Raising Drain Basins

The "finish work" at Champions Club could be rated poor in several categories.  Although the course has only been open for seven years, the installation of the infrastructure has signs of poor quality workmanship.  One item I will focus on in this post is grade of the fairway drain basins.  Many of the 12" Nylo-plast collection basins present in the fairways present playability issues due to their "grade" within the fairway.  We have spent many man hours addressing the level of these basins this season and plan to continue to address these issues in the upcoming season.

Over-Planting

With the decline of the Tifway II Bermudagrass within the fairways over the past several years an aggressive attempt to re-establish the surface had to be implemented.  The previous procedure of seeding Bermudagrass was both expensive and ineffective.   Conditions in the summer were declining to the point of golfers playing off of bare soil.  Sod installation would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and could not be justified by the club in the current economy.  The decision was made to bring in the only Over-planting unit in the United States and to over-plant 11.5 acres of fairway.  Santa Ana Hybrid Bermuda was selected as the desired cultivar and was over-planted into the existing soil/canopy- depending on what was present.  The process consisted of:  closing the golf hole for the short duration of over-planting (in most cases a half a day), over-planting the fairway, mowing the fairway post planting to disperse the chaff, and re-openning the hole for play (on the same day).

Adequate irrigation was applied to maintain "sprig" hydration in the days/weeks following over planting and additional fertilizer was applied to promote establishment.