December- The Work Continues

The month of December has brought with it mild weather but cold temperatures. The freezing overnight temperatures caused us to close the Greens for the remainder of the season on December 1st. Closing Greens is a practice used by many courses. It is a decision made this time of year to protect the Greens and the roots from winter damage. Once the Greens have frozen the roots become vulnerable to weight on the surface of the Greens, ie-walking, mowers, equipment. This weight on top of the frozen roots can cause the roots to break, meaning our root systems could be severed to a few inches. We want to make sure our Greens are protected through these winter months and give ourselves the best possible jump start in the spring. For winter golf at Beverly, we have the course set up in its traditional winter Reverse Set-Up for any walkers that would like to get exercise when the weather permits. 

While golf at the club has been slowed due to weather and the closing of the Greens, the work continues for the Grounds Department at Beverly! We have continued to complete drainage work throughout the golf course, fixed erosion of the pond at #12 and aerified the rough. 

During the restoration project we have been adding drainage throughout the course. We have continued that work this past season in areas throughout the course that have continued to flood during rains. This past month we have completed drainage to the area between #3 Green and #4 Tee. This has been a wet area for most of last season due to the reconfiguration of the tee box at 4 and the re-routing of the irrigation in the area. We took the opportunity to not only drain this area but run lines and add catch basins to encompass the far back left of #3 Green and areas around the Nursery that continue to sit wet well after rains have finished. 

Drainage is beneficial in so many ways to a golf course. I remember a phrase told to me by Joe Noppenberger, Superintendent at Wedgewood G&CC, he said "Dry will scare the hell out of you but wet will kill you!" That statement still rings true after all these years! Areas sitting wet and submerged in water will generally not be as healthy as well drained areas where the turf has the ability to dry out. Members also see the benefits from drainage after rain storms. The added drainage gives us the ability to get carts back out on the course as quickly as possible. We will continue to add drainage in areas throughout the golf course this winter as weather permits. We have a lot of areas that would benefit from this work!

We had a few heavy rains over the season that forced the pond at #12 to flood which created erosion issues along the banks of the pond as the water receded down. We took some time this past month to fix these minor erosion spots around the pond. We took soil from the drain lines we were cutting from our drainage projects and filled in those erosion holes. We compacted those spots and covered with fresh bluegrass sod. Normal weather will help settle these areas and pack them in naturally, this will help stabilize the pond bank for future storms.

Over the past few years we have been doing major projects on the golf course- tree work, restoration, etc... and due to the heavy workload we were unable to aerify the rough as we had for many years prior. This season we got back to aerifying the rough! Aerification of the rough brings the same benefits as aerication of Greens Tees or Fairways. It gives a chance for air to get to the roots, helps to combat heavy compaction in the rough from cart or equipment traffic and helps with drainage throughout the rough after rains. It is a week long process to aerify the 85 acres of rough. You'll notice the plugs are scattered throughout the rough, however, those plugs will freeze, thaw and dry out as the winter progresses and will break up after our first mow in the spring. 

Even with the closure of the Greens there is still a lot of work to be done on the golf course. We generally keep on a staff of 8 employees throughout the winter. We continue to work hard in the off season to make improvements to the course that will give the membership a better golf course the following season.  Happy Holidays from all us at the Grounds Department!

Kirk Spieth

November- Putting the Golf Course to Bed

As the season comes to an end, overall, the golf course has made it through the season very well and very healthy considering the circumstances of newly seed/sodded areas, high volume of play and tough weather. The Greens are going into their first true winter in great shape. The aerification of the Greens in October went very well and the warmer stretch of weather in November has given the few stressed areas on the Greens extra time to heal and recover. I'm very pleased with the Greens and their performance this past season. For only being 1 year old they performed incredibly well under tough conditions and weather. The 007 grass has lived up to its reputation!

