In 2000, Dennis Chesters made the job easier by laying a board over the line and walking on that. An 8-foot long 1"x8" plank is used to flatten the line to the ground, and push the nail heads level. To move the board, attach an 8-foot rod (1"x1" square channel, normally used for electrical wiring) with an S-hook and eyelets.
Walk the board, step off, push the board forward 8 feet with the rod, and walk it again. That is about 3 times faster and a lot neater than heel-to-toe walking. Eight courts can be walked down in about an hour-and-a-half.
The GTC HarTru courts were badly trenched by the sprinklers over the weekend of August 3-4, 2002. Saturday's afternoon thunderstorm apparently turned them on, since the valves are electrically operated by a small computer. The sprinklers ran all night, cutting deep into the already rain-soaked courts.
Thanks to hard work by our grounds keeper, Larry Waters (plus his son-in-law and grandson), all the clay courts were open by August 8. Courts 1-5 were resurfaced. Soaking rains at the end of August converted the dust into clay, but the drought of 2002 continued, leaving them soft and lumpy.
This same problem had happened to court #1 in the late 1990's, when a thunderstorm turned on those sprinklers. It took several months and lots of hand-leveling before the bad spots went away.
After the winter of 2002-2003, many of the sprinkler-dug tenches remained soft. In the spring of 2003, they were dug up and replaced with fresh HarTru.
Finally, in 2004, the HarTru courts returned to normal, aided by a rainy year beginning in late summer 2003.
Click here for a map of the soft spots.
