Ice

Golf course is fully iced over here at TCCC.  Good thing we were able to put our tarps over all the greens on Thursday.  Very cold Saturday morning where the temp is 18 right now with a high of 27 for today.  Here is looking down 9 Whitworth from the clubhouse.

Here's a view down number 3 Whitworth from the back tee box.

Here is a view of looking down number 1 Hogan from the back tee box.

French drainage

We've just installed some new French drainage to number 16 in front of the green on the Whitworth golf course.  This area has been a constant wet area and the new French drainage should alleviate the problem. 

New Out of Bounds line

With all the new construction that's been happening around the club with the addition of new homes the property lines are coming into focus a little more clearly.  Here, on number 1 of the Hogan, we are moving our out of bound stakes to accommodate the true property line.  Stakes will also be moved to the right of Whitworth number 1 as well this week.

Drainage #16 Hogan

When it rains these bunkers on number 16 of the Hogan course always seem to stay a little wetter than others.  After investigating the problem, we discovered that roots from the trees pictured above had taken over the drain pipe that allows those bunkers to drain properly.  Here, Camerino, Marcelino, and Jose are replacing the root filled sections of drain pipe with new drain pipe.

Stump grinding

Today we've started on some much needed stump grinding here at Trophy Club Country Club.  Today we will be grinding stumps mainly on the Whitworth Course and tomorrow will be on the Hogan Course.

Here is Ralf from Arbor Masters grinding a stump behind #9 Whitworth.

Overseed

After recieving over a half inch of rain the past couple of days, the driving range tee and target greens look pretty good.  The overseed has come in very nicely.

Fertilizing overseed

It's been a week since we overseeded the par 3s on the course and it looks like we've gotten great results so far.  Today, we will be fertilizing all par 3s with a starter fertilizer to get all the seedlings going.  A couple of weeks from now we will refertilize the tees with a 25-9-10 fertilizer as we should see great results by then.

New fountain

We recently replaced one of the motors in one of the aerators off number 18 Hogan.  Here is a picture of the new motor attached to the float.

We are to have gotten this back up and running again.

Mainline leak

Here all the parts that were used to fix the mainline.

After the pipe was dug up, the mainline was cut and old thrust block made of concrete and 14 inch, 12 inch, and 4 inch pipe was moved to the side.

Here the reducer from 14 inch pipe to 12 inch pipe fitting is being installed.

The 12X12X4 inches reducer fitting is installed to the other side of the mainline pipe and we are ready to install the 45 degree angle fitting.

The 45 degree angle fitting is put in place and we realize we are going to need the 12 inch coupler fitting on the side where the 12X12X4 fitting is.

Here, adjustments are being made on all of our fittings with the added 12 inch coupler.

After adjustment were made to the 12 inch pipe sections and 12 inch fittings, the 4 inch mainline pipe that feeds 18 hogan is ready to be installed.

We are now ready to add the dirt back.

The soil is then packed around the pipe as tight as possible

Concrete is mixed and used as a thrus block behind the 45 degree angle fitting and the 12X12X4 inch fitting to elminate shifting of the pipe due to the tremendous amount of pressure inside.

The whole pipe and concrete is then covered, we are ready to pressure up

So far the pressure has held up!! It was a long project that took a lot of time and caused some late nights for myself but I'm happy up have gotten to see it through.

Found out yesterday that we have what appears to be a mainline leak behind #18 Hogan within a hundred feet of our pump station.  This should be one of our bigger irrigation leaks to repair as there is a huge concrete thrust block in place behind a 10 inch mainline pipe.  Will keep the blog updated with our progress.

Topdress #12 tee

LHere is Jose topdressing the tee on 12 Whitworth to help it out after a long and hot summer.  Some key benefits of topdressing our par three tees includes smoothing out the surface filling minor depressions and overtime, topdressing helps reduce thatch material or the biomass of plant parts just beneath the turf surface.  

Hogan Aerification

Hogan aerification is now underway early in the morning  here at Trophy Club.  This will be our last aerification for over 7 months!

Aerify rough

We are aerifying the rough on number 9 of the Whitworth this morning to help relieve compaction from all the cart traffic.  Later on in the day, we will fertilize it and allow the nightly irrigation cycle to water it all in.  The rough on this hole should improve greatly from these practices.

Aerification

We started aerifying greens yesterday afternoon at the big putting green and the top chipping green.  Aerifying is going pretty smoothly so far even today after we received 2 inches total rain yesterday and today.  Here you can see us aerifying the big putting green yesterday.

