Construction 411

Let's start with the new tee boxes. They are shaped and will be sodded on Friday. We will need most of April for the sod to be ready for play. We are excited about these new features on both courses. We realize that some new tees from last season are still very difficult to get a tee into the ground. We have a maintenance plan for that going forward, however we wanted to rid that problem in the future. We used a different soil for the construction of tees to hopefully solve that issue. However, decent topsoil is hard to come by around Colorado. There is a lot of course material in the topsoil mix these days. The upside to that is that there are more pore spaces and should not compact as tees in the past. We also used a sand cap on the par 3 tees to promote turf health and this should help with teeing it up.

As for the transfer pipe between 4&6 on the Maxwell this is completed and will be seeded shortly to return the area to native grass. 

There have been a number of questions about why an open stream was not built instead of pipe. Well there are a few reasons. When transporting water putting it into pipe is always best to maximize your available water. Open ditches and streams lose water due to seeping into the ground, plant uptake and evaporation. The cost and construction time of putting pipe is far less than creating an open stream. Streams take a considerable amount of time for preparation, materials and maintenance. Open streams take a considerable amount of maintenance especially compared to pipe.

Of course open streams give way to natural beauty and riparian life, but this area of the course is not a high traffic area. Instead we would rather focus future efforts to creating an open stream somewhere else on property such as across the 5th hole as was presented in the last master plan. I feel this would be a much better use of our resources and would be a very positive impact to the property some day. 

Colorado Academy projects are nearing the end as we look to take on more water soon. Currently a new flume to gauge water is being installed along with a new silt trap upstream of Academy Lake on #9. These structures should be completed for to take on ditch water by next week. 

The spillway has already been poured between the lakes. This prevents any future back ups and flooding into 9 fairway and the sand trap. These are very beneficial projects for the club. 

A new mix/load chemical pad and platform for the chemical storage container was poured at the maintenance facility this week. This is a major upgrade to our facility for safer conditions when handling chemicals and fertilizers. The storage container is a safe, temperature controlled unit that takes all of the chemicals out of the shop. 

The mix/load pad prevents any spills from leaching into drains and to the ground. All spills can be pumped into the spray tank to be diluted and used properly. By removing this from the shop it provides a safe environment for the staff when mixing. Once the building is set in place a new fence will be installed around it to provide a barrier from the golf course.

Aerification on the golf course is going great. The weather couldn't be better in fact. All of the short grass including greens, tees, fairways and approaches are all being cored and topdressed. Fairways are drug to break up a lot of the sand and returned to the holes. The tufts of grass and thatch are then blow off into the roughs.

Greens are a slightly different process as they receive a deep tine aerification. We go about 8 inches deep into the green. Amazingly enough we only interrupt about 3 % of the green surface. After coring we topdress in phases to slowly fill the 8" holes. Then the remaining sand covers the surface of the green. This is the best way to achieve smooth putting conditions on top.


The new path to the pool is completed and the grounds staff will be neatening up the edges and planting new grass to tie into the existing grade.

This path will be used temporarily for golf access when the Bogies Parking Lot closes later this month. Once the pool opens in late May, this path is available for all pool traffic.

The parking lot project is kicking off now and timelines and maps will be provided when certain areas are closed. We appreciate your cooperation during this temporary renovation.