The November weather has kept play up and turf growing throughout the golf course. Our November at the Grounds Department has been busy. We have many jobs that need to be completed before the true winter months hit us. Add to those jobs extra mowing and course setup due to the unseasonable warm weather and it can get tough to "put the course to bed." The warm, dryer weather over the last month has also given us the ability to work on a few projects to help continue to improve the grounds at Beverly. The fence line at hole #4 has gotten a much needed paint job. A big thanks to Dave Mancini and the clubhouse staff for helping in painting the fence at #4. We also added extensive drainage through the valley at #8 approach. This will help firm up the area much quicker after heavy storms and general rainfall.  

What does the phrase "putting the golf course to bed" entail for the grounds department? Like most golf courses in the North, its typically the same: final mows of the Greens, Tees and Fairways, irrigation blowout/winterization, and snow mold fungicide applications to all the bent grass. Over the years given the uncertainty of Chicagoland weather, my rule of thumb is to have those jobs completed by Thanksgiving. There has been years to where post Thanksgiving, I have come back to the golf course covered in snow and not see any green again for the next 3 months. So to be safe, I like to be buttoned up by the week of Thanksgiving if possible. We are on schedule this year as we are completing those tasks this week. 

At Beverly, its a two day process to blowout and winterize the irrigation system. Beverly is unique in the fact our irrigation system is connected to city water, so we must close off that mainline valve first. A rented compressor is then connected into our irrigation system at the pumphouse located behind the Pro Shop. The compressor then provides us our pressure to push the water out of the system by turning on the irrigation heads.

Our staff then goes through the golf course hole by hole, turning on each individual sprinkler head, letting the water run out until only air remains in the line. This is done to make sure all water is removed from the lines and no pockets of water exist. If enough water is left in a portion of the irrigation system, the water could freeze over the winter, splintering the irrigation line. That scenario obviously can cause major problems in the Spring when we go to fire up the irrigation system. 

The final task is applying our fungicide application to the Greens, Tees and Fairways. This is the last chemical application of the year and will protect our bent grass through the harsh winter months. The main diseases we are trying to protect our bent grass from are grey snow mold and pink snow mold. These two diseases thrive in the cold weather of the winter months, so it is important to have a solid application to end the season.

As you can see there is a lot of work that goes into "putting the golf course to bed" and mother nature doesn't always want to comply with our timing. However, this year the weather has been perfect and Beverly is set up nicely to have a great slumber and be ready to go next Spring. I hope this gives better insight as to what it takes to "put the golf course to bed." It is a lot of work and usually done with a limited staff this time of year. As always, our grounds staff at Beverly is second to none and work extremely hard each day.

Kirk Spieth

Welcome to Beverly CC Grounds Department Blog

For those that may not know, I'm Kirk Spieth, grounds superintendent at Beverly Country Club located in Chicago, IL. I've been the superintendent at Beverly CC going on 10 years. Some background on myself;  I've got 23yrs of experience in the turf grass industry which began at Wedgewood G&CC in Powell, OH as a simple summer job. After working my way up and spending a few years as Assistant Superintendent at Wedgewood, I  moved to the Chicagoland area to work as the North Course Superintendent at Olympia Fields. The 5 years of work at Olympia Fields groomed me well for the opportunity to become the head Superintendent at Beverly Country Club in 2011.

Over the past decade at Beverly, we have taken on many projects, hosted the 2011 Western Jr Am and the 2014 Western Am. We most recently completed a complete golf course restoration led by architects Ron Prichard and Tyler Rae. There has been much work and excitement at Beverly over the last two seasons that its created new sets of questions from the membership. I have decided to begin a blog to help better communicate with the membership of Beverly on how the grounds department handled not only the restoration but also how it handles the new daily maintenance of the golf course. This blog will keep you updated on golf course projects, issues and concerns. You can expect to get monthly updates on an array of topics ranging from bunker maintenance and major projects to how we do daily course set up and ball mark/divot repair. The monthly posts will be full of information, pictures and videos that will help illustrate the hard work our staff puts in to keeping Beverly one of the top courses in the country. 

My hope is this blog will help answer the many questions members have in regards to golf course maintenance and help open a line of communication directly to the grounds department. I look forward to answering questions and providing you with a more in depth answers as to why we do certain things on the golf course. Please feel free to follow the blog by hitting the icon on the right. We will also send out a link monthly to the membership when a new update is posted. 

Kirk Spieth