Forward tee and beach cut update

This will be days 7 and 8 for the tee project. I missed day 7 as I was in Plymouth at GCSACC's annual meeting and the past president's meeting held right before. Thursday was the 7th day of our little project and Will and Kevin did a nice job of wrapping up the forward tee and getting real close on the middle tee. By the end of this day the forward tee was completely sodded, cut in, watered, and roped off. The middle tee was finish raked and all surrounds sodded except for the edge we entered with the machines which needs to be re-cut.

#1 forward tee from TMF entrance to course (rt. of tee)

#1 forward tee from behind

#1 middle tee from behind

In the first picture you can see the turf is not very flattering to the right of the forward tee. This tee is close to the hose and air reel station we use to clean equipment after mowing. It is also close to the main entrance we use for the turf maint. facility to the golf course so these areas see a lot of traffic. Fortunately they are out of play so never a real problem. Now of course we will have to spruce them up a bit and take heed of the view the ladies have from this tee. Yesterday (day8) Kevin spent cleaning up around both tees on one and finishing the sod around the tee top while waiting for the tee top sod to arrive. Will focused on shaping the forward tee on #2. I bounced between the two and the beach. In fact, after a brief conversation with Will on Thursday's events I started my day on the beach to check that progress.

removed sand hundreds of yards down the beach, Bert's playground

finished channel within the jetties

beach cut in progress, notice large pile and haul ramp

Will hauling in material while bringing machine back to spread piles from dump truck

old mat. storage area came in handy to stockpile for 2 tee

Will spreading topsoil #2 tee to grade, notice blue ribbon on stakes

#2 forward tee ready for finish grading and sod

#1 tees at the end of the day

removing the ramp which opens the channel

In the previous post you can see orange sand on top of the middle tee with the caption "Will tilling in sand to lighten topsoil". We found the purchased topsoil to be heavy. This means it has finer material in it such as clay or silt and this makes the material compact. The shape of the particles can also make material compact or not. Think beach sand and how difficult it is to drive on. The particle shape of beach sand is round so they just roll off each other. In bunker sand we like to have some angular shapes so the sand will be firmer and avoid fried egg lies when the ball lands in the bunker on the fly.  With topsoil a large portion of finer materials will not only make it compact and be firm it will also impede drainage. If you picture marbles in a vase the space in between the marbles is what we concentrate on when dealing with soils. Ideally you want that space to be 50% air and 50% water. If you reduce that amount of space by clogging it with finer material you have less air space and compaction. So we are constantly poking holes and adding sand to keep those spaces open. In construction you have the chance to create the best soil. After working with the purchased soil and seeing how easily it compacted we decided to add sand and til it into the top. On 2 we actually cut it by mixing sand into it and still added a layer on top and tilled it in. After we wrap up these tees we will hopefully spend some time this winter creating our topsoil and fill by clearing more of the woods to the right of 6 in our storage area there. Our native woods loam is perfect for course construction and the next proposed tees are close to this area, so after we purchase out chipper we can remove some trees and harvest the top soil and fill to continue construction and save the cost of purchasing these materials.