User Power
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456%
- Jul 24, 2007
- 4,228
- 19,297
So many people are not happy with their situation. They want more and are looking for ways to achieve.
But, so many people fail at starting. Many more fail at the first obstacle. Yet even more fail at the perceived line of roadblocks in front of them. The ones that get through are the real doers!
The doer is a solution finder. The doer will grind while others wonder why they bother. The doer will not be intimidated by words from others. The doer will not be stopped by problems that look insurmountable.
The doer will do!
I am going to take this moment to brag a bit. Just for an example, mind you...
Our most recent purchase of the golf course was a huge leap of faith. So many things were wrong. We needed to take a completely f*cked up course and make it playable again. In the process we have to count on players coming back to play after walking away in frustration.
The playing area should be primarily grass. More that 30% of it was dirt!
Everyone around here had an opinion on why and were happy to tell me how to fix it. The GM and Superintendent informed me of how simple it would be. Just replace the missing sprinkler heads they said.
We have a winter seed process that happens every year. It is critical that it works. I was assured that this process was simple that that the facility was ready for it. If the grass does not come in.... we fail! Our business relies on the winter visitors that come from the north to play golf. We must pull in enough money during the season to carry us forward.
Well, we had a pump problem the first day that we shut down for the overseed process. The seed was delayed because we were preoccupied and did not have the ability to put water down. This took a few days to patch and we hired someone to come back and fix correctly at a later date.
Anyway, a week later the seed still was not down. Our operations and all income were shut down for this. The super had all sorts of excuses. I told him that we were seeding ready or not. He said that his experienced guys were not there that day and wanted to wait again. I told him that he was going to train me and the other workers and we were going to put the seed down. So we did and it was not difficult.
This continued the next day and we got most of the seed down.
Then the wind came up... real hard. The 30% of the course that did not have grass were blown clear of the seed. We did not have time to react and put anything in place to hold it down. The seed for the course cost over 25K! The real problem was that nobody noticed that the seed was gone.
A few days later it started growing. I was happy. A few days later, I realized that less than 50% of the course was sprouting. When I went to the super about it he said that he was concerned also and started giving all sorts of excuses. Even bringing up the idea that the course was sabotaged. I turned into a rabid dog.
I was spending a lot of time on the mowers and was all over the course most of the time. During this time, I was observing and noticed a lot of unevenness in the moisture on the course. All of our irrigation is setup on a complex system. I started mapping out the dry areas and asked for more water to be placed in those areas and was told that this was not possible. Then came the answer I was looking for... "well, it may be possible but I don't know how to do it".
We immediately got our rep on the phone and he told us how to make the changes.
I continued mapping out the course and making changes. I found empty locations between golfers and put more water on during the daytime. More grass grew but not much more.
The super then told me that there are different nozzle sizes for the sprinklers and that some may have low water volume heads on them. I went around the entire 130 acres and looked at each sprinkler head. I changed over 150 to the higher volume nozzles.
I was now monitoring all of the areas that had low/no growth and making sure that they had enough water.
Still... over 20% of the areas had no growth to speak of. It is now 22 days since the original shutdown. Members were expressing their concern. I am working every waking hour.
I decided to reseed all the bare areas. It was now becoming apparent that some of the areas had lost seed.
I found more problems. The majority of one of the fairways was bare. I dug into the dirt and found that the grass thatch was so thick (and dead) that there was no way that the seeds could root through it. The super suggested taking one of our tractors with a rake attachment to take up the thatch. I suggested a deeper thatching method but he felt it would be too disruptive to the golfers.
I continued to drive the course multiple times a day fixing irrigation problems and watering between golfers. All the while still mapping and monitoring.
Much of the seed was now starting to fill in but other problems were now becoming apparent. Many of the sprinklers were not putting out the volume that they should. I talked to the irrigation crew and they told me that they needed to frequently clean the individual sprinkler filters as they plugged. I had them teach me as this was not an easy process.
As I continued monitoring and cleaning it became clear that the heads in some areas were plugging immediately after cleaning. I tried to flush the system (miles of 8 inch pipe does not flush easily) to the point that I was saturating the course but not solving the problem.
The guys that work on the irrigation do not speak good English. One of them had been here for 15 years and told me that algae was growing inside of the pipes. This has been a problem here for a long time.
