66 days.......

Hole #13.

66 days until the 2013 John Deere Classic begins.  With that, we are still in a cool and wet weather pattern. The Rock River has slowly receded, allowing many homeowners in the area to return home and start the task of cleaning up and repairing any damage.  Temperatures continue to stay below normal for the most part, allowing us to continue working on many course projects before we reach our peak mowing schedule.  Staffing levels are slowing increasing with seven college students starting within the next two weeks bringing our staff to a total of twenty-five.

Our Regional Director of TPC Agronomy, Mark Johnson, visited us on May 1st and 2nd.  During his pre-tournament visit, we toured the property and discussed setup and preparations for the Classic in July. We look forward to working with him again during this years Classic.

This week continues to be very busy with the aerification of all collars and cleanups, #4 green, and both practice fairways (Yeah I said fairway, not tee!  This slight name change may change your view on how you manage this area, whatever you may call it.) #4 green was also seeded, spiked, topdressed, brushed, and rolled on May 2nd after its aerification.  All this is in response to the near perfect results we received from our 2012 PoaCure application for control of Poa annua.  Although there is some bentgrass emerging from the old (or should I say dead) poa patches, we felt we needed to help expedite the process with only 66 days until some of the best golfers in the world grace us with their many talents.

Pepe (the tractor) and I spending a morning together on the Practice Fairways.

Seeding the Practice Fairway after aerification with the Turfco TriWave.

Paul Grogan, CGCS, and Ryan Abbate prepping #4 green for some seed.

View of dead and decaying Poa annua after aerification, seeding and spiking.

We also continue to chip at other projects like away at bunker depths and liner repair on our 74 bunkers.  Cutting of trees and underbrushing kept our staff busy into the winter and again early this spring.  From this, we were left with many stumps in need of grinding.  Ryan Abbate, AGCS II, took on the responsibility of grinding these countless stumps into large piles of fine pieces of mulch and woody debris.

Ryan having just a little too much fun!! (Notice the grin from ear to ear)

Rock River Flooding!

This has been one crazy year so far.  Snow didn't arrive until late into the winter/early spring.  Temperatures have been 10-20 degrees below the average normal temperature since February.  Last year we set records for  heat and drought and within the last six months, I have seen the Rock River at its lowest recorded level and its highest!!!  It crested at 16.5ft yesterday with the previous record being 15.62 ft.  The golf course will not be affected by the flood other than the tournament compound and River Road being under water right now. 

Tournament Compound

View from #4 green looking down to #2 green and the overflowing Rock River.

Panoramic of Rock River. #2 is on the left of the picture.

Hole #2 is on the left.

Panoramic of Clubhouse and #18/17/16 with Rock River in the background.

Shop Maintenance

   It is crazy to think that last year at this time we had already opened and the GCM department had been mowing greens for a couple weeks, the irrigation system was pressurized, and we were hand watering greens because temps had already reached 90 a few times!!  Well, this year is the complete opposite.  We are currently experiencing temperatures that are close to 20-30 degrees below normal for this time of year.  Yesterday morning we woke up to a balmy 8 degrees, with 2-8 inches of snow foretasted for this weekend!!  So with the few extra hours this March,  we decided to finish some more projects around the shop.  Mike, Ryan, Cody, Lyndsay, Jose, and Roberto went to work this week and last, cleaning, prepping, painting, and waxing all the floor in the shop, breakroom, and bathrooms. Great job guys!!

TPC Deere Run visits John Deere World Headquarters

    Last Thursday, the key staff from the club had an opportunity visit John Deere World Headquarters. Over the last couple years, the key staff at TPC Deere Run has changed and many of us have never had a chance to formally meet some of our biggest clients and supporters of the club. The purpose of our visit was to cultivate our relationship with the people who book events at our facility and have a face-to-face meeting with them.  The meeting included a wonderful lunch and a guided tour of the property.

   We all had a great time and learned many new things about the history of Deere & Company.  We would all like to say thanks to our hosts and tour guide for their hospitality.
 
