5+ more inches of rain, Sabot closed Friday

 

After a nice dry start to November we have once again gotten crushed by rain.

After 11 dry days the Sabot was just finally starting to dry out. Now, the fairways are literally unplayable and walking on them brings up straight mud. Hopefully the sun dries things up a little bit on Friday and we can let play back out on Saturday on the Sabot. Either way, carts will be on paths for a long time and even push carts coming off the path will be doubtful through the weekend.

Water is headed towards Kinloch as fast as possible.

We made a number of preparations this week for the rain, the simplest being putting out straw bales and sand bags in normal problem areas where massive amounts of water run.

We had already made the decision to solid tine aerate the Sabot fairways starting Monday. We poked all the fairways about 4 inches deep and finished up Tuesday. 

The deep tine aerators went out to the wettest fairways on the Sabot and poked 8 inch deep holes. Both of these processes will encourage water to get off the playing surface faster.

The aerations were followed up by a sand topdressing on Monday and Tuesday. 250 tons of sand was spread on all the fairways in order to help firm up and dry out the surface. 

Another team of people performed some surgery on 2 fairway starting Monday. A number of drain lines were cut in and then backfilled with pipe and sand. This new drainage will eventually help dry out this landing area on 2.

The lines were sodded back over and then the fairway was aerated and topdressed.

We also dug out the old water wick machine and got it working. The water wick uses a vibratory plow to cut about an 8 inch deep slit and allow for dry sand to fill in the void. Ben ran a number of drain lines on 3 fairway and 16 fairway to help move water off the surface faster.

The 5 inches of rain has cleaned up the water wick lines nicely! This machine will be out and about as much as possible over the winter.

Manakin greens are also enjoying the rain and not being mowed for two days. The aeration holes are filling in like its May 12th, not November 12th.

The bermuda knows what date it is though. We have had a few light frosts and the sun angle is getting lower and lower. With the leaves still hanging around on the trees and all this rain, both courses are going to be soft for the foreseeable future. Please be patient, and remember to fix ballmarks and replace divots while we try to get things back into shape!