Bunker damage from "Hill climbers".

This is the right greenside bunker on the 2nd hole, you can see some turf damage at the bottom 1\3 of the picture.

This is a close up of that same damage. As we try to figure out what has caused this, a few causes come to mind. Please pick which one you think.

1) bad construction.
 2) Poor maintenance
                                    3) Golfers using this steep bank as a shorter exit out of the bunker and this is the spot for their 1st step.

If you picked #3 as the culprit, you are correct. This is a steep bank that is a challenge to maintain let alone an area to climb out of the bunker. Even though it is the shortest point in the bunker to get back to a golf cart, It is not the correct exit point.
The proper point of exit would be back towards the fairway where the grade is at it's most level.

New cart path's and a new tee at WVCC.

Senior Asst. supt. Jerry Stockmal leveling the mix for the new tee on the 18th hole. The majority of this tee came from the soil generated from the new cart path.

Santos Lopez making sure the grade next to the path at #10 is proper.

A final rolling by asst. supt. Jim Dennison to make sure the tee is tabletop smooth.

A different method for ensuring a level tee. Dave Joyce and Jerry Stockmal using an ladder section to knock down any high points on the tee.

Paving Day!

As part of the master plan, certain cart paths are being extended and resurfaced. The path leading to the bridge on the 3rd hole has been shifted away from the fairway by 12 feet.  The path at the 10th green has been extended and resurfaced. And the path from #18 tee has been extended past the forward tee and paved.

Cart path work being done on holes 3, 10 and 18.

On the 18th hole 250 linear feet of path was added from the tee to the left side of the fairway. The soil that  was removed was used to create an additional tee on the hole.

This is a view of the 3rd hole looking at the green. The path next to the green end of the fairway was pulled away 12 feet. An additional path was added to connect the path at #3 to the path at#14.

Fairway aeration process.

Fairway aeration has come a long way in the last 15 years. The machines we now use are very similar to the machines used on greens and tees. Hole spacing used to be 4" apart both width and length where now our spacing is 2 1\2" by 3" with a depth up to 4" . This will remove more thatch and open up channels for root growth.

John Fleming shown aerating the 10th fairway at WVCC.

Jerry Stockmal is supplementing the process by using a walk behind unit to aerate the approach and fairway edges.

When the plugs are partially dried out, this large steel mat will break them up into smaller particles of soil. This process may go on 4 or 5 times to separate the soil from the thatch and help move the smaller particles back into the 5\8" wide holes.

As organic matter and soil that is too hard to break up accumulates, we use snow shovels to congregate the material into piles.

A smaller more maneuverable blower aides in this process by creating condensed piles for pick up.

Piles getting condensed even tighter.

Doug Miller and Joseph Steele manually shoveling thatch into carts for removal. If you wonder why we just don't blow the material into the rough. The accumulation of soil and organic matter would cause the rough areas to thin out.

After the fairway is blown off again and rolled with heavy rollers, water is applied as quickly as possible to prevent the grass from wilting. When fairways are aerated in the summer months, we tend to over apply moisture to prevent turf loss. It would be difficult to explain why we went through a summer with good looking fairways only to lose turf during the aeration process.