Allison - Flight Zone Toptracer Driving Range

Charleston. What a Beautiful City!

As I mentioned here, I have recently been nominated to participate on the National Golf Course Owner Association’s (NGCOA) board of directors. It has been a honor for me, in addition, it has also required me to do a fair amount of traveling this winter. I have spoken at both the Minnesota and Oregon regional conferences as well as the national conference in San Diego. In other words, my kids are getting tired of me leaving them. My husband is getting tired of me leaving, too, but I don’t think it is for the same reason. Toad Valley has been a member of the NGCOA for about 7 years. It is a great organization that has really helped us to keep our focus and our goals for the golf course in check. We have also been able to make many wonderful contacts and meet some other fellow golf course owners. I really enjoy visiting with them because they share so many of the same experiences as our golf course does. On Saturday, we had two golf outings and a wedding. On Sunday, we had another big golf outing. Then, I had to wake up super early in the morning to get on my 6 a.m. flight on Monday morning. Basically, it was one of the worst Monday mornings that I can remember in recent years. I. Was. Tired. When I arrived, Ryan from the NGCOA picked me up. I thought about climbing in the back seat of his jeep, so I could pretend to be Miss Daisy. I was in the south, after all. Just outside of the NGCOA offices, they had trees that were covered in Spanish moss. I guess it is protected. Probably explains why it is so expensive at Michaels Craft Store. Apparently, you can only harvest what falls off the tree. I resisted the urge to shake the branch. Ronnie, who is editor for Golf Business magazine, gets the office in the front of the building where his daughter’s artwork compliments the NGCOA logo. I toured the building and visited with all of the NGCOA staff. They are just an absolutely amazing group of people. Very full of energy and love for the game of golf. After the tour, they treated me to lunch at a great restaurant on Daniel Island. I had a grilled meatloaf sandwich. It was delicious. They offered me sweat tea, but I declined. I’m a Yankee, what can I say? I got checked in to the hotel and was welcomed by a small gift from the NGCOA. They definitely have southern hospitality down. We drove through winding roads from the hotel to an absolutely beautiful private golf club called Daniel Island Club. Before arriving, I had to stop by a gas station for some help in the sleep department. When I have had 10 hours of sleep in the last three days, I need help. I’d kiss the person who discovered caffeine. We got to work on our committee meeting as soon as I arrived. We reflected on the national conference and discussed options for the conference in 2014. I tried my best to get the conference to come to Des Moines, but I was shot down pretty quickly. They just didn’t think people would want to tour a golf course when it was covered in snow. Not to mention the fact that the conference is usually held in destination areas like San Diego, Orlando and Las Vegas. Perhaps just a tad more appealing to those attendees who come from France and the Netherlands. Of course, we do have the Pork Expo. I digress. Daniel Island Club is the quintessential plantation southern course. Complete with a croquet court. Off to the side of the court was a lovely gazebo. I could easily see myself enjoying some iced tea while observing a game of croquet. Do people in Iowa even play croquet? Their flowers and landscaping were absolutely beautiful. Everything was immaculate. Not a single blade of grass was out of its place. They also had a boccie ball court just off of their outside eating area. Inside of the club, they had a whole wall dedicated to all the fun things they do with their members. They obviously have lots of fun with their members because they had everything from luncheons for Mother’s Day to New Year’s Eve parties. They also had a great display for hole in ones at their course. I had to take a picture of the award that one of their trees received for my dad. I knew he would be jealous that none of his trees have ever gotten an award. I’ll have to see what I can do to make that happen for him. I came home very proud to show my dad this picture. He said he didn’t care unless I could tell him what kind of tree it was. Man. The Human Squirrel has some strict rules when it comes to trees! We spent most of the afternoon at the club sorting through our committee meeting details until we broke for supper. I didn’t want to look too pathetic and take pictures of my food or anything. I am new to the board, so I didn’t want them to regret their decision of nominating me. We had prime rib and fancy macaroni and cheese. What makes it fancy, you ask? They used a fancier pasta and provided toppings to put on the mac & cheese. Bacon and green onions. Yummy. It was a great dinner and I truly enjoyed the company which included a golf course out of Massachusetts. We discussed the Boston Marathon among other wide range of topics. After our dinner conversation, I’m pretty sure we had solved all of the world’s problems. The morning came quickly with more meetings and breakfast. Daniel Club is so nice that they have their own Natural Spring Water! The board met and discussed lots of different topics. They are a great group of individuals with hard work ethics.

