The Eagles have landed!

Over the past month there has been a lot of Bald Eagle activity at Glendale. Between trout in the pond and exposed banks along the stream, there is more available habitat for the eagles to do their thing. 

A pair of Bald Eagles in a dead Cottonwood tree behind #17 black tee, next to the pond. 

I'll continue to look for this pair of eagles nesting on or around the course. I know they are very close because I see them several times each day. Maybe this spring we'll see a new eagle learning the ropes with mom and dad at Glendale.

Drainage, drainage, and more drainage.

What is the number one thing we can do to improve Glendale? Drainage, drainage, and more drainage! It seems like no matter how much we do, we still need more. The left rough area on #18, about 130 yards from the green has been a swamp for the past year. We did some investigative digging and found water running along the irrigation main line and coming up in this spot. It is a low area and the water must collect from all the surrounding higher ground. 

We found a drain line about 60' away that was in good condition that we were able to connect to. We trenched to that drain line and installed the new line to carry the water away.

As soon as the trench was cut it started to fill up with water. Over the next month hopefully we'll see this area dry up and become playable this season. 

Irrigation upgrades underway

The past month we have been working on getting our irrigation system upgrades installed. The pumps were sent out to have the electric motors as well as the pumps rebuilt. They were installed this week and are good as new and ready for another 20 years of service.

Everything in the pump station has been gone through and rebuilt or replaced as needed. The central control program that runs our irrigation system is also being replaced. The 1993 program was dos based and was adapted to Windows in the late '90's. The program had lots of glitches and we had many issues with it over the last 15 years. The new program has been available for the past four years and has shown to be very user friendly and reliable. It has some new features that will let us control sprinkler heads on the course with a smart phone or tablet, and be able to access the program to make changes from home or anywhere with Internet. All of the field satellites also had to be replaced to be compatible with the new control program.

The two photos above show Frank wiring up a new satellite with Kyle and Tim watching how it's done. All but three of the new satellites have been installed. We have a new weather station that has to be installed and the central computer in the irrigation office also needs to get set up with field data for each of our 1300+ sprinkler heads. Last week five of our staff including Vic and Josh (Asst supt's), Frank and Tim (irrigation tech's), and myself spent two days at Suncadia learning the new Toro Lynx system. The system should be up and running within the next month which will give us time to work with the new program and be ready to go for this upcoming season. 

What do you guys do all winter?

What do you guys do all winter? I get asked this question from October until March every year. Drainage, tree work, irrigation, and equipment repair are just some of the things we do during the winter months. The bridge on #11 had four deck beams that were cracked and needed to be replaced. We had a plywood patch over the broken beams when the stream restoration project started last summer. The first trip over the bridge by the contractor broke the four beams and that's why there was a steel plate on the bridge until mid October. Monday morning of this week was time to replace the broken decking.

  With the plywood patch removed you can see the damage.

The old decking was cut off and the bolts removed to make way for the new ones.

The finished product is a working bridge but the new beams make the old ones look really bad. It would be nice to replace the entire bridge with a design similar to the ones on #6 and #8.

Insurance measures prior to greens freezing

The recent cold spell we had left the golf course closed for 13 days. We knew that is was going to get really cold for an extended period, so we took some precautions with our greens. The first step was to make sure that all the greens had enough moisture going into the extended cold period. It had not rained in about a week so we watered all of the greens for about ten minutes each. We have four covers for #3, #5, #11, and #13 greens which we put out. The photo below is #5 green with the cover in place.

The covers help raise the temperature underneath and protect the turf from desiccation (freezer burn) if it gets very cold and windy. The remainder of the greens got a heavy application of sand to protect them from the cold. The layer of sand helps protect the crown of the plant from cold and wind. It doesn't work as well as a green cover, but gets the job done.

The photo above shows sand being applied to the putting green. We put it on about the same rate as we do after the greens are aerated. When the temperature started to warm up, the first greens to open were the four with the covers. The last green to open was #10 due to the lack of sunlight it gets all winter.

Liming fairways

"Lime" is used in turfgrass management to raise the PH of soil. Lime is mined from the earth as limestone which is primarily composed of calcium carbonate. It is chemically altered and the product we use is calcium hydroxide. Due to the type of soil we have and the amount of rainfall each year the soil gets acidic over time. 7.0 is neutral on the PH scale, and ideal soil PH for growing turf in our area is between 6.0 and 7.0. We take soil tests each year and base our fertilizer program on the test results. We had not limed the fairways in several years and the PH had fallen to between 5.5 and 5.7 which is too acidic. Some nutrients including phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and magnesium get partially tied up and are not as readily available to plants at lower PH levels. To get the most bang for our buck with the fertilizer we apply, the soil PH ideally needs to be closer to 6.5. Last week was time to spread lime on fairways. We applied the lime at a rate of 20lbs/1000ft2, for a total 24,000 pounds or 12 tons. The lime is spread in the same topdressors that we use to spread sand on fairways.

The lime comes in one ton super sacks and is lifted into the topdressors with a loader.

It's a dusty job spreading the lime.

 

This is what the product looks like on the turf. It will take rainfall to dissolve the particles so the lime can move down into the soil. The process of raising soil PH is very slow and will take several months at least for any change to occur. We'll take soil tests in March of 2014 and I'll report back with the results of the PH change.

Coho salmon spawning at Glendale CC

Kelsey Creek and the West Tributary are the two streams that run through Glendale CC. They are both Chinook Salmon (King) spawning streams but we have not seen many in the last five years. The Muckleshoot Tribe with cooperation from the City of Bellevue, released 1,000 Coho Salmon (Silver) into Kelsey Creek and 500 into the West Tributary. The Coho were obtained from the Issaquah Hatchery and were waiting to spawn there. They were released into both streams in Kelsey Creek Park and many have moved upstream onto our golf course to spawn.

This is a Male Coho that has spawned in Kelsey Creek along the 11th hole. It is 23 inches long and weighs about 5 pounds. The Coho will live in the stream for almost one year before heading out to sea and will return in four years to spawn.

A pair of Coho ready to spawn in the West Tributary along #12 fairway.

The Coho returning to spawn has brought more wildlife out to Glendale for an easy meal. I saw several Coyotes and a Bald Eagle today pulling dead fish out of the stream for breakfast. It's nice to see fish on the golf course no matter how they got here.