My neighbor Phil smiles when Thurman, his miniature dachshund, rolls on the dense green turf surrounding his Cape Cod home. His next-door neighbor Kate shuns Phil’s lawn. She claims that Phil’s lawn fertilizer pollutes the artisan well that provides drinking water to her family. Phil’s lawn care program and Kate’s fertilizer aversion summarize a prominent Cape Cod environmental issue. Continue reading »
A day after Sarah Smith served her favorite Darjeeling to her neighborhood book club she steeped a much different tea in her musty shed. Under a low light, she tossed several cheesecloth bags bulging with organic compost into a chubby pot of water. Three days later, she fished the bags from the pot and said, “It’s ready.” Continue reading »
Golf courses with heavy soil greens are installing slit drains to reduce water retainage. The results are good but sod striping may occur.
Golf drainage contractors have sold many golf courses on green slit drainage. After a site survey identifies a sensible drainage discharge point, the contractor or architect develops a piping plan with lateral lines spaced 6 feet wide fed into a collector pipe that discharges into a low area. Continue reading »
Savvy investors are purchasing many distressed golf course properties. The trade saying “only the third one in makes money in golf” holds true just like it did back in the early 1990s.
Golf operations consultants identify best practices to improve cash flow but they don’t have the skills to identify current golf course structure. Potential golf course buyers should contact an experienced golf construction consultant to perform an asset analysis to identify inherent golf course construction deficiencies.
Drainage is a prime consideration. Continue reading »
While wedding guests sampled caviar and champagne, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the bordering putting course. Newcastle Golf Club overlooks Seattle and Puget sound. Two public 18-hole golf courses surround the stunning mountaintop clubhouse. August weddings in the rainy Seattle area are popular, and this day was perfect.
While friends pointed out distant Olympic Mountains and the Space Needle, I looked down on the putting course. Continue reading »
As U.S. Open week begins at Congressional the Rees Jones renovations seem to generate personal attacks based on his design product. Golf course architectural buffs take their subject seriously and when they don’t like the aesthetics they blame the golf architect’s DNA and personality.
Rees doesn’t adhere to the Doak, Hanse, Shackelford bushy bunker philosophy. Continue reading »
Abstract: Golf Course construction specification packages have turned into rambling, incoherent, contradictory piles of paper that few read and fewer comprehend.
Back when golf construction was a gentile business I acquired a specification package written by the late golf architect Phil Wogan. I wish I kept this two page document full of concise writing and active voice. Continue reading »
I’m involved in a golf course project that requires about 700 cubic yards of screened topsoil. Sounds simple? No. It’s turned into a major fiasco. The engineer loaded a five page specification into the contract documents and the lab tech claims it’s missing a key testing criteria. Engineering firms do this all the time; they add a “boiler plate” loam specification into the contract documents and it’s up to the contractor to comply. I’m concerned that this could turn into a non-compliance issue especially if the grass doesn’t grow due to insufficient watering. Anyone out there ever see a concise, readable, practical loam specification?
A recent inquiry asked: I was recently elected by our board to figure out a way to repair our bumpy, domed, uneven tee boxes. We have a beautiful course and unfortunately out tee boxes are horrible. We’ve tried to level the tee boxes with sand with no success. Also, I would like to use green grass, not fairway grass, on the tee surface.
I encounter many courses with the same problem. Past tee construction scenarios involved fill placement with loam placement leveled by a bad bulldozer operator or unskilled finish raker. I can’t blame them; laser grading wasn’t available back then and insufficient compaction complicates the situation.
I’d begin by Continue reading »
Abstract: Do you have problems ordering irrigation fittings? Whenever I order an obscure fitting or valve I get the two-second silent treatment from the counter guy. I know these guys well but they seem frustrated by the endless flow of new-fangled irrigation fittings.
Do you want to make a positive impact for the golf construction industry? Write a Field Guide to Irrigation Fittings. If you’ve been fixing sprinklers for many years you should know a tapping sleeve from a shirt sleeve. You should know that a toe nipple isn’t a birth defect. Many golf course field techs or irrigation counter staff don’t know this information.
You can’t get this information from a parts catalog. That’s why I’m proposing an online Field Guide to Irrigation Fittings that will include pictures, specifications and a web link to all irrigation manufacturers and suppliers. Make a field version that will fit in your pocket with a spiral binding and glossy paper. Someone write this book please!
Village Links, Plymouth,Mass. by Ray Richard
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