9 bridge irrigation repair

The rainy weather in May has continued. We have picked up about 4" of rain in the first half of May. This has lead to some disruption on the back nine especially as Cleveland Brook has on occasion overflowed its banks. By the end of this week we should be caught back up with our mowing and the course will be nice for the weekend.

This week we spent some time repairing the irrigation line that crosses under the 9th bridge. This has given us trouble over the last 10 years or so, on and off. Its probably been fixed in places about 4 or 5 different times. Finally this spring we couldn't get it to hold without leaking in one of the various "fixed" locations. So finally I ordered new piping and couplers and we repiped the whole bridge span. We waited for a rainy period and Jay and Matt went to work. The guys did a nice job working in a tough location and got it taken apart and put together in two days. This bridge is a key link to our system and it runs the 9th fairway, practice green, 9th green and 1st tee.
Jeremy Stachowicz
Course Superintendent
Wahconah Country Club

May 9th

As I wrote last week I was confident that things were really going to take off and boy have they. Without any frost in the last week, warmer nights and lots of moisture the grass has begun to grow. What this means for us is that we transition from project mode to full on maintenance mode. With the small size of our staff, everybody (including me) spend the majority of their time on mowers, trimmers and sprayers. The fertility we put out over the last few weeks has begun to do its thing. The course is really coming to life.

The drainage project on 8 is complete and we have seeded the disturbed areas. This will remain ground under repair until it heals in. We dug two trenches from the fairway that converge into one trench in the rough. We ran into some old clay tile in the process. We fixed these and ran some of our pipe into them. The whole piping system runs into a functional pre-existing drainage system further down the fairway. I'm pretty sure what we put in was overkill, but I feel it will definitely collect all the water at 100yds and move it off the surface into the system. The next area we hope to take on is the areas in the 10th fairway. If we get a good week of weather we may get to it.

Hopefully everyone is enjoying the early season. I think we are off to a good start and the course is getting better each time out. Any questions give me a shout.
Jeremy Stachowicz
Course Superintendent
Wahconah Country Club