Thanks and see you out on the course!
Grounds Department Blog
The place to get a behind-the-scenes look at grounds maintenance at Bailey Ranch Golf Club
Friday, February 26, 2021
Irrigation System Upgrades
Greens/Irrigation Renovation Project
As you play the golf course over the next few months, it will be hard to miss the red lines that have been drawn around the greens. These lines show the location of the original greens edges that were built back in 1992. Locating these edges is the first step of the greens renovation project that is kicking off during the summer of 2021! We are very excited for this project to get underway. Expanding the greens is only one of several goals we hope to accomplish with this project. The main goal of the renovation is to convert the old Bentgrass greens to TifEagle ultradwarf Bermudagrass. Bermudagrass will give us the ability to have firm, smooth, fast greens every summer regardless of the weather. Bailey Ranch was designed as a links golf course where firm, bouncy conditions create a focus on the ground game. Golfers don't often get the full intent of our design since our Bentgrass greens are slow and soft throughout the summer. Bentgrass can survive our summers, with lots of care, but doesn't allow us to create this desirable playing surface due to us focusing entirely on turf survivability. Bermuda greens will allow us to optimize our conditions to suit the demands of our members and guests throughout the golf season, when they are here. Often, our Bentgrass is best from fall through spring, when fewer customers can enjoy it.
Greens won't be the only improvements being made during this project. Irrigation upgrades and Par 3 tee box laser grading and sodding are planned as part of the project. The irrigation system as become increasingly unreliable and accuracy of our water applications has always been an issue. These upgrades will increase our control and accuracy of how we water which will, in turn, reduce our water usage and improve the overall health and playability of the golf course. The Par 3 tee boxes have become severally crowned over the decades from divots being taken and sand topdressing being applied. The tee tops have become so sloped that often I hear from golfers that they have trouble finding flat lies on the tee box. We are very excited to be able to address this issue while making these other improvements.
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
#11 Bridge Update
Hard to believe it's been a year since I last updated the blog regarding the bridge on #11. Although it may not seem like much has happened to the bridge, there is a reason the project was delayed. Last year, after I wrote the last post, the project went to bid and the bids that came in were over budget. Therefore, we rejected the bids and went back to the drawing board. Since this is such an invasive project and we would need to close the back nine while the bridge is out, it was determined that we'd need to wait to do the project during the off-season. Therefore, we planned to re advertise in fall and begin the work in December of 2020.
With this in mind, I'm happy to report that the bridge renovation on #11 is underway! On December 7th, the contractor began working on the project and has already made progress. Demolition of the west cart path approach and preparations for the west side bridge abutment have begun. Once the west side bridge abutment is finished, they will demolish the old bridge and begin building the abutment on the east side. After both abutments are finished, the new bridge will be lifted into place and the new cart paths will be poured on each side of the bridge. Lastly, any necessary grading and sod work will be done to finish off the project. Barring weather delays, the contractor expects to finish the project around the end of January.
We are really excited for this project to get finished and cannot wait to see the finished product when it's complete. As always, we understand this improvement project is disruptive to the golf experience and appreciate your continued patience while we complete this project! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact the Grounds Department.
Thank you!
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Sneak peek of the new bridge! Can't wait to see it in it's new home! |
2020.....A look back.

Monday, December 2, 2019
#11 Bridge Update

Tuesday, May 21, 2019
The Great Rain of May 2019!

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The tunnel ceiling is almost 10 feet tall. |
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All contaminated sand with mud will have to be removed and replaced |
and exposure of the sub-grade. This will require an extensive amount of work from our crew to get them back into normal playing condition. Typically, when we get an inch or two of rain, our crew can spend the next day putting them back together and we can move on to another task. This time it feels different. The damage so extensive that I feel we will have to completely remove and replace the majority of the sand on the golf course. This will drastically extend the time to get them back into playable condition. Several dump truck loads of new sand will need to be hauled out and placed into the bunkers. This process will begin tomorrow and could last all the rest of the week, possibly into next week. We appreciate everyone being patient with us while we work to restore the condition of the bunkers and please realize that a few other tasks will be deferred so we can focus our resources on making this process go as quickly as possible.
Monday, May 13, 2019
Spring Update



Spring green up of Bermudagrass is notoriously slow in this part of the country. Temperature fluctuations and unpredictable weather always seems to confuse the Bermuda until we get into mid-May. This year has continued that trend. We began to green up back in mid-March, but haven't seen active growth until the second week of May. We are scheduled to apply our first course-wide fertilizer application on May 14th. This will force the plant to grow along with warming temperatures.



Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Please Repair Ball Marks!
Thanks to the hard work of the grounds staff, spring greens aeration is behind us. Now that the course is back open for play, the grounds staff will shift focus to improving the surface quality of the greens. The staff will be out several times over the next few days rolling, brushing and mowing the greens to get them as smooth as possible. During this time, as with any aeration, the surface will be softer than normal and especially prone to ball mark damage. While the surface is recovering, ball marks will be deeper and bigger than other times of the year. Please help out everyone else that enjoys the golf course by seeking out and repairing any ball marks on the greens. We appreciate your cooperation!
Thursday, January 31, 2019
Brush Clearing
While our golf course doesn't have very many trees in play, there are quite a few wooded areas along property edges that require occasional maintenance. Each year, during the off-season, we pick a few areas and clear them out for various reasons. Could be a request from a concerned neighbor, to improve air flow or sunlight to a green, or to improve the view across the golf course. This year, we decided to tackle several areas throughout the course we have never been to. Once we had the areas we wanted to clear out identified, we quickly realized that the amount of tree and brush removal was going to be a lot more than we could handle doing the work by hand. So we decided to bring in a special skid loader attachment specifically designed for clearing wooded areas such as this. This forestry cutter, pictured above, was the perfect tool to quickly mulch all the trees and shrubs we wanted to remove. I estimated the amount of work we wanted to complete would have taken our entire crew 2-3 weeks to do by hand and with this machine I was able to do it in 20 hours by myself. Turned out to be a very efficient way to go!
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Before |
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After |
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#15 looking at #14 green- before |
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After |
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#16 tee looking back to #15 |