We went out and made ourselves a mess this week on Sabot! All the fairways, approaches and tees were vertically mowed, just like the Manakin was a month ago. The difference is that the vamont bermuda here on Sabot is incredibly coarse and thick. The latitude bermuda is much finer on the Manakin. The texture difference combined with the simple age difference meant that the vamont produced an amazing amount of material for us to clean up.
Thankfully we have had some dry days and the clean up went relatively smoothly. There is no doubt that we pulled more material off 25 acres of the Sabot than we did over 55 acres on the Manakin.
Once cleaned up we moved on with the sand topdressing. The vamont ate up the sand as well and we needed about 4 extra truck loads (100 tons) to finish up the fairways, approaches and tees. The result of all this work will be a slightly better textured surface, but certainly firmer, thanks to the sand and reduced amount of thatch. The results are pretty immediate but the firmness should persist into the winter as well.
The new Tahoma bermudagrass lower range tee was opened this week while we ran the verticutter over the top tee. We will continue working from the front to the back on these tees and then spend a week on the mats to help catch up from the massive beating these tees take through the summer.
Work on our nursery green has made some good headway this week. Last week we made a 12" deep cavity (which mirrors our greens on the course) and this week we dug in new drainage. The old green was only about 5 inches deep and was thought to have drainage underneath, but it did not. We have placed all of sand mix inside the cavity and hope to get this green seeded with Pure Eclipse bentgrass (the grass we are using on the Sabot) next week.
Julio has been grinding away in the shade over here behind the clubhouse. A new set of steps and a paver path will connect this back parking lot to the lower parking lot.
Here is your Sabot irrigation excitement for the week. A snapped off hose connection on 11 tees.
A head literally broken in half producing a geyser all Saturday night on 6 tees.
A leaky bell end of a pipe from glue failure over between 11 green and 17 fairway. Almost no glue will be used with the new system!
We hope your family is enjoying the summer! I am sure these parents are explaining to their kids how to properly fix their hoof prints when they walk across the green!
