St. Martins Tree Maintenance

The large oak tree that greets you at St. Martins has been recently structure pruned. The removal of the deadwood which was on the tree improves tree health and member safety. Efforts were also made to remove some of the weight off of many branches. Not a tremendous amount of this work could take place, as the tree is in a state of gradual decline, and branches which have many leaves on them were left to try to encourage as much photosynthesis and plant growth as possible next year. As we move forward in properly caring for this specimen tree it will be deep-root fertilized every two years, and dead wood pruning will take place every four to five years. With proper care, we expect to have many more years to enjoy this tree.

Before and After Photos

The desired look to our newly seeded native areas will take a long time to properly mature. Even so, The before and after photos of the railroad trestle on our Tillinghast golf course show a much improved area. Can you imagine how beautiful the finished look will be next season with the golden fescue highlighting this classic feature of the course?

2010 Staff Photo

The Grounds Department staff from both our St. Martins facility and our Flourtown facility gathered for lunch on Friday afternoon. The lunch served to thank them for all their efforts over the coarse of the off-season. The above photo shows our great staff, a couple of carts from our recent John Deere equipment package, and the new bunkers on Militia Hill.

Gary Stockman Named Superintendent at DuPont Country Club

PCC employee Gary Stockman has recently been named Superintendent at the Nemours Course at DuPont Country Club in Deleware. Gary has been employed with PCC for four years. This past year Gary served as Militia Hill superintendent. He will start towards the end of May. Gary graduated in 2006 with a BS in Turfgrass Science from Rutgers. He had previously worked at Baltusrol CC from 2003-2005, including the 2005PGA Championship.

This was a highly sought after position with over 100 applications submitted. We congratulate Gary and his family, wish him all the best, and thank him for his hard work serving PCC.

Militia Hill Bunkers Complete!

Our Militia Hill bunker project is complete! We have been pleasantly surprised that the bunker sand is already firming up, and they are playing great.

As our staff's time will no longer be spent repairing bunker washouts, members will now begin to see improvements to all other areas of the course as well. Enjoy!


The new bunkers on #7!


The new bunkers on #6!

Militia Hill Bunker Project

We are heading down the home stretch of our Militia Hill bunker project. Our staff's dedication and efficiencies throughout this process has made performing a wall to wall bunker project look easy.

Many courses have to stage this work over an entire off-season; some will even divide it amongst two off seasons. Our first shovel went into the sand Monday, March 8th, and the entire bunker project will be completed in only 7 weeks!

A big thanks needs to go out to our membership for deciding to tackle this work. It will surely provide you with much better golfing experiences through improved aesthetics and bunker playability. In addition, you will see other areas of the course quickly improve as we will not be spending as much time making frequent repairs following rainfall events or during the season. It will be refreshing to be able to direct works efforts towards tasks which had begun to lag behind due to the previous high demands of our bunkers.



#1 at Militia Hill with the new sand in place. Although beautiful, the sand will take a few months to settle and firm up.


Dumping sand in our new bunkers.


The bunkers on #6 are ready for sand.


The excavation process in full force.


The old bunker sand which you see in the background will be shaped and hydro-seeded. This new look and function will do a better job of hiding our dump area from the #3 Militia Hill tee box.

Staff Trip to Congressional CC

On February 4th, PCC staff visited Congressional CC to participate in a mutual field day with their staff and the staff of Caves Valley Golf Club. Our employees were educated on all aspects of Congressional’s 2009 greens reconstruction in preparation for the 2011 US Open. Other topics of discussion included: operations logistics, daily scheduling, budget management, and servicing our members. They were gracious hosts and the visit concluded with a guided tour of their entire clubhouse. Our staff came away with many ideas and future contacts which will help PCC. It was a great day at another wonderful, historic club.