A Big Thank You!

The weather cooperated for all yesterday at the "Bring a Guest for Free" Membership Appreciate Day. A big thank you to all who came out and all who have supported us all year. Hartefeld is truly a special place and the members make a big part of that.

My team and I hope you all enjoyed the golf course yesterday and look forward to warmer weather over the next couple days.

8 and 14 greens

Over the summer 8 and 14 greens took the worst from the weather. There were many contributing factors and over the next several months we are looking to mitigate these issues in hopes of not seeing a reoccurence in the future. As the USGA stated very clearly, "grass can deal with heat, grass can deal with wet soggy conditions, grass can't deal with both at the same time." The greens simply suffered from wet wilt. The issue is not always a surface issue, but one that begin feet under ground and work itself to the top. During the week of July 12th, we received thunderstorms every morning, dumping over 1" of rain each storm. Daytime temps reached over 100 degrees! These two greens began super heating and roots quickly began to die.

These greens have greatly recovered, but still need some help. On Monday November 8th, we will remove the bad areas of these two greens. This process will take us the entire day, as patching areas like this takes time to ensure it is done properly. Doing this type of sodding without 100% attention will cause the putting surface to remain bumpy AFTER the sod heals. On Tuesday the 9th, we will have the sod delivered to ensure it is a fresh as possible and we will begin resodding these areas. Both of these greens will be temped for at least the 8th, 9th and 10th. Following the completion of the sodding, parts of these greens will be roped off.

I will post additional information as we get closer to the 9th.

Blog posting

Over the last 2 months, I have been absent from creating any detailed blog posting relating to course information. Without a doubt, this season has bee the most diffiuclt season I have had in my 17 years. Many reasons have put this summer on record for me, some of which was out of our control even beyond weather. There has been communication over the last few weeks from Joe Mackely that has touched on some of our issues. I am not one to over promise and under deliver, so I felt better to only commuincate the most important issues.

Moving forward, I am looking forward to beginning to blog on a regular basis. My team and I have a lot we are looking to accomplish and looking forward to getting started.

Thank you again for your support and patience.

Bunker cleanup videos

Below are videos of our bunker cleanup from the Tropical Storm that hit on 9/30. We received 6 inches of rain, most coming overnight last night.

Tropical Storm

Yesterday the following was sent out via Hartefeld newsletter.

As I write this email, the storm total is at almost 2.5" inches of rain. Through the weather forecasting tools available to me, forecasts are showing the worst is still to come. Overnight tonight and ending in the AM tomorrow will be the worst of the storm. Tornado warnings are predicted to move north later this afternoon to cover our area. Earlier this week we received 1.25 inches of rain over Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, the crew and I put a full court press on the course to try to get as much grass cut as we could with the impending weather we are now receiving.

Tomorrow as the storm is finishing our plan beginning at 6:30am (if the weather permits) is to begin course cleanup. We will also complete cup changing, course setup and the arduous task of restoring bunkers. Yes, Hartefeld does drain exceptionally, but the ground is still saturated, there is a difference. With the ground as wet as it will be, we will only be able to mow limited areas tomorrow. We will be putting a long day in tomorrow and will resume mowing on Saturday. Saturday you will see more mowers than usually, as we typically don't like to do heavier maintenance on the weekends because of play.

The timing of this storm makes our normal weekend conditioning difficult, but we will be working hard to provide the best possible conditions.

Update:
The storm total was a hair under 6". Yesterday evening I toured the course and with the exception of some debris we were fairing well. Then we got dumped on. Arriving this morning in the dark and touring the course the bunkers were destroyed. We have major washouts. As I stated above, this a very long and arduous task. We have the entire crew working on this task today. Either late today but definitely tomorrow we will begin mowing the course.

Thank you for your cooperation.


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