84" Boxed Coast Live Oak Installation

Yesterday we had the pleasure of receiving an 84" boxed Coast Live Oak tree that our owner Lee Brandenberg picked out a few months back.  It was selected for the wedding patio where we happened to lose a tree similar in size 4 years ago.  This tree will be a major improvement for the aesthetics of the wedding patio and will also provide ample shade for the summer weddings.  

According to the team at Arborwell, the tree we got should have been in a box of at least 120".  Being that the Oak was in its 84" box for what is guesstimated at a minimum of 5 years (18" trunk size!), the wood that made up the box was rotted out.  That meant that we couldn't even pick up the tree with the crane from its original packaging.  The Arborwell team quickly made some new walls using some 3" x 12" bridge planks that we had on-site.  With the new walls up, the tree was easily lifted from the truck and up the hill to its final resting place on the wedding patio.  

I  specifically mention the team of Arborwell so much because I was really impressed with the work they did.  The Arborwell group had a long relationship with the crane operator and the crane operator had worked with the hauler on many other tree installs.  Everybody knew how everybody worked and it couldn't have gone any smoother.  See the time lapsed video of the install below to see just how smooth it went.

My Week at the Fry's.Com

For the third straight year I have had the opportunity to change cups for the Fry's.Com at CordeValle.  Each year I have been there, the course setup just keeps getting better.  I also picked up some education just talking with the staff which is the main reason I volunteer for this event.

One of the big changes this year was to the bunkers. In years past, the bunkers were raked with a machine.  This never resulted in a quality HAZARD and hand raking was always required after.  This year the staff hand raked the bunkers using leaf rakes and they looked great.  They also raked them in the direction of the green or fairway which was typically across the grain.  Our thinking was that it would prevent the ball from rolling down to the flat of the bunker, but that was never confirmed.

Spending 30 hrs with at a quality facility with a great staff, you can't help but pick up a few things.  One lesson I learned that I won't soon forget is that now matter how long you have been doing something, a refresher can't hurt.  Being that the cup cutters haven't changed in three years, we were set out on our way to do the job.  For the most part we did our job well, but we did have some error on the painting of the cups.  Our error resulted in the dreaded 'call back'.  PGA Tour agronomist, Tom Brown, always stresses that you never want to be called back out on the course after setup is complete no matter how small the error.  On number 16, we didn't paint the cup enough and we had to go back out and repaint it with players on 14.  Following the 'call back' we had a refresher class and from there we were good to go.  Hopefully everybody's blood pressure has come down from that mistake.

Another item that was re-iterated was to always expect the unexpected.  On Wednesday night, a small storm passed through that included hail.  The only green hit with hail was the 13th and resulted in about 500 ball marks.  The crew had to get all available ball mark tools and fix it that night.  Just what you want prior to a PGA event.

Lastly, I'd like to thank Golf Course Superintendent Tom Gray for having me out.  I don't know how I was selected to be a cup cutter, but it has really been a lot of fun.  What's also great about Tom, is that almost every morning I got to sit in his office for about 15 minutes and talk about turf and golf.  I don't know what it is like at other facilities hosting a PGA Tour event, but I have a feeling that my experiences at CordeValle are pretty unique.  

Sod Stripper

The turf on 9 lake is officially dead and we put new sod in today while the lake course was closed.  Being that the majority of the dead areas are less than 3" wide, we used a 3" sod stripper which turned out to be a great tool.  Since we don't have one, I leaned on our neighbor John Redmond of Almaden Country Club to borrow his.  Just another reminder how nice our profession can be considering what led to this situation.  Thanks John!  I will be purchasing our own this week knowing that this world isn't short on jerk off's (is that with an apostrophe?).

Course Vandalism

It has been a while since I had last posted and I was excited to write about something that we are currently working on in the Canyon course.  That excitement ended yesterday when we discovered vandalism on the 4th and 9th green of the Lake course.

I don't know what the product was that was used, but it certainly has left its mark. What I can deduce is that it was most likely some type of pressurized product.  You can tell on 9 lake that the potency definitely decreased as length increased.  There was also an off spray outside of the dead line of turf.  

9 lake is definitely the worst of the two greens and I am currently working on an action plan.  The options are sod or sod at this point. Typically in these situations, the soil also becomes contaminated and makes germination of any new sod impossible.  Before any rash decisions are made, I am having another set of eyes out on the property to help weigh my options.

On 4 lake, if you look closely, there are a lot of green blades among the blackened turf.  I will definitely give this a day or two to show some improvement.  From the looks of it, this may have been the last bit of whatever was in the pressurized container.