So, I continued cleaning, monitoring and mapping. I put the irrigation team to task on helping keep water on the problem areas.
to be continued...
But, so many people fail at starting. Many more fail at the first obstacle. Yet even more fail at the perceived line of roadblocks in front of them. The ones that get through are the real doers!
The doer is a solution finder. The doer will grind while others wonder why they bother. The doer will not be intimidated by words from others. The doer will not be stopped by problems that look insurmountable.
The doer will do!
I am going to take this moment to brag a bit. Just for an example, mind you...
Our most recent purchase of the golf course was a huge leap of faith. So many things were wrong. We needed to take a completely f*cked up course and make it playable again. In the process we have to count on players coming back to play after walking away in frustration.
The playing area should be primarily grass. More that 30% of it was dirt!
Everyone around here had an opinion on why and were happy to tell me how to fix it. The GM and Superintendent informed me of how simple it would be. Just replace the missing sprinkler heads they said.
We have a winter seed process that happens every year. It is critical that it works. I was assured that this process was simple that that the facility was ready for it. If the grass does not come in.... we fail! Our business relies on the winter visitors that come from the north to play golf. We must pull in enough money during the season to carry us forward.
Well, we had a pump problem the first day that we shut down for the overseed process. The seed was delayed because we were preoccupied and did not have the ability to put water down. This took a few days to patch and we hired someone to come back and fix correctly at a later date.
Anyway, a week later the seed still was not down. Our operations and all income were shut down for this. The super had all sorts of excuses. I told him that we were seeding ready or not. He said that his experienced guys were not there that day and wanted to wait again. I told him that he was going to train me and the other workers and we were going to put the seed down. So we did and it was not difficult.
This continued the next day and we got most of the seed down.
Then the wind came up... real hard. The 30% of the course that did not have grass were blown clear of the seed. We did not have time to react and put anything in place to hold it down. The seed for the course cost over 25K! The real problem was that nobody noticed that the seed was gone.
A few days later it started growing. I was happy. A few days later, I realized that less than 50% of the course was sprouting. When I went to the super about it he said that he was concerned also and started giving all sorts of excuses. Even bringing up the idea that the course was sabotaged. I turned into a rabid dog.
I was spending a lot of time on the mowers and was all over the course most of the time. During this time, I was observing and noticed a lot of unevenness in the moisture on the course. All of our irrigation is setup on a complex system. I started mapping out the dry areas and asked for more water to be placed in those areas and was told that this was not possible. Then came the answer I was looking for... "well, it may be possible but I don't know how to do it".
We immediately got our rep on the phone and he told us how to make the changes.
I continued mapping out the course and making changes. I found empty locations between golfers and put more water on during the daytime. More grass grew but not much more.
The super then told me that there are different nozzle sizes for the sprinklers and that some may have low water volume heads on them. I went around the entire 130 acres and looked at each sprinkler head. I changed over 150 to the higher volume nozzles.
I was now monitoring all of the areas that had low/no growth and making sure that they had enough water.
Still... over 20% of the areas had no growth to speak of. It is now 22 days since the original shutdown. Members were expressing their concern. I am working every waking hour.
I decided to reseed all the bare areas. It was now becoming apparent that some of the areas had lost seed.
I found more problems. The majority of one of the fairways was bare. I dug into the dirt and found that the grass thatch was so thick (and dead) that there was no way that the seeds could root through it. The super suggested taking one of our tractors with a rake attachment to take up the thatch. I suggested a deeper thatching method but he felt it would be too disruptive to the golfers.
I continued to drive the course multiple times a day fixing irrigation problems and watering between golfers. All the while still mapping and monitoring.
Much of the seed was now starting to fill in but other problems were now becoming apparent. Many of the sprinklers were not putting out the volume that they should. I talked to the irrigation crew and they told me that they needed to frequently clean the individual sprinkler filters as they plugged. I had them teach me as this was not an easy process.
As I continued monitoring and cleaning it became clear that the heads in some areas were plugging immediately after cleaning. I tried to flush the system (miles of 8 inch pipe does not flush easily) to the point that I was saturating the course but not solving the problem.
The guys that work on the irrigation do not speak good English. One of them had been here for 15 years and told me that algae was growing inside of the pipes. This has been a problem here for a long time.
So, I continued cleaning, monitoring and mapping. I put the irrigation team to task on helping keep water on the problem areas.
to be continued...
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