TVI, Take 13

Golf Course

Every spring, we host the Toad Valley Invitational. No. It isn’t anything that we sponsor, but rather a bunch of Drake Alumni who come in from all over the United States. They call it Toad Valley Invitational because you have to be invited to know what’s going on. There are usually around 40 friends who show up on a school bus to reminisce about their college years together. They also try to out eat each other in walking tacos. Their record was several years ago when they consumed over 100 walking tacos. The Drake boys show up and are excited to spend the day. It is kind of like an old home week. TVI always has something up their sleeves. It used to be goofy videos that they would put together as part of the invitation process. As they grew up, got married and had kids, the time constraints let those videos fall by the wayside, so they ramped up their excitement in new ways. Like… A bag piper. Yep. That’s right. They have someone who comes and plays the bag pipes while they are getting on their golf carts, then he heads to the first tee where he plays for every single foresome that passes through number 1 tee box. The guys love it and the bag piper just keeps right on playing despite them videotaping and posing right next to him. I don’t know how they do it, but for the last several years, they have managed to have really good weather even though they have their outing in April. This year was no exception. The weather was great and all the guys had so much fun. They are a wonderful group of Drake alumni who keep us all entertained here at Toad Valley. How about you? Ever play golf while being serenaded on the first tee?

Intake Adventures

Golf Course, Our Green Thumb, Project List

There is a common catch phrase in the golf industry. It goes something along the lines of cleverly calling irrigation irritation. That’s right. There is nothing that can cause a golf superintendent’s hair to turn gray faster than irrigation. To get things started, we have to get prepared from the winter. In Iowa, we have… let’s call it… interesting weather. You just never know what you’re going to get. In order to protect ourselves, we have to winterize our irrigation system to help with the freezing and thawing. First order of business in the spring to get things running is installing the intake valve. This is a large hose that is placed in our irrigation pond which sucks up water into the irrigation pump house so water can be distributed on the golf course. The hose is very heavy. Before it is placed in the pond, a filter must be installed on it, so the irrigation doesn’t suck up gunk. Yeah. That’s a super technical term. Doug get things positioned while the other guys help him out. Once the filter is placed on the hose, the whole contraption gets mounted on the trap door that is attached to the pump house. This is very heavy, so our skid loader is used to help place the pipe in the water. The next step includes finding the person on the outside crew who likes cold water best. For this year, that person happens to be my brother, Jason. Jason puts on his waist high waders to get in the pond to help position the intake on the pump house and in the pond. As Jason wades out into the icy cold water, he regrets his volunteerism because the water is higher than his waist high waders. This results in Jason standing in icy cold water that has leaked into his waders. No one dares to laugh at Jason’s misfortune or they will be given the job next year! After a good solid morning of work, the irrigation is ready to be brought up. The first stage is to fill the whole system with water. All of the pipes on the golf course are always primed with water. To fill the system, we require a fairly decent amount of water. Since we had a drought last year, we are anticipating lots of leaks this year since the system wasn’t used much last year and the drought caused a lot of shrinkage that the spring rains have now expanded and will likely cause breaks in the pipe. Whoo hoo! A job well done. What did you do on this super cold day? Any swimming in cold ponds going on around town?

Staining. The Story Begins.

