Water, Water, How did you get here?

For those who were on the Advisory committee last year, you had the opportunity to see first hand how we get out water, the pump station that feeds the golf course and the computerized sprinkler system that controls the 1800 sprinkler heads that are on our property. For those who did not get the behind the scenes tour of our irrigation system here is the cliff note version:

Valencia Water Company's Well #160 sits just outside of our maintenance facility adjacent to the #18 tee. This well sits 2000 feet deep and is powered by a 200 hp motor. In a deal that was struck 20 years ago, Valencia Country Club, the original owner of the well, retained water rights that were necessary to supply the course with irrigation water, while releasing all other water rights and ownership of the well to the Valencia Water Company. In a nutshell, we get all the water we want and in return for their ability to take water, they have to provide all maintenance and repairs to the well. Controlled by an automatic sensor, the well is operated to keep our irrigation lake full. Our irrigation lake is the one that comes into play on holes #11, #15, and #16.

With a separate pumpstation, pumping out of the irrigation lake, we supply the irrigation system with water and maintain 120 psi of pressure at all times. Our pumpstation that supplies our irrigation system was replaced seven years ago and is a Variable Frequency Drive that controls 2 -75 hp vertical turbine pumps and one 25 hp submersible pump. It's rated pumping capacity is 1800 gallons per minute. This set up allows for the flexibility to supply the golf course with water when it needs it and does so in a very electrically efficient manner.

So why the dissertation of our pumpstation? If you were playing golf last Tuesday you noticed that a large crane was at the Pump Station adjacent to #11 and #17. This crane was removing one of Vertical Turbine Pumps and taking it in for repair. The removal of this motor cut our pumping capacity by 40%. Now that we have hit 90 degrees on Easter Sunday we are struggling to pump all the necessay irrigation water in the hours of darkness. While the pump is out for repair over the next two weeks it may be necessary to water some parts of the course during the day. We will be doing our best to minimize the impact to golfers and I thank you for your patience during this time. We hope to have the pump and motor repaired and reinstalled within two weeks. Here are two photos of the inside of the pumpstation. Note in the one photo the big hole is where the other vertical turbine motor normally sits.

Kudos to the Staff!

After another successful AT&T Classic, I need to tip my hat to my staff. I am very fortunate to have our Assistant Superintendent, Jesus Reyes, who has been here for 26 years. He is a great leader of the staff and strives on a daily basis to make sure the golf course is presented well for the members. I am also fortunate to have Victor Reyes as our equipment manager. It is a big job to ensure that all the equipment is functioning properly everyday and he takes great pride in his work. Aaron Morris is our second assistant superintendent, who recently completed his education at Rutgers Unversity and has been a huge addition to our staff. Here is a staff photo taken on Saturday Afternoon of the tournament. In addition to our full time staff we had a few volunteers from neighboring golf courses and high schools in the community.

Green Speed and the Stimpmeter

As we are in AT&T Classic week a big question is: What are the greens stimping?
I guess my question back is: Do you know what stimping means?
A Stimpmeter is basically a ramp that allows for the consistent and fair measurement of green speed on a particular course. It was never intended to compare speed on different courses, thus it is incorrectly misused by many. A notch at the top of the Stimpmeter holds a golf ball in place until the instrument is lifted to a standard height. When released, the ball rolls down a groove on the Stimpmeter and onto the green. The distance the ball rolls, in feet, is the speed or "stimp" reading for the green. For accuracy, several readings are taken from different directions and averaged. The instrument was named after Edward Stimpson, who loved golf and wanted to create a measure of fairness.
So now that we are all on the same page as to what stimpmeter is and what the number means that is obtained, the greens this week are stimping 11.25'. This is the goal that the champions tour had and we are doing our best to maintain this speed for the remainder of the week.
To put this number in context for our members, during team play this year the greens were stimping 12'. For the member-guest last week they were at 11.75' and for the member-guest last June they were 11.5'.