2014 Recap

As 2014 comes to an end I wanted to list some of the accomplishments for the year.  Most importantly I want to say Thank You to my crew, because without them none of this happens!

- New equipment.  NCC showed a commitment to me and the membership by leasing a new fleet of mowers.  This allowed for a better quality of cut on all playing surfaces, most notably Fairways. Since I have been here we have not had a true fairway mower, we had to use a 7 gang which is efficient but does not give a quality cut at the desired height.  By picking up new fairway units, I was able to put another machine in the Roughs, which meant we could keep up with the growth of Bermuda.  We maintained it all season at 1.25"-1.5".  That is the plan going forward.

- Coldest Winter in a long time.  The winter of 2013/2014 was one of the coldest winters on record.  Winter hit hard!  We had significant snow, above average rain, high winds, and many single digit days.   All of us with Ultradwarf Bermuda greens were very nervous in early Spring.  We covered the greens a total of 29 nights, compared to 6 nights the year before.  Needless to say my crew and I were glad when March came around!!

Tree Removal.  Call2Cut tree service was contracted to remove close to 300 trees.  This was step 1 for a major project involving trees and cart paths.  Most of the trees which affected the paths were removed, while others were because of disease, shade or various reasons.  For a job that is not clean, I was very impressed with the cleanliness of this crew.  Very few damaged areas, ruts or tire tracks.  We still have a few trees that need to come down for shade issues and a few have died, so expect them to be back out in 2015.

Cart Path repair.  We contracted a milling machine to grind ~50% of the paths.  After this was done the asphalt crew from McWaters Paving came in to grade out and pave.  While it may look "patchy" they are smooth.  I believe over time the fresh black will blend in with the old grey asphalt.

County road/Lake project #17.  Coweta Co. took on a major project which affected NCC and Newnan Pines.  It was determined that the overflow pipe was on the verge of failure, so the County saw the need to fix it.  After several months of driving on a temporary road it was completed in October.  While the lake was down, the club jumped on an opportunity to muck out the upper lake and build a dam to raise the water level.  Jay Ayers was extremely helpful in this project, Thank You Jay!  It was also decided to build a wall around the green.  Blackhawk Foundation was contracted for this and I think it turned out great.  It is a poured concrete wall now, but if we want we could drop the water and add some sort of rock for a really dramatic look, we can.  Thank You to All who assisted on this project.

In addition to this list, everyday maintenance and small projects consume our time. We try our best to stay on top of things, but often times detail work is put off until winter.   Trimming trees, cleaning out creeks/lake banks and detail work are projects we are currently working on. 

2014 has quite possibly been the busiest, most challenging season for me as a manager.  With the amount of projects going on and the club running without upper management for many months I am glad to see this season wrap up. I was also without an Assistant for 3 months, but have been blessed with a great individual who truly cares, David Hartfree.  I am sure many of you have met him.

We already have a few projects planned for next season. I am looking forward to 2015!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family!

Andy

Wall #17

The wall project is now complete. This week the crew laid 5 pallets of sod around the new wall. I am glad this project is done, as this has been a work in progress for quite a while. Thanks to all the groups and individuals who have helped make this possible.

We have been quite busy since last post!  We finally got rain, two heavy rainfall events dumping 1.5" and 1.75".  While I am thankful for it, I would rather have less, more frequent rains, as they came almost a month apart.  With heavy rains bring cleanup work, such as pumping and repairing bunkers, dragging fairways to clean grass clippings, limb pickup and washouts.  This cleanup typically takes the entire crew a 3-4 days.  We also experienced an artic blast, with lows in the upper teens.  We covered greens last Monday and kept them covered till Thursday.  Hopefully this cold snap was not a glimpse into the Winter ahead, as this was very early in needing to cover. Greens are looking and rolling great.

The wall project on #17 is nearly complete.  The wall is up and has been backfilled, my crew still has some fine grading left to do.  Hopefully in the next few weeks we will have it complete with new sod.  Several folks have commented on it and would like to donate money towards the project.  We will absolutely accept donations, feel free to drop it off to myself, in the office or contact a board member.  After the last rain the lake is now full.

If you have been out lately you have noticed the leaves are down for the most part.  A few varieties are still hanging on.  We continue to blow and mulch leaves daily.  When we get caught up we work on small projects, hopefully some you will notice.