Golf Course, Project List

As we mentioned in the posts here and here, we have lots of staining projects up our sleeve for the coming year. Unfortunately, the weather hasn’t been cooperating for us to get our stain on with these outside projects. That’s when we decided that if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em! That’s right. We decided to stain some of our projects inside! Kim got our inside tables covered and ready for the staining fun to begin. First order of business was to get that lid off of the massive five gallon bucket of stain! Curiosity got the best of you? Ok. We’ll spill the beans. Kim is busy staining a new project that our outside boys put together. They were busy building us three directional signs to put up around the clubhouse. These signs are free standing and will help guests and golfers find their way around our place. Here is the stack of wood that she stained yesterday when it was 30 degrees and raining outside. These will make up the legs for the stand as well as the boards that will eventually get painted with the directions on them. In order to make these very versatile, we also had slats made where the boards could easily slide in and out. This would make it, so that we could easily change out the signs depending on if they are directing a golf outing, wedding, graduation open house, etc. Kim had to stain about 50 of these little guys, so fun was definitely had by all! Next step in the project will be to paint the directional words on the signs. We plan to have things like ceremony, golf outing, golfer check in, photobooth, etc. They should come in very handy to guests and golfers as they come up to the clubhouse! How about you? Been building any directional signs around your house?

First Wedding of 2013

What's Cooking

Our first wedding of 2013 was late this year. That actually worked out well because the weather hasn’t exactly been all that great this year. The only trouble with waiting until late April to get started is that our staff didn’t have much time to dust off whatever skills they had forgotten since last year. We all had zero time for mistakes, too. This wedding reception was our biggest to date. My sweet bride, Jadi, called me and said, “What am I going to do? I have too many guests!” Everything worked out and we were able to make it happen for her. Luckily since it was early in the year, we were able to seat guests in the front clubhouse as well as our Events Center. Jadi and Grant got married on her parents’ wedding anniversary. Her flower of choice was tulips. Last fall, her family planted over 1,000 tulips in preparation of the big day. They had both early and mid season variety which they had hoped would mean that they would have at least a few tulips for decoration. Enter. Spring 2013. It can’t be any more polar opposite this year than it was in 2012. Needless to say, none of the tulips came up. NONE! They were able to order in flowers with Altoona’s Hy-Vee. The flowers added a beautiful springy vibe to the room. We worked very hard to make sure the room was set and ready. Our room only seats 225 people. In order for the room to have the most amount of space available for guests, we like to use rectangle tables when we hit our maximum capacity. We spend lots of time making sure everything is lined up perfectly. It is also very important to us that we don’t use the dance floor as any space for the tables. It makes it so much easier on the guests if they aren’t asked to move. You can see in this picture that we put the cake on the center of the dance floor. We have the bride and groom cut the cake as soon as they enter the room. Guests are able to watch and then we cut and plate it as part of the buffet line. If you like cake as an appetizer, no problem! In case you’re curious as to how many gallons of ranch it takes to serve 250 people, the answer is four! Four gallons of ranch dressing! That’s a lot. It seemed like the dishes were never ending, but our staff was amazing and got everything done in record time. Jadi and Grant were an adorable couple and we wish them the best in the future.

Winter Uglies Get the Axe

Golf Course, Project List

The problem with having a 100 foot wall of windows is that you have a 100 foot wall of windows. Windows that get little kid finger prints, elbow marks from doors opening, and the grime of winter. All easily visible. Please note the finger print in the middle of that picture. We definitely should have purchased stock in Windex. We buy lots of it. Back in the day, we actually washed all the windows with paper towels. Not very efficient. Then, while shopping at our friendly Menards, I noticed some window washing utensils. My staff loved me when I came home with this purchase! Justin is new at the golf course this year. In true style, I had him set to work on his first day doing everyone’s favorite job. Window washing. Justin is naturally a pretty meticulous young man, so he was a natural at window washing. This is a good thing because we wash all our windows several times a month. All of our windows got washed inside and out. Ahhhh. There is nothing that can make a room sparkle quite like clean windows. In preparation for the coming season’s events, we also got to work setting out all of our outside furniture. Our Golfer’s Lounge is where we store all of our outdoor furniture. We have lots of great outdoor seating areas around the clubhouse. To keep things straight, each seating area has its own name. The one off of the Golfer’s Lounge is called the patio. This patio is a really popular spot for golfers and guests to hang out. It overlooks number ten tee box as well as the practice green. We also have seating area in the area that is attached to the front of the clubhouse. This spot is called the veranda. Because we’re fancy like that. It helps if golfer’s speak with a British accent while sitting at the veranda. Here is Jake. He is also new this year. We like to break the newbies in with lots of super fun projects. Cleaning up after the winter has lots of jobs involved. We got all 70 chairs set up as well as all 18 tables. We also have some seating right up by the clubhouse where people gather. How about you? Have you been moving out your outdoor furniture lately?

