Rockne Brat Fest!!

Thank you very much to Tom and Jana Rockne for setting up their  annual grounds crew cookout again this year!  Tom brought his trusty sou chef John Kuipers for set up, feeding prep and clean up assistance.  Thank you to Linda Kuipers for the wonderful deserts too.  Lots of brats, sides, chips, cookies, and all of the brat fixings as well as the soda and Gatorade.

    

                  

The homemade flyer was a huge hit this year and everyone was looking for to it.  My team was really well taken care of and had so much to eat!

Another Storm!! This One Really Packed the Wind.

Path from 3 green to 4.

East of the driving range and on the shoulder of Cass.

Right of 13 green and look at that crisp white hole edge!

Left of 15 fairway.  We were lucky something this big didn't fall right on top of two of the fairway irrigation heads there, that would have made a real mess.

Hollow and it's been falling apart for a few years.  

Behind the clubhouse.  Chef Devon says to save the mulberry wood for some great meat smoking!

 

Just Under 3 Inches of Rain - Another Storm Bullseye at The Club

Last Saturday morning we had another whopper of a storm hit the club directly.  Just under 3 inches of rain in the morning hours.

We had water collected in areas we have never seen before.  Wait until you see the last picture in the post.

Here is a picture looking back at the driving range tee.  The city engineers received a copy of our driving range plans back in 2004 before we built it in the fall of 2005.  They added the berm to the east which included a rock river spill way to slow down the water if needed.

Another view in front of the driving range tee.

17 approach, call it our south pool.

This one even took me a few seconds to figure out as my assistant Dan shared this one with me.  

This is 11 approach looking back down the fairway towards the tee.  No carts today, yes no carts :).

 

Photos from Around the Club

So cool seeing 11 baby ducks show up at our lake about two weeks ago.  I don't see them out and about every morning but glad momma is raising them here.

Our putting green is now five years old but needs more attention than our 110 year old putting greens do at times in the summer.  We give it a light rate of granular starter fertilizer about every six weeks and it gets watered in about 3 minutes.

This is the 8th green 30 minutes before the first round of the Walter Hagen Invitational.  Bad timing for a downpour but my team squeegeed it off with a few other greens just before the 30 minute weather delayed start time.

Two green about 8 minutes after it started to pour, the clouds opened up and it came down fast and hard.

The big storm approaching on Friday morning.

Pretty much a bullseye at The Club.  Most of this was cloud to cloud lightning but one hit just east of the course and took out an irrigation surge arrestor. 

Summer camp in the golf simulators, love this great club!

Wile E coyote keeping most of the geese away but once a family has their gooselings, they won't leave.  The blinking laser light show comes on at water level when it gets dark and rotates the lasers in a circle which I think has been the trick this year, fingers are crossed.

My equipment manager Mitch working on some serious electrical trouble shooting.  Perfect timing as the board approved the purchase of a new reel grinder and ever since then and, another golf course purchasing this grinder, we have had nothing but trouble.  Don't worry Justin at the Nightmare, it's back to working order.

 

Autonomous Fairway Mowers at The Club

On Wednesday morning we had a demonstration of the new autonomous fairway mower called the Firefly Amp.  I have seen it at the nation conference and trade show the last two years. 

Superintendent Scott Rhettmann at Walnut Creek Country Club in South Lyon, has been using them this season with great success. 

We purchased a new Toro fairway mower for the 2025 season and have a second one budgeted for 2026 so we are in the market and the technology was pretty remarkable.  They will be sending me many reports including an ROI report that we can input our own data to compare.  

https://fireflyautomatix.com/amp-mowers/

 

2026 Planters are Ready

These will be on the grand patio.

Shade versions and these containers have stood the test of time!

Long versions, grand patio and black containers will be at the entrance to the pool house.

Happy plants!

Can't wait to get these out Friday morning.

New this year are a few tall planters with grass, love the seed heads but more to blow and clean up each morning :(.

 

More Spring Operations and Shaving Tree Roots

Tree removal on 8 from last fall.  Stump grinding done and cleaned up with topsoil coming next.

Three trees removed last fall.

Our loan cherry tree is in amazing condition!

A Rainbird sunrise.

Unusual marks on 10 fairway?  Silver maples are the worst tree next to any playing surface on a golf course.  The roots are so shallow rooted.  We started last year with a new root pruner and we started this up again last week.

Brian our Davenport College student runs the root pruner on 10 fairway.

The pruner works fantastic but gets very dull cutting through the topsoil.  

Before we blow off the chipped debris.

Ready for our topdressing mix and bent grass seed.

Two green through six fairway and holes 12-15!  I snapped this one on my way to Washington, DC for the Golf Coalition Day, more on that in a future blog post.