Master Plan recap continued

"A picture is worth a thousand words." To continue to celebrate the conclusion of the Master Plan, this week's blog will be lots and lots of pictures. We tried to select some representative pictures of every hole on the course. Some are better than others. Some holes we have pre-renovation and post-renovation pictures and other holes we only have post-renovation. Please enjoy.

On the left is the view from the tee before construction and the right is from the fairway to the green after work was complete.

On the left is pre-renovation and the right is post-renovation.

The picture on the left gives an idea of how much dirt was moved and grass replaced. The two pictures on the right are
both after renovation.

The picture on the left is an example of one of the main objectives of the Master Plan: drainage. The picture on the
right is after work was complete.

The left picture is before construction. Both pictures on the right are post-renovation.

The left and top right pictures are pre-construction. The bottom right picture is post-construction.

The left and top right pictures are before work and the bottom right is after work was complete.

Both pictures are after construction was complete.

This picture is following construction work.

The picture on the left is the left green bunkers before construction. The picture on the right is the green complex after
work was complete.

The picture on the left is a view from tee to fairway pre-renovation. The picture on the right is the same view
post-renovation.

This picture is during renovation.

This picture is post-renovation.

The top picture is after construction was complete. The bottom two pictures are both before construction.

The bottom left picture is another example of the need for drainage work. At the time of the picture, those puddles had
already been there for two days. The top and bottom right pictures are both after work was complete.

The picture on the left is pre-renovation and the picture on the right is post-renovation.

The top picture is pre-construction and the bottom picture is post-construction.

The picture on the left is before construction. Another main objective of the Master Plan was to fully rebuild bunkers
that no longer drained properly. This picture is a perfect example. The picture on the right is after construction.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please be conscious to not cut corners with your golf cart. The inside edges of turns are easily worn out after repeated traffic.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org

Master Plan recap

All earth moving has been completed for the Bretton Woods Master Plan. This is a tremendous achievement for the club and the golf course. It cannot be overstated the importance in persevering through to the end of this project. No one knows this better than former Superintendent and Current Assistant General Manager/Director of Grounds, Bryan Bupp. We felt he could provide a unique perspective having been here for the entire process. Below are his thoughts on where we came from to where we stand today:

The Master Plan of Golf Course Renovations was truly a deferred maintenance program. What players notice are the enhanced design elements, but the meat of the plan has much farther reaching benefits. To illustrate some of the maintenance benefits, we have some interesting comparisons from prior to the beginning of the renovations (2005) and today.

2005                   2017

% live turf coverage in fairways Aug 15:                  < 50                     100                                                

Number of bunkers needing repair after 1” rain event:   14                  0               

Labor hours to repair damaged 

bunkers after 1” rain event:                                         12                         0

Number of bunkers holding water after 1” rain event:    32                      0

Labor hours to remove standing 

water in bunkers after 1” rain event:                             30                        0

Fairways and Tees mowing days lost after 1” rain event:    2                    <1

Average number of ducks 

swimming in 15 fairway after 1” rain event:               3                     0, no puddles to swim in

Greens maintenance days lost after 1” rain event:      1                        0 typically

Turf quality rating on 

#7 Green in August:                                          Poor to Ugly                Good to Very Good

At my first day of class as a turf student at the University of Maryland, my Turf Management 101 professor told the entire class that if anyone could give him the three most important factors in successful turf management, that student would receive and A for the semester and not have to come back to class. After a few minutes of desperate guessing, he told us that nobody was correct. He then listed these factors on the whiteboard:

1.       Drainage

2.       Drainage

3.       Drainage

The point to this is that of all the things we see and all the things we accomplished, the most enduring, most important and most successful accomplishments are Drainage, Drainage and Drainage.

There is an exciting aspect to having construction work occurring on the course during the summer. However, the Grounds department is particularly excited for the summers to come because we will be 100% focused on maintaining the course and not splitting focus with construction work. We hope you enjoy the improvements to the course.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please be conscious to not cut corners with your golf cart. The inside edges of turns are easily worn out after repeated traffic.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org

Converting tees to Bermuda grass

As part of the finishing touches of the Master Plan, we will be re-sodding the ryegrass tees on 6, 7, and 9 to Bermuda grass. This will be occurring over the next few days. During this transition, tee markers may be in different locations.

The tees on 6 are all still ryegrass so the tee markers will be placed in the rough in front of the tee boxes. We will mow a clean area for the markers.

On holes 7 and 9, there is only one individual tee box on each hole that remains to be converted. On these holes, the tee markers will be moved forward or backward a single tee box to accommodate the work.

Once the new sod has started to root, we will begin to incorporate it into our maintenance. However, please remember, we will be mowing the new sod at a higher height of cut for the remainder of this season. We expect these new tee boxes to be back into regular rotation within 2 weeks.

Thank you for your patience during this period. The transition to Bermuda grass is for the overall improvement of the course.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please be conscious to not cut corners with your golf cart. The inside edges of turns are easily worn out after repeated traffic.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org

Seeding ballmarks

Ball marks are an unavoidable aspect of golf. No matter the region, membership, skill level or any other factor, every course has to deal with ball marks. In a perfect world every ball mark would be fixed immediately after creation, but that is never the case. The grounds department uses 2 main tactics to combat ball marks on a regular basis.

If you are interested in more information regarding the steps to fix a ball mark, please read this post from the summer of 2016. There are different ways to fix a ball mark. Sometimes, some of the information can be almost contradictory. However, as long as a golfer does not try and pry the soil straight back up to level the surface, most other tactics will end in a better result than doing nothing. Yet, ball marks are always still present, and we can’t spend our time fixing every single one.

The tiny seedlings from our sand
and seed mixture are visible
in the center of this ball mark

Our fist strategy to helping minimize the negative aspects of ball marks is through sand topdressing. Topdressing provides many benefits to the turf grass and to the playability for golfers. One of those benefits is that it helps to smooth the putting green. Ball marks are one of the low areas that sand can settle into and fill in, so that the ball mark is even with the rest of the green. When we spread the sand, the ball mark accumulates more sand than the area around it, thus filling in. We do not add seed to the sand when we are just topdressing, so healing occurs from grass around the ball mark growing inwards. The key, though, is that the sand ensures that the new grass is growing at nearly the same height as the rest of the putting green, rather than in the bottom of the ball mark.

We spend most of our time filling ball marks with our sand and seed mixture during the fall, when the weather is much more ideal for seed germination and growth. Following up on this post from last fall, we have continued to use our ball mark repair tool. This tool deposits a small amount of sand and seed into the ball mark. The sand levels the surface and the seed establishes new grass in the vacant hole.

We don’t expect the battle against ball marks to end any time soon. Luckily, we do have some techniques for contending with the issue and maintaining the best putting surfaces possible.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please be conscious to not cut corners with your golf cart. The inside edges of turns are easily worn out after repeated traffic.

See you on the course!

Joe
jvillegas@bwrc.org