Greening up!

Things are really shaping up on the course! After a painfully slow start, the fairways and tees are filling in nicely.

There are only a few low areas and north facing slopes that are still lagging behind. We have been working on striping the fairways and most of the holes are gorgeous from the tee box!! The Bermuda sod planted around the green complexes is greening up nicely, but it will be
quite awhile until it has all filled in and is level. Some of the sod was not as nice and is much
slower to green up.




You can see the lines and squares of thinner turf around nice full green
areas. Extra fertilizer, aeration and keeping off of it will fill those spots in. The leveling will take
longer as the topdressing can only go on in small increments. We will get there, but it will not be
overnight. The greens on holes 4 and 7 are doing well but will need additional aerification and TLC to make it through the hot times. The same goes for the bent grass sod ring on the greens. All of
the sod has a significant layer of clay on it that we will continue to work on through aeration.

Better Billy Bunker Update

The Club has decided to take advantage of a contractor already being in the area to install two of the new Better Billy Bunkers.  Our current bunkers drain well now but the liners are deteriorating. This is starting to make an unsightly mess as well as starting to contaminate the sand with the native soil.  At some point down the road this will need to be addressed.  

The Club chose to try the bunkers on hole 15 because the existing left side trap was already holding water.  The concept of the Billy Bunkers is to do away with the fabric liner and use a spray on polymer to interface between the sand and gravel. This will enhance drainage and keep the sand from being contaminated with the native soil underneath. 

The first step was to remove the old sand and expose the existing drain lines.  Once they were exposed the contractor checked to make sure they were working.  The left side bunker was holding water because the outfall was clogged with tree roots.  This was also preventing the green from draining as well as holding up the right side bunker.  A new drain line was installed and these problems have all been fixed.

Once the drainage was working correctly two inches of gravel was put into the entire bottom of the bunker.  The gravel was then sprayed with the Better Billy Bunker polymer and left to dry overnight.  Once dry, the gravel becomes fixed in place but the water is still able to move through it.  Next 6 inches of sand is put into the cavity and then packed to a 4 inch depth.

The sand we chose came from out of Maryland and is called YBD.  There are a number of clubs in the areas that have done the Billy Bunkers and this is the best sand for having firm bunkers and minimal plugging.  That being said, it is still new sand and will be a little fluffy at first.  Ultimately it should perform well and be fair to play out of.  Hopefully the membership will like these bunkers and this sand so we can look to the future in the rest of the course.