    Below is a link to John Deere's World Headquarters website where you can read about the history of the property and all the interesting architectural details of the construction of the building.  JD World HQ

P.S. - The building is designed to be rusty!

Birds eye view.

President of Deere & Company at the time of the building of this project, William Hewitt, choose Eero Saarinen over Frank Lloyd Wright as architect.  Eero Saarinen also built the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri.

Executive dining room with view of a Koi pond.

Lounge. Furniture upholstered with fabric commonly found in John Deere tractors. Building has a type of modular design that allows interior walls to be moved and rearranged easily with very little effort. Walls hang from and secure to the ceiling and floor in a "channel" like system. This is easily seen in the grid pattern on the ceiling.

Key staff on guided tour.

View of atrium.

Another view of atrium.

View from glass walkway showing the use of Cor-ten steel.  In case you where wondering, it is supposed to be rusty! Another uncommon fact is that the executive offices are housed on the second floor of the building and not the top.  

Portrait of John Deere.

One of the many hundreds of pieces of artwork displayed on the walls throughout the property. Pictures are rotated frequently throughout the year with many more held in storage.

View of auditorium where many meetings are held including the annual stockholders meeting.

Picture of the massive indoor showroom full of equipment from all of its product lines.

The other half of showroom. P.S. - These are full size pieces of equipment.

One mans trash.......

One mans trash is another mans (or in this case - womans) potting bench!!  Thanks to Lyndsay and her interest in Pintrest, we turned a couple of ordinary pallets into a functional potting bench for her to use come spring time.  She told us about her idea and within a couple hours, Ryan and Cody had a majority of it already prepped and assembled.  100% of the wood was recycled from pallets.  We ended up recycling and reusing the boards from 6 pallets in order to make this bench.  Material costs were kept to a minimum by using only recycled wood but if labor costs are a concern, then a few 2x4's laying around the shop or purchased from the store would eliminate that concern.  The roof was a scrap piece of metal roofing material that was saved from a roof at the maintenance facility that was replaced this summer.  Even the wood stain was leftover from a previous years project.  Only a few screws were the only thing "new" needed for this project. Nice work guys!!!

Taking shape.

Assembly complete. Prestain.

Finished. Wow!

GOODBYE POA!!!

This last year we were selected to try a new experimental herbicide specifically targeted to remove Poa from fairways and greens. This product is called PoaCure.  Its active ingredient is Methiozolin 25%. This last week we decided to take a plug off of the green on hole #4, and bring it inside to see how well it has over-wintered since we have had practically zero snow cover all winter.  The plug that was removed was taken from an area of the green that included both bent and poa. It also has had three 0.06fl oz/M sq. ft applications of PoaCure. The remaining four PoaCure applications will resume in April and be completed every two weeks.

Thanks to all the cultural practices and agronomic strategies over the last 13 years since being built, our greens are far from being heavily populated with Poa. With only a total of 2-3 square feet of Poa from all twenty-two of our greens, 98% of our total amount of Poa resides on hole #4. This is why we decided to use this green as our test. Over the last seven days the bent has awaken from its winter slumber quite well but its cool-season counterpart has not fared as well. Below are some pictures of the plug on day 1 through day 7.

#4 Green where plug was taken.

Day 1

Day 4

Day 7.  Where is the Poa??

Winter is Over???

This week on the Rock River, which is adjacent to the 2nd hole, we witnessed a river overflowing its banks!!  Seems hard to believe since the Rock River was at record low levels this summer from record heat and record low precipitation.  We finished the year with a 12 inch deficit.   How can this be?  What happened was some ice had broken free upstream and started to flow down the river when it hit a section of the river where the ice was still thick enough to stay together and not break apart.  This resulted in a stockpile of large ice chunks that slowed the flow of water and pushed the water outward, causing the river to rise with a threat of flooding.  This localized flooding only lasted for a couple of hours until it pushed its way further downstream.  Along with the temporary rise in the depth of the Rock River, and the threat of flooding, came Gary the goose!