See you on the course

Course Update

Temperatures are dropping!  Over the last few weeks a noticeable change in the air.  We continue on with Fall maintenance of the golf course.  That means ALOT of blowing, mulching leaves and catching up on projects.  Many projects are planned for the winter.  Hopefully you will begin to notice a few things we have already done.


The biggest project going on now is the wall on #17.  Work began a few days ago and if all goes well we should be done in a week or so.  Then we can close the valve on the lake and let it fill up.  I know the residents who have looked at a low lake for a while will be happy. 


Overall, I am pleased with the course as we head into Winter.  Pre-emerge has been applied, the height of cut has been raised on everything and we are ready for cold weather.  Hopefully this winter will not be as cold as last year.


See ya on the course!

Course Update

Finally, Fall is here!  This is my favorite time of year for many reasons.  College football, post season baseball, hunting and camping.  It is also when we get to catch our breath from the long Summer.  We have been blessed with a nice cool spell with lows in the 50's and highs in the 70's.  Before long we will be talking about Frost.


We continue to work hard on the course.  We have created several new mulch beds around the course, as we can now get back to course detail.  We are doing this on 4, 5 and 7 with several more areas on the list.  The course has been pre-emerged for winter weeds.  This will carry us until around February when I will do it again.  You may have noticed some dying weeds, we have sprayed out some areas to kill these weeds.  David(my new Assistant) has really helped with spraying weeds.  He knows his stuff and is a great asset to the club.  We have also begun blowing leaves.  With the low temps last week many trees began to drop leaves.  We will stay on top of that.


As with many of the things that require thinking ahead, we are monitoring soil temperatures.  We are in the time of year where we apply fungicide on the greens for Spring Dead Spot.  We look for a soil temp of 65 degrees.  We are within a few weeks of a first application.


One last big project of the year is a wall for #17 lake.  Hopefully this will begin within a few weeks.  This will not only help with maintenance, but will look awesome.  Feel free to donate money to a great project!


 See ya on the course!


P.S.  If you see any rain send it this way...we received just 3/4" in August.

Course Update

It's the end of August and things are winding down a bit.  School is back in session and a lot less golfers are out playing, mainly because of the heat wave.  We experienced Highs near 100 and heat index of 106.  On the other hand, we also experienced a few crisp mornings in the low 60's.  Fall is on the way! 


TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 2 ---Greens Aerification
The course will be closed for play on this day for us to aerify the greens.  We will be pulling a small 1/4" core and topdressing.  Recovery will be quick.  Thanks for understanding.


Congrats to our 2014 Club Champions:


Men's--Trevor Smith
Ladies--Annie Swords
Senior--Pick Parks
Super Senior--Dave Clemens


Hopefully you have seen the lake at #11 and #17.  Jay Ayers and his crew did an outstanding job building a Dam and mucking the lake.  The lake is full and holds a lot more water than in the past.  In a month or so they will grade out the dirt and we will seed it.  The road project is rolling along ahead of schedule.  I was told possibly October, instead of November, but weather dictates everything.  The area will look much better once the water is back in and the grassy weeds are submersed.


The cart paths are done and ride very smooth.  To clarify, we never planned to repave all the paths.  Many have asked why we only did certain areas, the answer is simple, Money.  It would cost over $500,000 to redo all paths.  We addressed the areas that were rough and we made them smooth.  We will continue to clean up edges.


I have hired 2 key position in my department.  David Hartfree is my new Assistant and Daniel Mims is the new mechanic.  I feel both will be great for our team.

Cart Paths, Kirby Invitational and the lake #17

Well it has begun, the milled areas on the paths are getting new asphalt.  It has been long overdue but hopefully in a week or so we will have repaired all rough spots.  Our budget only allows for the repair of spots, not everything.  Asphalt is expensive, possibly $500,000 or more if we did ALL the paths.  The crew started on #17 Wednesday July 30th and now holes 17-12 are done, minus some cleanup work.  The remaining areas have been milled and rolled and work should resume Monday August 4th. 


The 2014 Kirby Invitational was played last weekend and NCC member Trevor Smith won.  It is really neat to see so many club members in the hunt, as Carson Vaughn and Jordan Henry finished in the Top 5.  The course played tough as no one in the 146 man field broke Par.  Congrats Trevor!


If you have been out lately you may have noticed the new coffer dam on the lake at #17.  By building this it will allow us to keep the upper lake at a level we want.  Once we dry out a bit more we will begin mucking out and rebuilding our shoreline along #17-18.  In November when the county road project is complete we can the start filling both lakes.