Friday Morning

Greens Aerification recovery looks pretty good so far. The cooler temperatures we've experienced set us all back a little bit, but with warmer temps in the forecast, I expect the holes left on the greens to fill in nicely. Pictured is the small putting green looking towards the back of the driving range. It's a nice, foggy, kind of cool Friday morning here at TCCC.

New fairway mower

Come out to Trophy Club Country Club today and check out our new Toro Fairway Unit. Stop by the Pro Shop and guess how much the unit cost and if your guess comes closest to the actual cost associated with this unit then we will give the winner a dozen PROV1s!

Aerification of the Whitworth course will be done this coming Tuesday and Wednesday.  Some of you may notice that we haven't achieved complete recovery yet on the Hogan greens.  We haven't had the best weather for this time of year and it hasn't been conducive to growing bermudagrass with the cooler temperatures.  We are almost a week behind because of the cooler weather but once we reach temperatures where the high and low for a single day add up to 145-150 degrees, we will start to see the recovery we've all expected.  We are confident that once we start seeing warmer temperatures we will be much better off.

Aerification of the greens is right around the corner so everyone needs to plan accordingly.  We will be aerifying the Hogan course first on April 16-17 and will aerify the Whitworth on April 30-May 1.  The greens have had a good start to the year already and we look forward to the contributing to overall experience of our Members by planning for a good Aerification that runs smoothly.

Lately we have been in improvement mode and have greatly improved areas around the club like the circle area by the driving range, the stonework next to the cartpath on #8 whitworth and have submitted new permits to build a new sign in the front entrance to the club.  A key area that needed to be improved was behind #1 of the Whitworth course.  This area has been part of our plan for a while now to greatly improve. Last week we installed a new flower bed featuring the clubs new logo in the form of a "T"and "C" together meaning Trophy Club.  So far the project looks great and we will add irrigation to it this week and plants will soon follow.  Below is how the project went and the steps we took to create it from before pics to after pics.

The area behind #1 Whitworth was bare because of shade from all the oak trees and from drainage runoff.  We decided to dress the area up by first adding a flower bed featuring stone work showing off new logo.

The flower bed is coming together.  We brought in big boulders to form the flower bed perimeter and added soil to raise it up from the surrounding area.

Our head foreman, Emilio, and one of the Whitworth crew Members, Honorio, are adding stone to the "C" of the "TC".  Its really starting to take shape and start to look good at this point.

The "TC" has taken shape and looks really good.  The golf course superintendent, me, (Grant Meredith), shows off the newly finished work.

Here is a closer look of the "TC".

In the coming future we plan to add Dianthus flowers to the center of the "C" and will seed fescue into the rest of the flower bed.  Irrigation will be installed throughout the entire area and fescue should be seeded around the surrounding trees and up to the cartpath as well.

We recently added new stonework on #8 cart path between the green and the cart path.  We added this stone to relieve the stressed out area from traffic and moisture.  There are other areas on this hole that have been utilized with such stone work so it will continue to be consistent and helpful for traffic and moisture control.

 Before adding stone, we identified where the highest level of traffic was and painted a line where we wanted work to be completed

 Fabian, our irrigation tech, is adding stone to the high traffic area as tight as we can possibly fit them together.  We made the stone level with the cart path and level with the turf on the north side of the cart path.

We have finished adding stone and sand to the area.  We still have a little bit left to do within the blue line, but we plan on finishing this soon.

Adding our first row of pavers to the circle area.

Adding dirt to fill in new circle area for plants.

Added a Youpon Holly in the Center, Double Knockout Rose bushes around the Holly, Compact Nandinas around the rose bushes, and Pansies around the Nandinas, Mulch and cap stones.

We recently transformed the circle area behind the driving range tee box into a newly landscaped area featuring plantings and a new paver stone wall.  We added the raised paver stone wall to guide rain water around the circle area and added plants to dress the area up.  This project took us a few days to complete and we believe it will look really nice once all the plants grow in.

We just put out these new benches on all four of our par 3 holes of the Hogan Course.  The bench above is located on Number 5 of the Hogan Course and has a commemorative plaque on one of the stone legs in memory of past LGA members.  Go ahead and take a load off next time you are waiting to tee off.  Look for others on all par 3's of the Hogan Course.

My name is Grant Meredith and I am the new superintendent here at Trophy Club.  I've been here for a little over 4 months and I'm very excited to be here.  I will be posting news and information on this blog about course maintenance happenings in the near future.  I'm a graduate of Tarleton State University and my experience includes working at Dallas Country Club, Royal Oaks Country Club, and Stonebridge Country Club at The Dye Course.