Monday, February 29, 2016
Cowan Creek Drainage Update - #9 Fairway
This morning we began a large drainage project in the landing area on #9 fairway. In order to expedite the project, all of the tee boxes have been temporarily moved forward to the right side of the fairway, 250 yards from the green. The hole will be played as a par 4 until we can reopen the landing area, which should hopefully be within 1-2 weeks. We also will begin all single tee play on hole #10 for the time being. Doing these things will allow us to have more time in the morning and work consistently throughout the day without disturbing play. There are signs and paint that direct cart traffic up to the temporary tee boxes. Thank you for your patience during this time.
Friday, February 26, 2016
Golf Course Enhancement Update
Following this week’s Golf Course Enhancement Town Hall, members of the project team met with representatives from the City of Georgetown to discuss permitting requirements related to the project. Due to additional regulations put in place last year, the permitting process will now be significantly longer than originally projected. At best, this shift in the schedule may only allow for a small window of construction during the growing season in 2016. |
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
February 2016 Golf Staff Report
Renovation Project
The Golf Town Hall will be held tomorrow afternoon from
2:00pm – 4:00pm. Jason Straka will be here from Fry/Straka Golf Design Group to
speak at the presentation and answer questions afterwards. He has assured us he
will stay around as long as needed following the presentation to talk with the
residents in regards to the project.
Financials
Great weather and expense reductions put us in a very good
position for the month of January.
Golf finished January ahead of budget by $90,656.
Total Revenue: $322,440
Total Budgeted Revenue: $287,767
Total Expenses: $254,366
Total Budgeted Expenses: $310,349
A few notes:
While combo and annual pass sales have trailed budget by
$326K (as of 2/14/16), we are hopeful that punch cards will exceed budget by
the end of the year. The $326K short
fall on passes is equivalent of the goodness from the reserve transfer. On a monthly basis that means that the $27K
loss in annual revenue from passes will be offset by the budget goodness of
$27K from the reserve contribution transfer.
In January, punch card revenue exceeded budget by $51K! February is tracking similarly. Projections for the full year of 2016 were
made in conjunction with the January financial close process. While we did not attempt yet to estimate
other revenue line items, we did adjust pass revenue to current 2016 sales and
punch card revenue to 2015 revenue.
Additionally we eliminated the budgeted golf reserve contribution. Additional projection adjustments will be
made at the end of each month’s financial close process as we know more.
Pace of Play
Last month we discussed letting the waiting groups on Par
3’s hit up before the group playing that hole starts to putt out? Any feedback?
Golf Pro Report
2016 Golfnow
Since January 2011, January 2016 was by far the best January
with revenue exceeding $16,000. With
continued good weather, this trends seems to be continuing into February.
Non-Resident Tournaments
We’re starting off well this year with a current expected
revenue just under $84,370. This is far
better than previous years including 2013 when times were fantastic. We retained all of our major tournaments such
as Dell MAW, GT Chamber of Comm. and CASA of Wilco. We also retained the 2016 UIL State
Championship and now have the State Preview at the end of this week. With good
weather, we have also picked up some mini groups that have provided some nice
revenue. So we are off to a great start.
New Golfer Interest
Starting the year off well with new prospective
golfers. This Friday we will hot our
annual New Golfer Day at the White Wing golf course. As of Wednesday we have over 50 individuals
signed up, which is up from the previous years.
Events
The latest in-house event was the Super Bowl Scramble and,
although numbers were slightly less than year’s past, we still managed 80
players who enjoyed a pretty good day.
Non-Resident Golf and Range Pass
We are developing a non-resident pass to target non-resident
play in the afternoon window that we often see vacant, especially in the hot
summer months.
We are also developing a non-resident range pass in an
effort to drive more range revenue.
Please see the attached information on these passes.
Non-Resident Afternoon Pass includes: Greens fees, range balls on the day of play
only, and cart.
15 18-Hole Rounds after 1pm
$450
I understand and agree to the following rules while
purchasing this pass:
1. Passes are
valid in the year of purchase and expire December 31 of that year.
2. The price of
each round includes cart.
3. Passes may
be used for the purchaser and guests.
4. Pass
balances are available at the golf shops upon requests.
5. Unused
rounds of passes will be forfeited.
There will be no refunds or exchanges.
6. Resident
pricing on range balls on non-play days.
7. Resident
pricing on merchandise.
Goal: To fill
afternoon times that may otherwise go unused, especially during the hot summer
months and weekends.
• Provides an
opportunity to receive prepaid revenue from non-residents.
• No priority
would be provided. Tee Times have to be
scheduled by calling the golf shop no sooner than 3 days ahead of the day of
play (i.e. After Chelsea Processing of Resident Requests).
• Per round
rate is less than the 18 hole resident PAYGO rate between 1pm and
twilight. However, it is more than the
Resident 15 Round Afternoon Pass.
Non-Resident Range Pass
$150 per Pass
20 Large buckets of balls
Pass is valid for the year in which it is purchased and expires
December 31.
Superintendent Report
White Wing
Maintaining adequate greens moisture has been a big focus.
