Driving Range To Open Soon!

Work has begun to hang the net along the west end of the driving range. A crew of four men will work four days to accomplish the task. The net is over one thousand feet in length and extends to a height of forty feet. Plastic ties must be used every four inches to securely fasten the net to the cables which support the structure.
The irrigation system is being pressurized this week. Workers from Des Moines Water Works connected the pump station to our water supply this morning. Once the system is pressurized we begin the process of individually checking the functionality of approximately one thousand sprinklers on the property. Extreme Iowa winters wreak havoc on our sprinklers. Numerous repairs will surely follow.

Here We Go!

Welcome to the 2010 golfing season! The greens, tees and fairways are in great shape. You will notice a few areas that are a work in progress. The south side of #8 rough is still soft and full of branches – this area will be cleaned up in the next couple of weeks. We had a small snow mold break through on the fairways because of the extended snow cover this winter. This is mostly cosmetic and will recover very soon.

The practice facility will open toward the end of next week. We will start installing the net on Monday and will open the tee by Friday – weather depending. This task requires 4 people/4 days armed with 8,000 plastic ties to hang the 8 sections of net.

Enjoy your golf course and remember to check this site for the latest Wakonda grounds updates!

The Anticipation

We're getting closer! All of the green covers have been removed from the greens and placed in the approaches to expedite drying of the green covers themselves and the green surfaces. We are making a big push to have all the covers off the course and stored by the end of this week.

The greens look fantastic. We have no winter kill or snow mold this year. We will likely begin rolling and/ or mowing greens next week. Disease pressure was very high this winter because of the extremely long duration of snow cover. We anticipate the course will be opened within the next ten days.Other current activities include putting the finishing touches on tee markers and ball washers. We are also currently servicing the range picker cart, tennis cart, and bar cart.

Out With The Old...

This year we added six new implements to our fleet. New arrivals included: two new TORO aerifiers, a new TYCROP sand topdresser, two new FOLEY mower grinders, and a new TORO triplex verticutter. We've already sold seven old implements and are taking two to auction in Kansas City this weekend. For those of you doing the math, the result is a smaller but much more efficient fleet for the 2010 season.

Pictured here are two old mowers bound for auction.
This is our new topdresser which will do the work of two of our old machines.

Green Turf

This is a snapshot of the 13th green with the cover pulled back. The turf looked very healthy. Weather depending, the covers will be removed next week. The melt down is proceeding rapidly and the clean up of the clubhouse grounds has already begun.

The Big Melt Down

When is the course going to open? That is the million dollar question right now for the grounds department. Typically we open the golf course the third week of March. However, this has not been a typical winter. As you can see, we have roughly 9” of snow on the green surfaces and still some deep drifts around the course.

Once the course does open, there are many items that have to be accomplished to make the golf course playable. First, we have to clean the property of any sticks and debris. This is very time consuming as most of this work is done by hand. We also install the net on practice facility which takes 4 people – 4 days to accomplish. As you can imagine, our project list is very long and this year we will have to do it faster than ever.

I will keep you posted on the progress of the snow cover. We know you have cabin fever so we will work hard to get the course open as soon as we can.