Recap of Week One at The Harvester Golf Club

The week started off with lots of rain. But still managed to stay productive in and around the shop.

May 10, 2010
My first task of my internship involved an irrigation fix on hole #9.

• There was a bust in the pipe that needed replaced.

• New fittings and pipe were added to repair the pipe.

The rest of the day consisted of a bunch of odd jobs such as moving a bulldozer to another area of the course.

• Plywood was used to transport across cart paths and the clubhouse driveway.
  

May 11, 2010
I was responsible for a crew of two to remove standing water away from the edges of the new cart path on hole #18.
Graded the gravel base for the other new section of the cart path on hole #18.
Sprayed native fescue with SpeedZone @ 1.5 oz/m; Fusilade @ .5 oz/m; Chem Surf @ 1.5 pts/100gal H2O.

• Holes #1, 2, 3, 4 Native grasses that were fairway, tee and green side surrounds were sprayed.
  
• Could not drive on Bent or Kentucky Blue Grass because the above pesticides would dormant the grass.
  
• The main target of this spray application was any plant that was not a fine fescue. The goal is to have a solid stand of flowing fescue in all fairway, tee and greenside surrounds.
  

May 12, 2010
Led a small crew to organize the irrigation and tiling building. Worked inside because of the rain.
There was a night and day difference from when we started to when we finished.


May 13, 2010
Helped Chad (superintendent) continue and finish cart path frame work on hole #18.
Later that day we poured concrete for the new path.

• 6 Concrete trucks were used to complete the task.
  
• 6 Concrete buggies were used to transport the concrete from the cement trucks to the newly framed cart path area.
  

May 14, 2010
Continued to Spray Native fescue with same chemicals and rates that I listed above in the May 11th Column.


May 15, 2010
Cleaned up new cart path on #18
Trimmed around all railroad ties, hole information posts and bridge corners.


May 16, 2010
Continued to spray Native fescue with same chemicals and rates listed above in May 11 Column.

May 17, 2010
Spent a few hours hand raking bunkers for a tournament.
Trimmed stacked sod face bunker on hole #3 with scissors.


***Adopted a golf course dog that was previously here, his name is Max, he is 3 years old. Greater Swiss Mountain Dog

New Golf Hole In The Green House

Recently, Ian and I took on a small project to keep us "sane" because of all the snow on the ground. This project involves the construction of a miniature golf hole in a very large Tupperware container.

We used an already established L93 Bent grass green plug from the grass varieties section of the green house to be used as the green complex.
We then graded the fairway, tee and rough complex areas by packing down the soil to our desired shapes, (pot bunkers, sand bunkers, contours in the fairway and green side surrounds).
After shaping, we seeded the fairway complex to our desired shape and sand capped the area to allow germination along with some watering from our spray bottle irrigation system.

Thus far, the only areas that are seeded are the fairway and tee complexes.
After we have successful germination we will begin seeding the rough and green side surrounds with a fine fescue.
Seeding rates are unknown.

Plan of maintenance includes:
Watering, mowing with scissors, trimming, installing drainage down the road, fertilizing, aerifying, monitoring for diseases, and several other practices.

We also plan on installing a retaining wall around the elevated tee complex and the possibility of a water hazard along the left side of the fairway.

Any other suggestions to make our miniature golf hole a better environment are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Corbin

Students Entering Internships

Even though there are inches upon inches of snow covering the turf, summer is fast approaching. In one month it will be spring break and the school year will just fly from there as we have all experienced.

From what I know, at Hawkeye, we have a good chunk of turf students leaving the state to do their work experience. To me, this has been an exciting process to see my colleagues reach their goals of being a part of some very recognized golf facilities across the nation.
Ian and Mike will be heading North to Wisconsin, Adam Kelley will be heading to Connecticut, Derek Love to Colorado, Tanner to Indiana, and Michael Kofta is undecided between Snow Mass in Colorado and Bethpage in New York. I will be staying in state at The Harvester Golf Club in Rhodes, Iowa.

As I said before, summer is fast approaching which means so are internships. I know some of you have already done so but now is probably a good time to start emailing your superintendents to ask some important questions.

Some questions that maybe helpful:
Living situations?
What should I be primarily focusing on as I finish up my semester?
Big golf tournaments that will be happening during my experience?
What is there to do in the area?
Golfing Privileges?
Will there be any renovations/grow-ins happening I will be a part of?

These are just a few questions to maybe consider.

When all of you are at your internships I strongly encourage you to post on the blog on a daily basis for two reasons. One, staying in touch with colleagues and friends. Two, challenge what you have learned that day.
To me, and some of you may feel the same way but it would be interesting to see how differently courses operate. This will also help you jog your minds to keep on your daily/weekly logs that will be submitted to Scott Harvey.

Thanks and happy blogging,
Corbin

Iowa Turf Conference

Harv, Charles (Rognes) and I were representing HCC at the Iowa Turf Conference in Des Moines, Iowa on January 19-21st. While we were there we attended several education seminars that were related to our field of study, turfgrass.
There were some very helpful sessions about turf and other helpful tools to making education better.
One that intrigued me the most was a session by Marcus Jones, a grad assistant at Iowa State University. His session was about the benefits of having a blog.
Blogs are great for keeping people informed about whats going on, whether it be a golf course superintendent filling in members and employees about what is happening on the golf course maintenence side of things or in our case, giving students a tool to keep students up to date on whats going on in the HCC Horticulture Dept.

Sessions we attended at the Ia Turf Conference included: golf course renovations, herbicide use, gap maintenence scheduling, and a bentgrass conversion that took place at Veenkner Golf Course in Ames, Iowa.
I feel we all were able to walk away with some ideas on how to apply different techniques used by superintendents that went through different grow ins and renovations.

Besides the education sessions, we were able to network with people on the IAGCSA board and people that had exhibit tables set up at the trade show.

I encourage all of you to attend events like these. You will learn alot and develop important connections when entering the work field.

Corbin