November was the driest month since September 2019
The dry weather has kept us very productive this "off season" so far. On Monday Ben and Sloan took the excavator over to 5 approach and cut in a new drain here. The new bermuda approach did well here last season but some extra drainage in the bottom will help it through any wet periods.
The trench was filled up with gravel, pipe and sand and then sodded back over. The greens are looking great and rooting in very well. It is difficult to pull any sod back up at all as we cross over the 1 month mark.
Here are a couple of interesting photos from the nursery. We have saved some bentgrass sod and kept it growing on plastic just in case we needed it. This is the old L93 from 8 green. It has been dry and in true nursery area form, this sod has been neglected.
Not much rooting going on with the L93.
The extra pieces of Pure Eclipse have had the same amount of water as the L93 and still look great.
And the rooting is strong! This is what you are getting in the new greens, new genetics and a much improved turfgrass.
The largest undertaking of the week was working on the trees right of 16 fairway. The right side of 16 has remained wet for years, mainly because of the fact that the sun hides behind the oaks most of the day. We have moved the tree line back here now and cleaned up a lot of the underbrush.
Even after the first day, we could see more sun shining through and hitting the turf. Next week we plan to install a massive french drain along the edge of the fairway and tie it back to the drain basins. We should see a nice improvement in turf quality here this coming season.
6 inch mainline pipe continues to go in the ground. Landscapes should be rounding the corner to go down #5 over the weekend.
The dry weather has meant keeping the final trench clean has been a simple task. Progress will slow as we head towards the Christmas holiday as the contractor guys take some time to go visit their families. Once January starts things will get exciting again.
Ben has his hole dug for the recirculation pump for 5 stream. This should be pretty close to installed by the end of next week!
The bunkers on 9 Sabot are complete and that means all the Sabot bunkers are now rebuilt! What's next? Manakin bunkers of course! We are going to take advantage of this weather and get the bunkers around 9 Manakin green rebuilt over the next two weeks. This coming Monday we will look to excavate as much as possible on 9. As we noted last week, the Manakin bunkers will be a little more involved as we'll look to make sure the bottoms of the bunkers are deep enough to encourage the ball to roll all the way in to the bunker. We'll have plenty of detail for you next week!