Construction progress 1/16/13

The past week has been another busy week here at Ocean Pines.  #15 and 16 green were sodded on Thursday and then the 2 crews moved onto start digging #13 and 18 greens.  This week has put a hold on work because the soil has turned to mud with the rain over the past 2 days.  #13 was dug out on Monday and most of 18 is dug out as well.  After speaking with the project manager yesterday the bad weather this week will have no impact on the overall schedule of the project. 

The picture below in from early last week when the greens mix was being installed in #10.

This is the very early stages of digging #13 green.  The sub base that they are digging to is 16 inches under the surface.  This picture shows that the operator has dug a substantial amount of soil out and now they are using the laser level to make sure the contour of the sub base is exactly 16 inches lower than what the surface will be.  In other words after the soil is removed from the green core the sub base is shaped to the exact contour that the surface of the green will end up.  This way when the 4 inches of gravel is installed it will be exactly 4 inches of gravel across the entire green and the same happens with the 12 inches of mix.  That way the thickness of the 2 products installed are exactly the same across the entire green.  This process is very important because if the thickness of the gravel or the mix becomes to much or to little in some areas this will result in poor turf conditions on the surface.  What we are trying to achieve is a consistant drying of the green over the entire surface.  If there is to much sand in an area of the green then that area will take longer to drain.  Resulting in possible saturated turf and this will contribute to a number of different causes for the turf to decline in this portion of the green.  On the flip side if there is to little sand in an area of the green then this area will drain faster resulting in a "hot spot" that will dry out faster and possibly wilt the turf.  Our contractor does a wonderful job with getting this part of the process correct so that we will have a consistancy in the depth of the mix and this will allow us to have an optimal performing green. 

Even in the rain our crew in the maintenance department is still hard at work out on the course.  Here we are using stone that we found on the property as a border around the cul de sac at the bathroom on #14.  Once this area has a defined border we will lay sod and this will make a tremendous improvement to the look of this area.