Trees, bunkers and irrigation

 

Even the irrigation crew is getting tired of the winter weather as they look forward to a pleasant weekend on the way. They are now about to cross the bridge over to 8 tee side fairway.

The team is getting into a groove, especially when the sun comes out. The 2 inch line is pulled across the fairway, the heads are fused onto the pipe, wired up and then they backfill and sod. About 600 times in total for the front nine!

From new to old, this oak tree over on 6 Manakin had to be around 100 years old. It dropped its leaves pretty early this summer and it did not look good going in to the fall. We wanted to give it a chance this year but branches were coming down daily, it was dead. The tree was so dry that the branches exploded when it hit the ground. Being on the driest spot on the property probably did not help its chances.

Our staff continues to make progress on the Manakin bunkers. The old drainage in these bunkers was very overdone, in a way to try and reduce washouts. This worked for a while but with the new liner technology it is not needed. We still remove all the old drainage and then install new lines where needed.

The right side of 5 green has new sand and we are dialing in the depth in between freeze cycles.

About 40 tons of sand went in to the bunker on the right of 1 Wednesday.

It takes another day to pack it down and check the depths.

The capillary concrete was finished up on the left of 1 Wednesday. Two more concrete trucks will be here Friday so that we can finish up #8. Next week will we have the left of 5 green prepped and then we will head to 3 fairway bunker and that may be all for this year!

Just a small difference between old and new bunkers!!