FIRST CLASS MAINTENANCE FACILITY

We are always looking for ways to improve at Deer Creek Golf Club. Recently we have placed our focus on the maintenance facility. It is our employees first impression of our department and it sets the tone for the job that they do when we maintain our golf course. We have improved organization of tools and completed a complete floor reconditioning project in the primary technician bay. We are proud of the facility we have and we are excited about the recent improvements.

GANSO THE GOOSE DOG

MEET GANSO

I am sure all of you that have played Deer Creek this winter have noticed the geese that have been vandalizing the golf course.  The geese are particularly bad this time of year due to the fact that they are migrating.  Deer Creek is a temporary home for these birds as they travel.  We do have a small number of geese that make Deer Creek their permanent home.  The geese leave droppings on the ground everywhere they go and they do damage to the greens as they are pecking for food.  

We have explored many means of gees control and we have determined the most cost effective way to control this problem is to have a resident dog that scares the geese away.  Border Collies are the proven breed that has the best track record with geese control.  They are herders by nature and are fast enough to keep the geese on the run. 

We found Ganso at a local rescue league.  Him and his brothers and sisters were very happy to see me.  Ganso was the one that looked like the best fit for us.  Ganso has already been to basic obedience school and is quickly learning to heel, sit, stay, come, and lye down.  We are kennel training him and have currently made him an awesome home in the shop where he will have an indoor kennel with a doggie door access to a kennel run outside.  He will spend most of his time riding with us on carts and policing the golf course for those pesky birds.

We are excited to welcome Ganso to the Deer Creek Maintenance Staff.  Say hi to him when you play your next round as he is always excited to meet new friends.

FYI:  The name Ganso means goose in Spanish   We decided that was a perfect name for the the little goose chaser.    

IRRIGATION AUDIT

Water is a precious resource and we do many things behind the scenes to ensure we apply water to the Golf course in an efficient manner. Primarily making sure we apply just enough water to provide our turf plants is the objective while not over watering maintaining firm playing conditions.

Recently we started a project where we are collecting data that we will process and ultimately determine the efficiency of our turf sprinklers and we will use this data to decide if updating our sprinklers is a cost effective way to decrease ou overall water use while offering an even more consistent playing surface that looks terrific.

The technical description of this process is an Irritation Audit. We will be testing strategic areas and will hopefully come up with some valuable data once the project is completed.

NEW EQUIPMENT

This week we received three new pieces of equipment at Deer Creek.  The most important piece is a new greens mower.  It is a reconditioned 3150 TORO that matches our other greens unit.  We will now be able to prepare all 18 greens in a consistent manner during our shotgun or double tee mornings.  This is an important step in achieving our goal of offering superb consistent putting greens for our Members and Guests at Deer Creek Golf Club. 

The other two pieces are two Club Car Carry All 2 utility carts to replace a few of our old carts that are worn out.  We will use the old carts for parts to recondition the best of the remaining utility carts this winter.  

We appreciate our management's commitment to the Maintenance Department and helping us achieve our goals and objectives that ultimately provide a better experience for our Members and Guests at Deer Creek Golf Club.

BUNKER DETAIL

This is hole 14.. We repaired the edges of the bunker that were caving in due to unstable banks. We used forms and we rebuilt the edges. Now we have a flat bunker that looks great and plays even better.

GREENS NURSERY

We built a greens nursery that will serve as a source for sod to repair vandalism or other unforeseen blemishes in our putting greens.

We dug out 6 inches of soil and added sand back. We used the cores from our fall greens aeration as the sand source. We sodded half of the nursery.  On the other half we finished the top surface with a smooth grade and spread the cores evenly. The cores contain healthy bent grass plants that we will fertilize and groom it into a healthy golf green that should provide years worth of reliable service.

The nursery is located on the pond dam against the North East end of the irrigation lake. 

FINAL GREENS AERATION 2012

We always work closely with ISTRC to scientifically plan and evaluate our aeration processes at Deer Creek Golf Club. This fall we have determined that a larger hollow tine is in order to remove some organic material in the upper 2.5" of the greens profile. We start on the 17th of October and it will take two days. We always keep 9 holes open for play to minimize the impact on our customers. We also chose the late date to save the best putting surface for the September and early October tournament season. The mid October date should have the least impact on our valued customers.

As always we appreciate your cooperation as we take the necessary steps to ensure our new greens are in terrific condition for our members and guests.