The Wheels on the Toad

Golf Shop

Theresa is our resident Golf Shop merchandiser. She has lots of creative juices. We have some Bridgestone Product that needed a creative display. I don’t know about you, but the first thing that comes to mind when I think Bridgestone is tires. Definitely not golf. Despite the fact that they currently hold the number two spot in market share for golf balls. That’s why Theresa decided she needed to use some tires in her display. She stopped by a neighbor’s house and grabbed some old tires in different sizes. Next stop was Hope Ministries where she found three stools. Then came the time for a little spray paint job to liven everything up! Once they were were all painted, our carpenter, Dick, cut down the legs on the stools to make three nesting tables. Theresa picked up some coordinating fabric to put inside the tires. Now they just need to get some acrylic cut for the tops to create a shelf to display the golf balls. How about you? What kind of ball do you use? Do you think of tires when you hear Bridgestone?

She Thinks My Tractor is Comfy

Our Green Thumb

Our outside staff spends lots of time on this John Deere tractor. They are required to sing country songs about tractors while they work. Ok. Not really required. Maybe just encouraged. We like to keep our outside staff happy. No falling asleep on the job, though. In preparation for the rain that is predicted, we have been busy seeding. It was very cold today. Ron was miserable. The comfy tractor made everything better. Our tee markers are toads. They are happy that grass is getting planted on our tees. I think we will name this little toad after my aunt Dessie. She was my grandpa’s sister and used to live on our property when it was a dairy farm. The key to working outside at a golf course is layers. Lots of them. One of them must be long johns. Ron prefers the multiple jacket method and coffee. He was able to get seeding done on three holes today before the rain is supposed to hit. How about you? What do you wear to keep warm when work demands you are outside? Layers, long johns, multiple coats? Me. I like the “tell other people what to do outside” method while I sit at my computer.

The Science of Garbage

Golf Course

Garbage detail is always a good indicator of the busyness of the golf course. Lots of garbage. We were busy. Not much garbage. Not so busy. Yeah. It’s highly scientific. Steve is our official garbage man. Steve’s nickname around these parts is Smiley. He is always smiling. Even when it is 32 degrees, there is garbage to be picked up. Yesterday, we had our 7th Annual Tax Relief Day. That’s the day that we celebrate taxes being done by offering complimentary greens fees when golfers rent a cart. Of those seven years, about half of them have resulted in decent weather. When we have good weather, we might have three garbage cans filled. We stand around and look at the garbage and say, “Yep. Looks like we were busy.” See how that works? Scientific. This year’s weather wasn’t anything to brag about, however, we were pretty busy because the spring weather hasn’t been that great, so golfers are ready to take what they can get. That means playing golf even though it is barely 50 degrees. According to our highly scientific accounting certified bean moving analysis…the garbage indicates that we were pretty busy on a 50 degree day. How about you? Do you smile when you’re taking out garbage?

Jake the Butcher

Project List

The spring is probably the most hectic time around the golf course. There are so many projects that need to happen to clean up from the winter and prepare for the summer. There are perennials to transplant, native grasses that need trimmed back from last year’s growth. Roses need to be pruned. New mulch needs to be replaced in the beds. The list goes on and on. Meet Jake. Jake has been coming in after school to help us catch up with all the spring projects. Yep. He’s making us look good. We have lots of native grasses around the golf course. It was high time that those bad boys got cut down. We trim the grasses to about 6 inches in height. Perennial grasses come back from the bottom, so we have to remove the old growth from last year. Ba da bing. Ba da boom! The grasses are cut and ready for new spring growth! How about you? Any fans of native grasses out there? We love it!

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