July 4th!

July 4th marks an important day for golf course maintenance here at VCC. One of our goals and objectives for the golf course is superior playing conditions from January 1st to July 4th. Now this is not to say that we slack off for the rest of the year, it is just in the first half of the year when our grasses and conditions allow us to achieve excellence. Around this time of year is when the heat starts to take its toll on the ryegrass in the roughs. The greens also become stressed from the consistently warm temperatures. In addition, we start to see the short comings of a 22 year old irrigation system. However, we still work hard to produce very good playing conditions through the rest of the summer till overseeding.
I would consider this year to be a success. Starting with Men's Team play and working our way through all of the major golf events that we host for the year and finally wrapping up with Women's Team Play and the President's cup, I feel that our maintenance staff has been able to produce to outstanding conditions for every event. And today leading into the July 4th weekend the greens are reading 11 on the stimpmeter and the fairways have a 100% turf coverage with the bermuda transition progressing nicely. My hat is off to my staff, they are the ones that get it done on a daily basis.
One interesting bit of information and reasoning for why we focus so much on the first six months of the year: 70% of the total rounds of golf for the year are played in the first half of the year.
With fewer people on the course in the next two months it allows us to accomplish some projects that can only be done in the summer months.
Starting this week we re-leveled a sunken area in #2 approach and re-sodded with bermuda grass a weak area around the drain in #10 fairway and the left side of #17 fairway.

Here are two photos from these projects


Beginning next week more projects will be under way. A few of the projects scheduled for this summer include:
1. Renovation of the large bunker at the chipping green. Sand as accumulated in excess amounts on top of the bunkers thereby not allowing the player to see the putting surface from the bunker.
2. Re shaping of greenside bunkers on # 9, #10, and #18
3. Re leveling and sodding of Lake edge on #8
4. New stairs to #4 and #8 gold tee
5. Repair of Cart path where it is shared for #12 and #15.
6. Addition of bunker sand to the greenside bunkers.


As we work our way through these projects I will be posting updates as to our accomplishments and the process that we will be going through.

Happy 4th of July!