Warm temperatures have kept greens from going completely dormant and helped
ability to visual see any problems on the greens. We have been monitoring the
Poa annua problem on the greens and are still trying to find the product that
will help eradicate the plant. With the warmer weather we were able to aerify
and top dress greens twice this month which will help with air and moisture
movement. A small drainage project to the left of #15 green has helped with the
soggy approach but more drainage on that side may be necessary. A couple of
trees were removed from the back left and back side of the 7th green. Already
the added daylight on the back of the green is making a positive difference. We
have went out with fertilizer, added seed and sand to the over seeded tees to
perk them up a bit as they have been getting a beating. Bulk spring
pre-emergent has been ordered and delivery is scheduled for the end of the
month with application to the course being made early March.
Legacy Hills
One of the big things for this month has been the drainage
for #3 Green to the right in the native. Upon further examination we have found
roots clogging up the drainage. We should be able to wrap this area up next
week. Our other main focus has been checking bunker depths and adding sand
where needed. We are aware of the Poa annua problem and are continuing to
search for ways to eradicate the problem as well.
Cowan Creek
This month was dedicated to improving the overall drainage
on hole #6. We cleared out a large area
in the native along the left side of the hole that would collect debris during
rain events. We trenched the area from
where the two fairway drains daylight into the native to ease the flow of the
fairway drainage. We also added over
500’ of herringbone French drains inside the 100 yardage marker leading to two
large drainage basins along the left side.
The trenches are currently topped with sand and ryegrass seed, and the
area has been marked ground under repair.
Hopefully both of these efforts will expedite the dry time after rain
events or heavy irrigation cycles. Our other
focuses this month have been overseed (tees, fairways, collars and approaches)
fertility and greens’ moisture management.
We have applied our first round of pre-emergent granular herbicide on
the greens for goosegrass and crabgrass (2/17/16).
Monday, February 15, 2016
Golf Course Enhancement Town Hall
Tuesday, February 23
2 p.m. • Social Center Ballroom
Available Online Following the Town Hall
The purpose of this town hall is to update the
Sun City Texas community on the status of the Legacy Hills and White Wing golf
course renovations which are currently being developed. Golf staff and
re-design architect, Jason Straka, will present the current proposals and will
also provide a better understanding of the thought process behind some of the
possible changes. Sun City Texas residents are encouraged to attend and view
proposed schematics. Comments and questions are welcome following the presentation
and we look forward to seeing everyone there! Videos of all Town Halls are posted to the website following the meeting under Communications > Videos. The meetings also air live on Channel 18 for Suddenlink subscribers.
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Cowan Creek #6 Drainage Update
Cowan Creek #6 Drainage Update (2/2/16)
Submitted by Craig
Loving
The left
side of #6 at Cowan Creek has progressively worsened each year regarding its wetness
and playability. Last year, we
discovered a 10” pipe under the fairway in the landing area that was crushed,
which caused the drain to fail and keep the area consistently wet. The pipe was fixed and replaced at the time,
but this year we are still having issues with the area staying wet. In addition to this, the catch basins along
the left side of the fairway (near the green) need additional surface drainage
to keep from staying wet year-round. The
following paragraphs will detail why this is and what we are doing to improve
playability in these areas.
Over the
years we have had several floods that have swept debris down through the low
area on #6, across the driving range, and over the spillway at the tee complex
on #1. The entire area is relatively
flat to begin with, but these rain events have accumulated debris (tree limbs,
silt, grass, etc.) in the native in between #6 and the driving range. This has created a natural dam, so even
though the water now flows freely through the drainage pipe, it has nowhere to
go once it daylights into the native. (Figure A)
There are
also some willow trees in the area that we allowed to grow tall, with the idea
of isolating the hole from the road and blocking the view of the driving
range. Unfortunately, this had a
negative effect on the drainage in that area. (Figure B)
Our first
step to alleviating the drainage problem in the landing area was to cut down
the trees that were collecting debris.
With the trees removed, we dug a trench with a backhoe to allow the
fairway drainage pipes to effectively drain through the native and into the
driving range drainage pipe (Figure C).
There will be needed periodic upkeep to make sure that these trenches
are performing as we planned, but hopefully this should fix the wet problem in
the landing area. We still need to
extend the 10” pipe another 20 feet so that the daylight is further in the
native and not near the lateral hazard line.
We also
began trenching and adding herringbone drainage in the fairway inside 100
yards. Once the drainage pipe is
installed, we will add gravel and sand, and we will overseed the trenches with
perennial ryegrass. The area will be
marked “ground under repair” until the overseed is established. We will later sod the trenched areas with bermudagrass after
transition in late spring.
The added trenches and pipe (Figure D) should help the playability of
this section of the fairway. However, we
still won’t be able to move the directional cart path signs up much closer than
they are. This is due to the slope of
the rough near the cart path, and the wear that occurs with heavy cart traffic.
Drainage
will continue to be an issue at Cowan Creek every year. We have seen improvements with the
playability in the areas we have worked on in recent years (#3 2015, #1 2014),
and our crew works hard to try to continue to improve course conditions. We hope to soon attack other trouble areas
(#9 landing area, #3 at 150 yard marker) in the weeks to come.
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