Tee Squaring

Starting this week we put another project on our plate.  Something I've had my eye on over the last few years has been cleaning up our tee edges.  When the latest course renovation was done, part of the project involved squaring off the tees.  Square tees have become a common feature in golf courses these days, the challenge though is keeping them square.  The best defense against wayward tee edges is equipment operators that take their time and take pride in the job they do by keeping the edges straight.  Yesterday we began cleaning up unstraight edges as well as removing contaminated bluegrass from around the tees.  I believe that during the tees seeding process there was either washout or windblown bent seed that made its way into the rough.  This bentgrass has a hard time growing at rough height and in the heat of the summer tends to head south quick.  By straightening edges and removing contaminated bluegrass we will add a great deal of aesthetic appeal to the tee complexes.  If I had my wish we'd resod the whole complex but for now we're just concentrating on the immediate surrounds.
Yesterday we started on the 14th tee complex.  This tee edging project is going to go in conjunction with the lowering of the large mound behind the 13th green.  The mound lowering is something we've had in the works now for the last few years and finally getting around to it.  Sod is needing removed from the mound before excavation takes place so we needed to find somewhere for it to go.  Normally we'd roll it up and place to the side although the mound lowering will take some time and the sod would survive being rolled up that long.  So, why not use it to address some of these poor tee edges.  Our plans are to just go as far as the sod from the 13th mound will alow us.  Starting at 14 then doing tees in close proximity to the area, that way we're not traveling all the way across the golf course.
My hopes are that by the end of next week we've been able to remove as much sod from the mound as needed.  Once we get the sod removed we'll begin to excavate the mound and use the soil to build the small pond edge on 18 in conjunction with the clubhouse project.  It's a large game of musical material going on but it helps us save some money on materials as well as accomplish 3 different projects.

Here the guys are working on stripping the edges around the ladies tee on 14

Along with making sure the edges are straight we've also created a little more room at the top to turn mowers on.  This tee has very steep and sudden slopes that it made equipment operation a challenge.

White tee painted for stripping.  You can see the blue paint on the corner of the tee but it also runs up the right edge giving that straight line to follow.  Here you can also see the contamination, the bent is the lighter green while the bluegrass is the darker green.  We're removing the bent and will be resodding with the blue grass from the mound behind 13 grn.

Guys starting to strip the white tee on 14.