Water Well Improvement

Over the past three weeks we have been working on a project to restore an old water well. The well will help supplement the existing well that fills our irrigation lake at the entrance of the golf course.
This week, the lake-fill line was located and tapped. A four inch line was installed from the tap over to the well head.





The disturbed areas will be back filled and graded for sod and seed.
I'll post more as the project nears completion.

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Verti-cut clippings

Vertical mowing on greens helps remove much more material than regular mowing. It is more aggressive and is usually done bi-weekly during peak growing season.
How much more material is removed? This picture is material from 9 green, small putting green, 1 green and 2 green.  Generally, normal mowing produces 1-2 pounds of clippings per green.

Clippings from 4 greens

Verti-cut blade unit

The benefits?  Vertical mowing removes excessive leaf-tissue, thatch and reduces grain.  It promotes healthy turf and healthy turf needs fewer inputs like fertilizer and water.

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Location:Empire Ranch Golf Club

Home Landscape and Lawn Care Symposium is TODAY!

Follow this link to sign up.  Or just come on by.  Event starts at 6:00 pm and will continue until 7:30 pm.

http://professionalmaintenance.eventbrite.com/

Hamburgers, chips, drinks and beer will be provided.

Thank you,
Rodney Muller

Home Landscape and Lawn care Symposium

Empire Ranch Men's and Women's Golf Club Members:

Please join us for an evening of food, education and camaraderie. Ewing Irrigation and Acme Saw will be here with representatives demonstrating professional products and services.

Ewing Irrigation specializes in landscape products, landscape irrigation, golf and industrial products. Ewing will present their line of professional landscape lighting and outdoor audio products, fertilizer formulations for lawncare and irrigation management products and techniques.

Acme Saw sells and services commercial grade lawncare equipment. Acme will cover everything from spring tune-ups, blade sharpening and Winterization for your small engines. Everything from handheld blowers, power trimmers and self-propelled lawn mowers will be on display.

What? You hire a professional service to take care of your lawn. Well then all you have to do is educate yourself on the products your turf technician should be using so you get the most for your money.

Don’t miss this event. Empire Ranch Golf Club wants to let you in on our little secret and give you an alternative to shopping at a “big box” store.

Hamburgers, hot dogs, chips and drink will be provided. Brent Cohen and Victoria Bruss have also donated a KEG of beer for this event... and it's totally FREE!

The Event will be held in the Empire Ranch Maintenance Facility June 12th from 6pm - 7:30pm.

Please sign up for this event through Eventbrite so I can have a head count for food. Just follow the link below.

http://professionalmaintenance.eventbrite.com/
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Location:Empire Ranch Golf Club

Bunker Project Update

We are down to the final bunker on hole #1.  The bottom of the bunker needs to be raised to drain properly.   During the process of excavating soil for the bunker our tractor lost reverse gear and needed to be taken to Sacramento Tractor for a major repair.

As soon as we get the tractor back to Empire Ranch we will complete our final bunker in the first phase of our bunker renovation.   Thank you.

More Course Improvements Coming

We will begin repairing and sealing the asphalt cart paths April 1st and 2nd.  We will have cart traffic regulated in areas throughout the course, so please use caution during this process.

Please use golf etiquette when approaching crews working on the course.  Before hitting a ball, get the attention of the worker by waiving and letting them know you are approaching them with your shot.  And as always, yell FORE!

Where did the term 'fore' originate?

FORE!

Aerification time

I can not think of a time when so many complements have been made about how great the greens are right now.  Trust me when I say, our staff does not get tired of hearing compliments on course conditions.  But....

Mark your calendars for our spring greens aerification.  April 2nd and 3rd.  April 2nd we will start at 12:00 PM on the front 9.  Wednesday April 3rd we will finish the back 9 starting at 5:00 AM.  Please, no back 9 play on Wednesday.

We will aerify and verticut greens to remove as much thatch as possible.  Fertility has been increased at this time and we should see greens returning to normal in 14-18 days if not sooner with excellent weather conditions.

Tee's have already been aerified, seeded, topdressed and fertilized and recovered nicely.

Here is a great communication article for golfers that is put out by the GCSAA.  Please read.

Aerification: Sometimes it's good to vent

Thank you.