MPSTMA Community Service Project

MPSFMA Renovates Jim Kelley Field For Saint Paul Little Leaguers

By JEFF TURTINEN MTGF Executive Director

On October 12, members from the Minnesota Park and Sports Field Management Association and the City of Saint Paul spent a day renovating Jim Kelley Field, a little league field near Concordia University for its 2022 Community Service Project. The CSP could not have been accomplished without the help and supplies of key vendors and volunteers from MPSFMA. The CSP is a yearly volunteer effort typically taking place in the Fall.

Minnesota Sodding Company was the lead vendor for this year’s project. The MSC representatives of Ben Boeding CSFM; Roger Weinbrenner CSFM; Joey Fitzgerald CSFM, and Kent Harris focused on renovating the infield by adding aglime and leveling while also aerating all the turf surfaces. FenceGuard’s Luke and Laura MacLean provided its long plastic product which fits under chain link fencing and minimizes maintenance

Frost Inc. provided a dump box and focused on the renovating the warning track. Ken Rost, Cassie Roos and Tom Tauzell represented Frost Inc.

The Tessman Company provided seed and QP T/I Chemical. Ramy Turf provided infield turf mix. Other vendors on hand providing labor were: Mike Friedrichs, HLS Outdoor; Joe Churchill, Reinders Inc. Key individual’s for this year’s project were Mike McDonald CSFM, who served as the foreman and made sure all volunteers were being efficient in their responsibilities. Luke Wittrock, University of Saint Thomas, re-built the pitcher mound and helped with the bases. Bethel University’s Joshua Gerth CSFM, and Ben Plattes

Ken Rost, Cassie Roos and Tom Tauvell of Frost Inc. concentrated on the warning track and made a vast improvement as seen from the before photo below. helped in a variety of ways but mainly focused on renovating the bullpen by de-weeding and adding aglime.

The City of Saint Paul, led by MPSTMA vice president Derek Hollanitsch, provided extra labor as Gary Koemptgen, Maddy Bates, Travis Bjostad and Anthony Rodlund all helped with the project.

A special appearance by former MPSTMA president Matt Grosjean CSFM was welcomed by his peers. Matt was involved in a horrific tree accident earlier this year and broke his pelvis among other things. After numerous surgeries, it was great to see Matt attending the CSP where he has been such a tremendous help in the past.

I Need a Project and I Don’t Need Your Help

By MATT CAVANAUGH MTGF Ex-Officio Superintendent, Rush Creek Golf Club

There are a few things you need to know about me. First, I always need to have a project. This includes at work and around my house. The status quo is not an option for me. Second, I don’t need your help. I will go to great lengths to figure out how to do something on my own. I’ve always been this way and I certainly see it as a fault and I’m trying to change that, but currently, I still don’t need your help. With that…let’s change some greens at Rush Creek and let’s do it with the great staff I already have. Sounds like a plan.

My first year at Rush Creek was as an intern in 2000. Like any golf course there were some challenges and for Rush Creek we had what we called our “Problem Greens.” These were greens 4, 7, 8 and 13. These greens were treated differently in terms of water,

fertilizer, fungicides, culturally and even mowing. To make things short, these greens sucked and didn’t like to have grass on them. This was mostly due to their size.

4 Green: 3,600 square feet 7 Green: 2,600 square feet 8 Green: 2,800 square feet 13 Green: 3,100 square feet

How ridiculous are those numbers? The size of these greens and the amount of play that Rush Creek receives just did not allow for the quality of turf that we need. In 2007 we did contract out the reconstruction of our 13th green and the new green now measures 7,000 square feet. Perfect, only three problem greens remaining, and I won’t even be the superintendent for another 14 years. The remaining problems greens will certainly be fixed by then.

Nope. It was now 2021, I’m now the superintendent, and we still have the problem greens of 4, 7, and 8. Reference paragraph one…I need a project and I don’t need your help.

Plans started to form to change the 7th and 8th greens during the spring of 2021. Of the three remaining problem greens number 4 could wait, but 7 and 8 needed help and needed it soon. By the fall of 2021 the plans were in place for the Turfgrass Department at Rush Creek to increase the size of the greens for holes 7 and 8 (we don’t need a construction companies help!). We decided to keep the original greens, but we were going to add on to these original greens. The main reason for this was to allow the course to stay open with 18 greens. Second, we were going to complete the 7th green in the spring and complete the 8th green in the fall. This will allow our staff to complete the projects and still have time to maintain the rest of the course. It would have taken us too long to do the greens back-toback. I love a good project. I’ll tell the story of our 7th green.

Step 1: We needed to remove a bunker from the front right of the original green as the new green will be going over this area.

Step 2: We need to add soil to the whole area to fill in the depression that was there and to gain the proper top elevation of the new green.

Step 3: Once the top level was achieved, we started to dig down or what I like to say “core out” the new greens well to a depth of 16 inches. The new area will be 2,000 square feet making the new green for number 7 a total of 4,600 square feet. We used a plastic barrier around the whole edge of the green.

Step 4: After we got the whole greens well cored out to 16 inches, we needed to trench in the new drain tile lines.We went down an additional 6 inches in these tile lines.

Step 5: Drain tile is in. We now add pea gravel to a depth of 4 inches. This is the start of creating the USGA perched water table green.

Step 6: All the pea gravel is in and now we are ready to add the 12 inches of sand greens mix that will finish off our 16 inches of cored out greens well. Now, I was not going to overthink what our sand mix was going to be in this new area. I was not worried about trying to match the (Continued on Page 15)