Donalda Greens Trip

For our class trip this past week, we headed back to Toronto, to Donalda Golf and Country Club. Our host was the Superintendent of the grounds, Scott White. When we first arrived it was quite noisy as major construction throughout the course was underway. Donalda was having problems with thier old push up greens, so Scott sold the idea to the membership and GM, to re-do 14 out of 20 greens. The tour started on a putting green or rather where the putting green used to be. It was essentially a big hole in the ground, after all the turf had been ripped up and an excavator had torn out the original parent material. this was neat because we could see the soil profile of the green to about two feet below the turf. we then carried on out to the first green where Scott showed us a green after it had been ripped up, new drainage put in, new gravel layer, and new sand formed on the top of the green waiting for sod. We also got a look at a green that just had the gravel on it waiting for sand and sod. We basically got to see all of the steps in progress when renovating a green. One really cool part of the day is when we walked up to the approach of a green, there appeared to be what looked like an irrigation hole, however when we got up to the hole there wasn a strange contraption in the ground, that none of us had seen before. After no one could figure this thing out Scott finally told us what it was. He called it "a poor mans SubAir system". Basically he has an attachment in the ground that he can hook up a backpack blower too and use it like a SubAir system. I thought that was the coolest thing I was going to see all day until we got to the club house. It might be sad to some turfgrass guys that my favourite part was not all the machinery and turf, but it was infact the golf simulators that where situated in the clubhouse. The golf pro went on to explain one of my ultimate fantasys that the members get to experiment daily. That fantasy is Playing a round of golf at Augusta, eating fine food, drinking beer, and watching the leaf game all at the same time!!! The golf simulator was most definatly my favourite part of the tour. The rest of the tour was really good and informative as well. It was really cool to see all of the major renovations and now I know what I can expect to feel like if I ever have to do major renos, just by observing Scott running around, taking phone calls, and making decisions all while taking 40 student on a tour.

Joe Atkinson

Check out Scott White and Donalda on twitter @DonaldaGrounds

BMO Field Trip

Today we had a very exciting field trip, that I imagine will be hard to be for the rest of the year. Today was the day that we got to visit BMO Field where the TFC play in Toronto. The day started off rocky as our bus had a flat tire so we had to wait around for about a half hour for the new bus to come, however when the new bus came we had no problems getting to the big smoke (Toronto). When we got off the bus in the parking lot we were greeted by the grounds master at BMO Field, whom was a former U of Guelph graduate named Rob Heggie. Rob took us out onto the field right away and gave us some information on height of cut and rolling techniques. he also talked about the politics of taking care of such high profile turf, such as dealing with soccer teams and coaches. It was only a short while before Rob invited us all to eat! while eating lunch we were able to look at the latest and greatest machines from Turf care as they were on display there for a field day. After lunch we were lead into a small room with lot of pipes and generators. This is where the underground heating system and sub air system were situated. A neat fact about the heating system is that Rob can have all the snow off his grass by mid February just by heating up the ground underneath the turf. We then jumped back on the bus and headed downtown to the Kia practise facility, this too was a really cool place but with just a little less glamour. It too had a sub air system, but not a heating system. We also got to see the shop in which they work out of and keep machines, however it was pretty empty as Rob rents most of the equipment he uses. All in all it was a great day and an amazing facility to visit. It really changed my perspective on the sports field industry, seeing I am mostly golf orientated. It impressed me so much that I would actually consider a career at a football, baseball, or soccer field one day...maybe.

Joe Atkinson
http://bmofield.com/

 (top) BMO Field
(bottom) Heating and sub air system