John Niemiec, Equipment Technician, Extraordinaire

John Niemiec, pictured here, pointing out a faulty actuator in the irrigation pump control panel has been our Head Equipment Technician for the past 17 years. John, if not the best, is certainly one of the best Golf Course Equipment Technicians in the state and here is why; he is naturally curious, extremely patient, persistent, can visualize solutions and thinks outside the box. Besides all that, he is good natured and goes out of his way to help all. Pictured also is Macario Rameriz, John's assistant, who possesses many of John's attributes, one being, an ever present smile.

Unusual But Effective

After DryJecting our Practice Putting green we had some unevenness in the surface so we rented out a 1 ton vibrating asphalt roller and vibrated ourselves back to smoothness. Sometimes you have to think outside the box to get the results you desire.

Annual Flower Planting Kicks off the Summer Season

For the last 20 years, Jerry Nelson, pictured in the badger red shirt, owner of Classic Gardens, Master Gardener, Instructor of Gardening and Radio Gardening Talk Show Expert has been designing and growing our annual flowers. Basically, he wows us every year with his unique selection of annuals and how he groups them for effect. Jerry's only down fall is that he is a Minnesota Golden Gopher Alum.

Short-cut Pathways, Protection Mounding

Earlier this spring, Mrs.Deborah Frederick toured the golf course with me as a walking golfer and a representative of the Woman's Board of Directors, we identified areas, that if mowed down, would provide walking, shortcut paths through our native long grass areas. We would create mowed walking pathways from 7 green to the forward tee on 8 and from 11 green to the forward tee on 12. We also selected areas that if mounded, could provide a natural protection barrier from errant golf shots hit by playing partners that tee it up from the back tees while the rest of the group remains at the forward tee. Forward tees that are being considered for protection mounding are #2, #6, #15, #16 and #17. Mrs Frederick, pointed out, that protection mounds must fit in and not look awkward or out of place, they must fit into the landscape naturally. With this in mind, we contacted our Golf Course Architect, Todd Quitno. Todd will review the sites and see what can be done to provide aesthetically pleasing protection.

Welcome Zac Houfek, new 2nd Asst. Superintendent

Zac Houfek is our new 2nd Assistant Superintendent. Zac graduated this May with a degree in Horticulture Sports Turf Management from Kishwaukee College in Malta, IL. where he studied under Peter Leuzinger past president of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. Zac interned with us last year and impressed us with his turf knowledge an excellent work ethic. Prior to his college study in turf, Zac was in the Landscape business where he learned about time management, quality control and crew commitment. Because of Zac's background and character he is well ahead of most college graduates, we are very happy to have Zac on our team

Spirit of William Langford Rekindled on Hole 5

William Langford, one of great early American golf course architects, designed hole #5 at the tail end of his career in 1958. One of his renditions, had a bent grass roll off area on the back left of the green, but at the time, due to funding, this unique feature was not added but Todd Quitno, of Lohmann Golf Design, immediately saw what Langford saw, "strategy and beauty all rolled in one", so Todd added the feature to his, "Spirit of Langford Design" and today, May 18, we completed the feature and you could feel Langford looking over our shoulder with a smile on this face.
The first person to have her ball roll-off the green and roll into history was Mrs. Judy Kestly, she is pictured here with her playing partner Mrs. Ginny McBride. How apropos, two of Westmoor's outstanding, long term members, feel the Spirit of Langford as they enjoy a beautiful day in May.

Perennial Prep for Seasonal Show

Jim Hicks, Horticultural Manager, on the bottom of the page and Epitacio Perez his hard working assistant above, have done an outstanding job with perennials on the clubhouse grounds over the course of the last few years. You see Jim dividing one of the perennial grasses near the tennis courts he will use this, and some of his other magic, to create another outstanding bed behind the 10th tee. Epitacio is standing on the far left side of the perennial bed that's on the hill-side between the middle and the lower parking lots, Jim created this bed two years ago from plants he salvaged from beds on the course prior to the course renovation. Outstanding job Jim, Epitacio, what a great photo area when the blooming season starts!

Installation Irrigation Satellite Control

Mark Mejchar, Operations Manager on the left along with Nick Narlock, Irrigation Technician Trainee, remove the old single irrigation control satellite for #9 and #18 and install single control satellites for each of the two fairways. These new control features will allow better distribution of water to these holes. Mark, an exceptionally skilled technician, in many disciplines, has worked at Westmoor for over 20 years and thinks Nick has what it takes to be another solid contributor to our crew.

Managing Organics for Firm Fast Greens

Plant an elite bent grass, Penn A-1, in good growing conditions and it will prosper. Good meaning; full sunlight, and a soil with large enough particles, like sand, so when packed together open spaces, voids or cavities still exist between particles. You see, these openings, become avenues that oxygen enters and lodges into. Understand, that it's a combination of oxygen and water that roots need to prosper, cut off the oxygen and the roots are going to die and the above ground grass will thin out.

But there is a catch, a catch 22 or a horticultural oxymoron, if you will. We provided the bent grass plant a great growing environment and it prospered in it, so much so, that its long thick root mass filled all those oxygen cavities forcing the very oxygen it needs right out of the ground. With out oxygen the bent grass will slowly decline, much like a pot bound plant, unless we intervene. If it were growing in a pot all we would have to do is take it out of the small pot, slice apart the encircling roots so they will grow straight again, put it in a bigger pot with more soil. Re potting won't work on the green, so instead, we create more oxygen filled cavities by injecting large sand particles into the soil profile, (DryJect operation pictured) and by slicing the green surface with a machine called the Planetair both of these practices allow oxygen a pathway to the roots. By the way, oxygen stimulates microorganisms that live in the soil and feed on the dead and dieing roots and by consuming this organic matter they create more openings for oxygen lodging. Very cool function, and it's all natural. You see, this is natures living cycle, it's going to happen, we just need to understand it and intervene at appropriate times to keep it functioning in a manner that provides us firm fast greens.

On Monday, May 10 we injected sand into the greens with the DryJect, (pictured above) it uses high pressure water blasts to create holes anywhere from 4" to 6" deep and than forces sand into the holes. We did 15 greens on the 10th and will finish the rest on Monday the 17th. We will repeat the operation on Monday, August 23 and again in November. This, along with periodic Monday slicing of greens with the Planetair, a Spiker or the HydroJect will insure a continual oxygen flow to the roots and the organic consuming microorganisms. Firm, Fast is Sustainable with Consistent Properly Timed Maintenance.

Poa Annua Control: Here are just two items of a multiple approach program; Hand Weeding, Sulfur fertility plus Herbicide application.

Fairway Compaction Relief / Oxygen Infusion

Step one to improve the conditions of our fairways was the application of 1/4" of sand which we applied the week of April 19, now we are relieving compaction and giving oxygen a pathway to roots by solid tining and slicing the fairways with the Soil Reliever, Sliceavator and Planetair. Although the process is rather slow, it is very clean, effective and does not interfere with play. It will take the better part of three weeks to finish the job. Once the fairways, approaches and roll-offs are complete we will move onto the tees and surrounds of the greens.

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.