I’ve learned a farmer is always working on their harvest or in preparation of their harvest. So we were fortunate to have found a band of farmers that smartly utilize their farming equipment between harvests. Last summer, all summer, the farmers were our mass excavators as they dug our 12 acre irrigation pond. It gave me a good understanding of how the farmer works -- pretty simle actually, they work when they can -- sun up to sun down.
The above picture is of a large tractor pulling two scrapers. They fill one basket with 10 tons of dirt, then the second with 10 tons, paying close attention to the mechanisms and when they are full – drive to the fill area and drop and compress the loads by running over the materials. The equipment represent a major investment and they spend considerable time on upkeep and maintenance. I found there to be many similarities between farming and industry –- except deadlines were maybe even more important to the farmer.
Each Monday I’ll be talking about one of the golf holes more specifically – not a generic bland description, but a feature that I like or I think is special. More than any other hole on the course, the pin placement polarizes which side of the wide fairway is the optimum side. The green is pretty wild. Don spent a great deal of time both tying the green into the surrounds and ensuring it fit into the long views of the ranch portion of the property. The green is in front of the scraper in the background. I’d say this hole looks easy and plays hard. Into the prevailing wind doesn’t make it any easier. You can see there was a little water in a fairway bunker earlier this spring – we were still finishing the drainage.
Congratulations to the county – earlier this week we broke a 106 year old record. We are now the rainiest July in over a century - and it isn't because there was a rainier month - the data only starts in 1901. The above picture is from this Thursday - the record wasn't broken by a little bit either. I try not to ask how much we’ve gotten year to date…
This is the biggest piece I’ve operated to date – it is a Cat D6R and it is pretty fun. It was pretty hard to see at first and quite responsive – I was usually on the old clunker without air conditioning. When this big guy wasn’t in use I roughed in a few features. That is a wide track – it makes less of a mess when turning, and is a nice compactor. I don’t know what the R is, but Jacob (our shaper) used to make sure he specified the R when ever he was going to put it to work – but I am still a little green as not long ago I used to call diesel gas.
There is quite a bit of equipment on most golf course construction sites. I thought it might be informative to show some of the tools we used to build the course. This first picture is of Don in our 100” tree spade. Work was a little slow when he first arrived, and he cleared out some of the smaller live oaks from future fairways to fill in the front of the property. He got good at using it, all without any trouble – they get very heavy and are far more unstable with a tree and soil. It hasn't been used for any plantings yet, but it is nice to have the option easily at our disposal.We never had a deadline for finishing, it has always been work at a pace that makes the most sense for the golf course and economically – this has had a huge impact on the overall quality of the project and I’ll be talking in detail about the philosophical ramifications – it is rare to have an appropriate amount of time.
Last week I was describing a mott of live oaks on the course to someone – they asked what is a mott? As there are quite a few on the course I thought I’d throw a little vocabulary your way. The “ranch” portion of the course was routed around several motts of Live Oaks. I must say that they turned out quite well in the context of the course - they are beautiful and large. We did very little clearing of trees, it was mostly the Huisatche (bonus word) that we cleared. I did like the Huisatche look – kind of like a spindly gorse and almost as painful – but apparently not everyone is very fond of the stuff.
Time to start talking about the golf course – the above photo is taken from behind 1 green. The short par 4 opener plays into a quartering wind and has a significant ridge that dictates the strategy from the tee. If you play down the left side of the fairway you can have a fun putt from 50 yards out. The large green is a big target - note lighter colored sand, and it is filled with subtle breaks. There are no mounds anywhere near the putting surface. If you are too aggressive you may find your ball over the back – it is hard to judge from the photo, but trust me it is a tough spot to recover from. The green size was inspired by the large opening green at Jasper Park by the great Stanley Thompson. It gives the recreational player a little extra putting practice.
I’ve learned a farmer is always working on their harvest or in preparation of their harvest. So we were fortunate to have found a band of farmers that smartly utilize their farming equipment between harvests. Last summer, all summer, the farmers were our mass excavators as they dug our 12 acre irrigation pond. It gave me a good understanding of how the farmer works -- pretty simle actually, they work when they can -- sun up to sun down.
