From Snow to Go!

    It was the winter that just wouldn't end and when it did, it seemed to go right to summer. Well at least for a few days. The course opened Tuesday April 30th with a High temperature of 72º. The next day we started an irrigation project around the greens on holes #2 and #3. We updated the old electric valve controlled block system with new valve in head sprinklers. The first phase of the project was to get power and communication wires 1500 feet to the location of the new satellite controller. After going over our options to do this we decided on renting a small walk behind vibratory plow to sneak the wires to the new location. This turned out to be a great decision that not only saved us many labors hours, it only took 3 of us 2 1/2 hours to make the run with minimal ground disruption.

 
  Phase 2 of the project was trenching and installing the new pipe, control wires, sprinklers, and satellite controller. The first day of trenching started out with a morning snow shower followed by some freezing rain. While it isn't exactly the best weather to be working in. But it kept the rounds of golf down which in turn allowed us to work around the greens almost non-stop without having to stop for golfers. The bulk of the installation was done in around 2 1/2 days with only a few lose ends to tie up the following week. We still have a little fine tuning to do with the sprinklers once we see how the area responds to the more efficient better coverage of water. 

Scorecard Caddies

 We recently just built four new Scorecard Boxes for the golf course replacing the faded recycled plastic green boxes. These new boxes have the same cedar look to match the rest of the course accessories on the course. They will be placed by the walking path from the Putting Green to 1 blue tee, in wood chips left of the blue tee on 10, the same area right of the tees on 2, and right of the blue tee on 11. 


Landmark Golf Course Products - 1 Score Card Box $495 / 4 - $1980

Burl Oaks Golf Club in house -  1 Score Card Box $50 / 4 - $200

Savings - $1780

So...How about that weather.

    Looking out the window at piles of snow getting blown around by an icy wind makes it hard to believe today is the spring equinox. But indeed, March 20th is officially the first day of spring. Its hard to believe we opened the golf season last year one day after that date on March 21st with a daytime high temperature of 66º. It does not look like that is going to happen this year with some areas still having 6" or more snowpack and daily high temperatures hanging around in the mid 20's. This winter has been very erratic with rain in January and blizzards in March which shows that you can never be too sure of what good old mother nature is going to throw at you. Because March can be a month that is a transition month between winter and spring, I decided to put together some historical weather data to see if  last years 80º temperatures in mid March were abnormal or normal. Here is what I found, I'll let you decide what is normal.

Burl Oaks Golf Club 

opening dates for the last 5 years:

2012: March 21st

2011: April 9th

2010: March 30th

2009: April 10th

2008: April 18th

Paint,Paint,Paint.

      In the Few shorts weeks since the last post we have engineered the design for the new cooler stands. After constructing a paint booth, we are now in the process of painting the metal components of the cooler stands along with some of our metal tools such as cup cutters, cup setters and ball mark repair tools. 

Paint booth

Misc course tools

Shortly after we closed the doors for the season Nathan asked me to revamp our breakroom/office area. We relocated the lockers that used to line 2 of the walls in the breakroom to the shop area providing the extra room needed to create an office space for me, Benny, and Josh. Once I added 2 wall outlets for internet and one for power the room was fully painted. Everything got a fresh coat of paint from the ceilings to the floor. Josh's desk was then moved in from its old location in the shop coupled with 2 new desk's Nathan scored for free on craigslist to complete the new office side of the breakroom. 

Office side of breakroom

Section of lockers in shop area

                              

We now have a new sign posted by our shops front door to make sure there is no mistakes in identifying our building as the Turfgrass Facility. Believe it or not we get a few strays from outside events up here looking for the clubhouse.