2018 goals for HOA

The 2018 golf season is getting underway at HOA and we have high hopes for the future of our facility. We have a list of things that we would like to finish up as well as a few new plans for improving the greens and the overall play-ability of the course.

First and foremost we are going to implement a a couple new cultural practices for the greens to improve both speed, and consistency of our putting surfaces. In addition to our usual verticutting and top dressing, we will be using the verticut reels to very lightly stand the grass up on the greens. This will allow for better cut quality from our primary mowers. It will also reduce the amount of thatch build up throughout the year leading to firmer more consistent playing surfaces.

Here is an example of verticut reels and what they do to the green. A good verticut program can greatly improve green firmness and speed.

Next we plan to use the greens roller on a more consistent basis. Rolling has many positive benefits including smoothing out and firming up the surface of the greens. Rolling can also help reduce our disease pressure in the summer months.

If you have been around the river course in the last two weeks you may have seen the new sod we have put down in the bottom of number 5 fairway. As most of you know the fairway was completely covered is silt that killed most of the grass in that area. the new sod will spread throughout the year and hopefully we will have a full fairway once again.

Looking forward to the 2018 season, we will see you out there.   

HOA Maintenance Update

I want to take a moment to update everyone on the ongoing projects at Heart of America. As I'm sure anyone who has played the course over the last few weeks will have noticed, the bunker project is well under way. Many of the bunkers that are in the flood plane will be removed and the bunkers that will remain have been lined and rebuilt with new angular sand.

This state of the art liner is as good as it gets and will make bunker maintenance much more manageable for our small crew. 

This is where #7 bunker used to be, as well as where it has been moved green-side. The shaper we have had out on the course the last couple weeks has done a great job reshaping and filling bunkers around the course.

The River #3 will be reduced to just one bunker and the other to are being contoured and filled.

During those cold, frosty mornings, Sam and I have also made some new signage and targets for the driving range. 

We built this sign and installed it by the front gate so that right when you pull into the course you can see which areas of our facility are open for play that day. This will be useful when we are performing weekly maintenance on the driving range or if one of the 9 hole courses is closed due to flooding or other conditions. 

The new targets we built with metal frames should hold up much better to golf balls and the elements. We should have these in place on the range shortly. 

The weather is getting much better and prime golfing season is right around the corner. We look forward to seeing everyone out at Heart of America Golf Course this year.