Project Update

Last week we left off on 17 greenside bunkers.  This bunker on the left side turned out awesome.  You can see by the area of disturbance on the left side of this picture, that the construction of this bunker left a big scar.  Well this bunker used to be huge so to make it look like it was never there, we had to really chase out all the mounding that was around it.  I'm telling you, it is going to be a beautiful green complex when we're done.  Removing all the mounding generated quite a bit of fill dirt that was used to finish the subgrade of the 7th tee.

Here's how that turned out.  Yes...........the black tee is lower in elevation than the blue and white tee, and many of you have expressed that it shouldn't be like that.  Why is it like that???? Because that's how it turned out since that's what worked best given the the topography.  Is it unusual????  Maybe but I think it's fantastically unusual and will make for some fun golf.  

So now on to the 10th green.  Remember the challenges we were faced with here given the mainline pipes running alongside this green.  Relocating the main water lines would have been costly.  The decision was to design around them instead of moving them to facilitate the design.  Our brilliant design team came up with this.

Now, this new smallish bunker fronting the green only looks like it's right in front of it.  There is actually about 30 feet of approach there so if you hit a shot to the correct yardage, you should be able to nestle one up to a front pin location.  That is of course if you are hitting a lofted shot from the fairway which of course means you hit from an appropriate tee that has left with you a short approach shot.  If you insist on hitting from a tee that does not fit your game, you may have to hit a long iron or hybrid up the left side and roll it on.  The left side bunker has been removed and the fairway cut grass will be expanded to allow this option.  The 10th hole at Tacoma has just turned really interesting.  I just love this new green complex.

All the fairway turf in front of the 10th green has been relocated to the left side of the 8th green as you can see here.  In addition, this next pic shows that we are also sodding around the 5th green.

That whole area between 5 and 8 green is coming along nicely.

The blending of the teeing grounds on #6 and #18 took on a new look this week.  The subgrade was set and now you can really imagine how it will look and play.  This is the view from 18 black tee.  If you are one of those that thought you weren't going to like this idea, go check it out today.  It might just be the coolest thing I have ever seen in golf.

This picture was taken from between 9 and 18 fairway.  This view has been unobstructed by trees for the last couple of decades.  Just yesterday, we removed some of the new trees here as the plan continues to mow these two fairways as one in this area.  If you look really close at this picture, you can also make out that there is a person up in the tree near the first tee.  Unfortunately that is an arborist removing that old oak tree.  Here's one of the last pictures taken of this tree.

I am saddened that this tree needed to be removed but it suffered some stress in the last wind event that had caused it to lean excessively.  

You can see here by the heaved up curbing that the tree was starting to fall.

It was clear to me and my arborist that it was destined to fall over very soon and given it's location over a traffic area, clearly removal was the best decision.