Letter to Members and Staff

August 29, 2009

To the Membership and Staff of Valencia Country Club,

Sometimes opportunities can come our way that force us to make difficult decisions. I have made the difficult decision to leave Valencia Country Club to pursue an opportunity at Lakeside Golf Club. Admittedly this decision is bittersweet.
For the past eight years, Valencia Country Club has provided many avenues for my personal as well as my professional growth. I was able to host eight Champions Tour events, renovate the practice facility and other areas of the course, and most importantly, make improvements to the daily conditioning and manicuring of this Robert Trent Jones, Sr. layout. The current issues facing Lakeside will allow me to continue to grow as a professional and to broaden my experience. After eight rewarding years at Valencia, I am ready and excited to address the challenges that Lakeside Golf Club will offer.
I feel very fortunate for the many relationships I have made at Valencia. Jim Fitzsimmons had the confidence in me to give me the autonomy to make crucial decisions involving the golf course, our membership, and my staff. Our Head Pro, Craig Cliver, has not only been a pleasure to work with, but we were also able to form a Head Pro / Superintendent team that rivals the best in the business. Much needs to be said about my maintenance staff and our assistant superintendent, Jesus Reyes. He leads a dedicated crew on a daily basis to continually improve the golf course and meet our goal to provide one of the best maintained courses in Southern California. Finally, the relationships that I have formed with the Membership will not be forgotten. All of you have supported me through every frost delay in the winter and every 100- degree day in the summer. Thank you!
As I leave Valencia, I feel the course is in a good place. The course has survived the summer months well. The greens have full turf coverage and provide very good putting surfaces on a daily basis. Our fairway Bermudagrass populations are as high as I have seen during my eight years. With our new fleet of equipment, the maintenance operation has all the tools it needs for a successful overseeding this fall.
Jim has asked for my assistance in locating quality candidates for my replacement, and also to be involved in the interview process. I will assist him in every way possible to ensure that Valencia’s next superintendent be qualified to continue the high level of golf course maintenance that is a tradition at Valencia Country Club.
Respectfully,
Robert Hertzing

California Air Resource Board

On July 26, 2007, the California Air Resource Board (ARB) adopted the in-use off-road diesel vehicle regulation, which will reduce harmful emissions from off-road diesel vehicles that operate in California. The regulation applies to all fleets that own and operate self propelled off-road diesel vehicles with engines 25 horsepower or greater within California. Golf Courses may own a variety of affected vehicles such as mowers, sprayers, material haulers, and other diesel equipment used for golf course maintenance. Off-road vehicles are ones that cannot be fully registered to drive on roadways, and were not originally designed for use on roads.

This regulation requires all applicable fleet owners to report their off-road diesel vehicles to ARB and label them with equipment identification numbers (EIN).

Beginning this morning we are in fully compliance with labeling. We waited till that last minute to put on labels with the EIN's that were assigned. Unfortunately, there are regulations which dictate size and location of the EIN on each piece of equipment. As you can see in the photo the EIN is large and, in my opinion, unsightly.

More information regarding this regulation can be found at http://www.arb.ca.gov/

Driving Range Yardages

New on the Driving Range this morning are signs that tell you distances to the target flags. We have located six locations on the range tee for the signs. The location closest to the tee line on will be the sign that will be out that day. The Yardages are measured from where the sign is located. Hopefully this will help everyone dial in their game for the up coming Grupp Cup!

Drainage

This was the seen this past winter during a heavy rain. Behind #18 green the cart path and the slope have surface drainage that runs on to the putting surface. This created a difficult situation during one of the Men's Team Play matches because the pin location was where it is shown in the picture.

To help minimize the water shed that comes from behind 18 green we are installing sub surface drainage. The drainage will be typical with drainage that we have installed in other areas of the course. It will consist of a trench 12 inches deep. At the bottom of the trench there will be 2" layer of gravel put down before we a lay down a 3" perforated pipe. Then the trench will be topped with gravel and new sod installed on the top of the trench. This drainage will help minimize the amount of surface water that feeds on to the green. In addition to this drainage project, we will also be address a wet area on the right side of the #12 fairway. All of the work will take place over the next two days.

Procore 648

The first piece of our new equipment fleet I am going to profile is the Toro Procore 648. This machine is an aerifier for greens and tees and when it came on the market 5 years ago it revolutionized the way we look at aerifiers. It is faster and punches a cleaner hole the than any of the its competitors or predecessors. More information about the machine and a video can be found on Toro's website:

http://www.toro.com/golf/cultivation/aerator/green/648.html

It just happens we are going to use our new aerifiers at the beginning of next week. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we will be lightly topdressing greens and then using our aerifiers to spike the greens. The spiking allows for better water movement into the soil profile and faciliates gas exchange from the soil to the atmosphere. Once the greens are topdressed and spiked, the sand will be brushed into the canopy with push brooms and then rolled. Once the greens have been rolled the spike holes, which are a 1/4" in diameter, will not be noticeable. The greens will be rolled through the week as the sand settles into the turf canopy.

In order to accomplish this task in a timely manner and with as little disruption as possible there will be now early morning back nine play on Tuesday, August 18th and Wednesday, August 19th.

This morning we performed this process to the chipping green and the back portion of #17. Victor Reyes, Jr. is operating one of our new aerifiers in the photo:

Out with the old and in with the new.

If you were around the club last week you saw bits and pieces of some new equipment. Well, this week you are going to see the whole fleet. The lease on our high use equipment expired on August 1st, so out with the old and in with the new. We began the process of back in February with getting competative bids and then looking at leasing companies. Six months later all the pieces have fallen in place and now the golf course and members will benefit from a state of the art highly efficient fleet of equipment. We replaced 41 pieces of equipment, most of which are used on a daily basis. The new equipment allows the maintenance staff to be more productive and reduce the down time that we saw with aged equipment. In addition, the new equipment will provide a finer quality of cut, use less fuel and have lower emissions.

In future weeks I am going to profile the different pieces of equipment, their features and how we use them.

This a photo is of Federico Cervantes using one of our new Fairway mowers this morning.

July weather recap

Well the month of August has so far been kind in the weather department. The high temperatures have mellowed out and we are going to take adavantage of a few forecasted cool days. Monday and Tuesday this week we will be spiking and verticutting greens. Tuesday afternoon we will apply a light topdressing and then leach the greens with a heavy irrigation cycle Tuesday night to help push the sand into the turf canopy.
A quick recap of July's weather:

• all 31 days had a high temperature in excess of 90 degrees
• 23 out of the 31 days the temperature exceeded 95 degrees
• at one point in the middle of the month we have 7 days in a row where the temperature exceeded 100 degrees
• the hottest day of the month was the 19th where the mercury hit 108.

Good news is from all the hot weather is the bermuda in the fairways has transitioned nicely and good fairway surface conditions will exist till overseeding.