IS THAT DEAD GRASS?

We started getting sod again this week and NO, it is not dead.  This turf is just in a winter slumber. Remember our sod source for this project is a farm in eastern Washington.  Why?......Because the price is right..............and they're the only farm growing the fescue blend we need for the bunker eyebrows.  Anyway, eastern Washington is a high desert and it has been frozen solid over there for the last 60 days.  That is definitely normal and so I have every bit of confidence that this turf will come out of dormancy and look just fine in a couple weeks.  These are the bunkers approaching the 9th green.  Those dirt areas are where the fescue will go and some of that turf will be coming over this week.  In the meantime, they look kind of cool like this. Below is #17 green.  

You gotta admit these things are looking good.

This week the practice range bunker was shaped in.

As well as this one left of #1.

And this one right of #1 green.

The bunker on #15 is now underway.

Above here you can see that the fairway bunker on #1 is also shaped in and ready for sod.  If you've been following this project closely, you might remember that we weren't going to rebuild this bunker. Well there was an overwhelming opinion by the members that they wished we would keep this bunker since it just looked so good from the 1st tee and it really made the good players think.  All the average golfers can't really reach it.  So now why are we building it?...... because there's no arguing it will look good, and challenge the best players, but also from a budget standpoint  it will not mess things up since this week we also decided to fill in a bunker that we originally were going to rebuild. I'm talking about the bunker on the right of #2 green.  So it really is just a swap and a "wash".  Why are we filling in this bunker on #2?  Another mainline issue.

Here is a picture of the bunker and that orange paint line is showing the location of the main water line. With that water line there, we cannot build a bunker that will have the same character as the rest.  Relocating the mainline will be expensive.   So in an effort to keep the cost of this project reasonable and on track, we decided to just fill in this trap and create an interesting short turf area.

Here's how it looked right after filling it in.  You can see that ridge we created is pretty steep and taller than a dog.  It should make for some fun chipping, putting or whatever you choose to do here.

We already started sodding it since we really needed to get this turf off of #16 tee before creating the new tee there.

So the turf from #16 tee is now on the right of #2 green.  Yesterdays weather was horrible but the guys really pushed through it and got a lot done.  By the way.......we have the most amazing staff here at Tacoma C&GC.

Here's how it looked as I was leaving Friday.  I think it's going to be great golf here and also a great look as the fairway will just tie right into the tee on #3.............very cool!!