Great weather and solid progress, 11 days until sprigging begins!

McDonald and Sons has finished up the sand exchange to soil for our approaches. The sand that was removed has been placed behind 9 green and here by the bathroom on 5. This sand will be reused to topdress the sprigs over the next few months.

The sand was equally exchanged for fill soil and then topped with 4 inches of topsoil. The soil was harvested from the area left of #1 Sabot.

The approaches have all been sodded back with the same Latitude 36 bermudagrass. We will continue to roll, mow and topdress these approaches and they will play as firm and consistent as ever when the Manakin re-opens.

With the approaches finished in great time, the pros from McDonald and Sons moved on to a few bunker modifications that we mentioned last week. This back bunker on 9 green was filled and reshaped into a run off and collection area.

The middle tongue on 17 fairway bunker often trapped balls behind it making an exit very difficult.

The tongue was pulled back so the bunker presents fairly and also looks great from the tee.

The fairway bunker on 15 was also modified to eliminate the deeper tongue and the mouth was expanded out to the right to make it more visible from the tee.

We are also closing out construction on the new tees for the Manakin. This tee on 14 will split the white and the green tees and become a "silver" tee. We will roll out a full set of silver markers for re-opening. A total of 15 new tee boxes have been roughed in and are just about ready to be sprigged over.

On the prep side of things our crew has been busy spreading compost, aerating, grading, and working on irrigation. Sprigging will begin on Monday July 8th and take about 20 days to complete the entire course. We could use one more shot of rain next week to soften up the surface a bit, otherwise you will see the water start to fly from sprinkler heads late next week. Either way, we will be ready to go!