for a time. Once the Bermuda grows enough to be cut in all places, though, it will give a distinct line between the fairway and step-cut.

The same is true for the bunker faces. We will initially mow all of the new sod to the same shorter height in order to help it root. As it grows we will begin to define the taller, shadowy, face versus the lower cut rough grass. Again, there may be times where the area that we are letting mature to be the taller face will look inconsistent and unkempt. However, once the majority of the rough reaches a certain height we are able to then make a clean cut and begin our regular routine as we do on previously reconstructed holes #’s 5-9.

All of this takes some time and the skill of our staff in adjusting to several different holes being in several different phases of maintenance. Now that all areas of this year’s Master Plan work are open and playable, adding these wrinkles into the maintenance routine is the next challenge.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org