This year feels a lot better than this time last year. We are progressing on our to do list and it might look like we can be successful in completing them. After #18 we headed over to #17 and installed 2 irrigation heads on the right side of the hole. We ended up not waiting on the snow to melt and started right away not waisting any time. They have just completed the work and currently working on #1. Let me give you a little background information on what is going on in this area, as you can see in the first photo. At the time of the irrigation install, it appears that someone decided we should irrigate this entire hill area. At first thought that would make for a great idea when establishing grass, but over time this actually becomes a waist of money. There are 6 irrigation heads in the native area, the plan is to remove 2 heads and use them as spare parts, the other 4 irrigation heads are to be moved to the native and maintained turf grass line so that they will only water the maintained turf or rough. Just one irrigation head alone will cost just under $200 dollars, so you can see the importance of utilizing this equipment.
This year we are really trying to focus on safety, though we have not had any accidents, I want to keep it that way. We are moving towards the grounds staff wearing hard hats as they work on the golf course. You just can not be to careful when we work in an environment that has this kind of danger. Once its time to start work in the morning, its go time!, the crew is busy preparing for the morning jobs which could be very labor intensive. So my assistants and I have come up with a few stretches that the crew goes through before they start work. Its obvious why we want them to do this, so we can limit the amount of injuries from either lifting, pushing, shoveling etc... and this brings everyone a little closer which creates a team building exercise, so to speak.
As for the shop improvements, every time it would rain water would enter the building on both ends and sometimes even coming into my office and the mechanics shop. We hope that we alleviated the problem by installing foundation drainage and gravel as you can see in the entire area. Another project of mine is to reduce the amount of electricity of which the shop consumes, going eco-friendly. Some examples we have already done is installed LED flood lights on the outside and put in motion sensors in the locker room and bathrooms to automatically turn off the power. Over time I would like to have everything converted to LED's and look for other creative and interesting ways to save energy.
