Happy Thanksgiving!

From my family to yours, have a Happy Thanksgiving Holiday.

Spending Thanksgiving in NYC. (It's much warmer in Florida!)

The Wall on #5 is Complete! (Well, almost)

There were a few groups of ladies who braved the cold this morning but only a handful of golfers this afternoon. The light play allowed our grounds crew to go to work laying sod along the wall on #5. This was the last major step towards finishing the seawall project and I am excited to say that it is complete! We still have some light detail work to complete such as peeling off stickers and giving the wall a wash down but no more construction or ground work. 

The area has been marked as ground under repair and will be played as such for the foreseeable future. Over the next week or two we will also be giving extra attention to #5 fairway to alleviate some of the stress brought on by having the tees in the fairway, construction traffic and cart traffic.

Finally, thanks should be given to the men who worked so diligently on this project. All of our grounds employees work hard everyday, but these guys really took ownership in the project and gave it their all. Special thanks to Chris Hewitt who was the project foreman on the job.

   Placido, Jose, Alex and Pedro finishing the grading work.

   Yay! The sod has arrived.

   4800 square feet of bermudagrass sod. 1/2 completed. Keep up the good work!

   Cristino is giving the new sod some water.

   Finished product is looking good. 

   In case you have forgotten what the old wall looked like!

Light At The End Of The Tunnel!

While it has taken longer than we had hoped, it appears that the the wall project on #5 is almost complete. We had a few setbacks along the way including overcoming a learning curve, issues with the initial backfill, and work delays to accommodate certain golf events. While we were hoping to complete the project sooner, it was more important that we get it done right. We are currently working on the final backfill and grading of this area. Sod is scheduled for delivery next week and we are hoping to be able to wrap up the project by the 20th. We appreciate your patience with the project and hope you will be pleased with the result. 

   

Update #5 Seawall

As mentioned earlier in the week, there was a setback earlier in the week with the new wall on #5. During the backfilling process the wall bowed in towards the water. We attributed this to having too little undisturbed earth holding back some of the tie-backs. With the extremely busy golf schedule this week we did not have much time to work to correct the issue. We will be resuming work on the wall 11/7 and working as needed to complete the project. In order to strengthen the wall, we will be adding several more tie-backs, many of them longer and adding more concrete to secure each one. We feel confident that once complete, the new wall will be in great shape for decades to come. 

Setback on #5

Unfortunately, we had a small setback while backfilling the new wall on #5. There was not enough undisturbed soil to anchor the tiebacks holding about a 30 foot section of the wall. This resulted in the wall bowing out in this area. We will have to excavate along this section of wall in order to straighten it. Once the wall is straightened, we will then be installing longer tiebacks with more substantial concrete to secure the wall. We are disappointed with this setback but feel confident we will be able to rectify the problem. 

Something Out of Nothing

I have received many positive comments about the condition of the peninsula on #8 fairway. For those who weren't here this summer, I'll let you in on a secret. When we aerified greens at the end of May we spread all of the plugs over the bottom half of 8 fairway. This area struggles every year, primarily due to poor soil conditions and the low elevation compared to sea level. The paspalum grass on the greens is more tolerable to these conditions. While we haven't seen how it will react to the winter, the results have been great so far. 

This isn't the first time we've used aerification plugs to renovate areas. Tees on 3, 5, 10 and 17 have all been renovated over the past few years in this fashion. We are currently growing in two more tees that were grassed with plugs from the greens aerification in September. The new forward tee on 9 and expanded forward tee on 2 will be ready soon. In fact, I plan to open the forward tee on #2 on Monday.

   8 fairway covered in plugs in late May

   8 fairway today

   2 forward tee in September

   2 forward tee today

   New tee on 9 in September

   New tee on 9 today