Sand Topdressing Fairways

Our goal of achieving consistent firm, dry, dense bent grass fairways started the week of April 19th when we applied 740 tons of sand to our fairways, depth wise this is about 1/4". This is the first of 3 topdressing, the next will be in September and the last November. We will no longer core aerate fairways (take a soil core out of the ground and spread it on the surface) to relieve compaction and allow oxygen infusion, now we will solid tine (punch a hole in the ground, no soil taken out) slice,with the Sliceavator (small slit in ground) and Planetair with 3/8" knife (again a small slice in the ground) to accomplish compaction relief and the induction of oxygen. With the November sanding we will also dormant seed Memorial bent grass, this, along with minor changes in our fertility, growth regulator, selected tree removal and watering practices will set the table for achieving the goal.

Sleeving (using a plastic composite material) of corroded galvanized irrigation wet-well and intake pond pipe

This was a major reconditioning of our water inlet pipe from #4 pond and the 15 foot deep 72" wide vertical shaft that the pond water flows into and our irrigation pumps pump out of. The original galvanized piping was put in in 1987 and had corroded due to the high sodium chloride content of the water, the salt comes from run-off water from Interstate-I-94 and the residental streets to the east and north of the course. The sleeving material we used has been used by the Wisconsin Highway Department for the last 5 years to sleeve piping under highways it is made of a high density plastic composite material that will not corrode. We were able to do this whole project for $44,000 the alternative to the sleeving was to dismantle the pumphouse, breakup the concrete floor, digout the corroded piping, install the new piping, recement the floor and rebuild the pumphouse. Easily, this method would have cost more than $100,000 and taken much longer to complete. This was the first time this composite sleeving method was used for a wet-well and intake pipe in Wisconsin.