No Joy Ride Here

( 2010_05_24 Vehicle Damage #9 Green )

Apparently some idiot(s) thought it would be fun to drive on the golf course sometime early this morning. Thankfully there is only some minor repair work needed on the ninth green from the vehicle turning on it. They also drove across the second green but in pretty much a straight line so there is no damage, just tire tracks. They entered the course off of Island View Road onto #3, drive on #9 green then across #2 green, and then around #1 tee and ended up exiting the course the same place they came in along #3. It is obvious morons who do this kind of thing have no clue as to what it would cost to repair any major damage, not too mention any course downtime they could be held accountable for. A rough estimate to rebuild a green from the ground up is over $30,000, and that is just for the construction and materials. That estimate does not take into account the loss of revenue while construction is going on and growing in is taking place... The current damage is not much different then the snowmobile damage we had a couple of years ago on the green. We had to strip out about 30' of turf and will be topdressing and rolling the tracks to get the green back into shape quickly. On another note...

( 2010_05_24 Aerifying the collar on #2 green )

We are aerifying the collars today, using 5/8" coring tines. The disruption to play should be minimal, cleaning up right behind the aerifier, topdressing, and dragging. We have done this the last couple of years and the amount of dry spots and turf issues on our collars has decreased substantially. It has helped us greatly improve the turf quality on some of the poorer collars we have had.