Spring Update 2015

Its nice to see the snow going. The frost in the ground is keeping things firm and making it hard to look under the tarps on the greens. Hopefully next week with some nice days we will be able to get a good look under them and assess how we have handled the winter.

March 26th # 7

Over the last few weeks we have been taking off any snow and ice that may have been still on the greens. We used our tractor snow blower first in the deep, large areas and have continued hand shoveling whatever remains.

March 26th #7 Green

On the top of the solid tarps we have found some significant ice. Thanks to these tarps the ice is not directly on the grass plants. This doesn't mean everything is in great shape underneath but hopefully better off.

March 26th on top of #7 Green

Spring Update 2015

Spring is coming and we are seeing some snow melt across the golf course. Two weeks ago we had an average of 12-16 inches of snow on the greens. In checking all the greens, the 17th and the solid tarped greens had ice build up on them.

 March 5th

In a week with the warmer temperatures we lost almost half of the snow down to 8-12 inches. We are beginning to see some of the high mounds and more open areas around some trees.

 March 11th

Now that the majority of the snow has melted off of #17 we see that there is some damage due to that ice layer. It will have suffocated the turf underneath and will need to be repaired. This happened in a lower area on the green that doesn't have sufficient surface drainage. We will see in the next few weeks what the extent of the damage is and what steps will be needed to repair it.

#17 Green on March 18th

At this time we can't see many greens due to the snow cover and tarps. Any of the solid tarped greens that we have been able to look at seem to have handled the winter well.

Opening Day

It's nice to have the course open, unfortunately later than normal but this spring has been a long time coming. The course is pretty wet in spots and carts will be a day by day decision until we see some dryer weather.

 We are keeping our equipment off the course as much as possible to minimize traffic patterns. With dryer weather we will get the remainder of the course cleaned up and increase manicuring the playing surfaces. It would be nice to see more sunny days and warmer temperatures to really get the grass growing. Until this happens we do not want to stress the turf to much because it needs to be growing to recover.

 15th Green April 8th

15th Green April 28th

Much of our time over the last week has been doing repairs on the 15th and 17th green. We have moved a considerable amount of sod from the nursery to repair damaged areas and now we need the weather to cooperate to get this turf growing/recovering. We will keep these areas covered for the next few weeks depending on the weather. It will take time to recover to playable condition but fortunately we have the badly damaged areas replaced.

Repairs and Cuts

 Repair work on #15 has been a slow process, moving piece by piece from the nursery and fitting it all together takes time. We missed a few days this week with the wet conditions but we have repaired the front half of the green already which had the most damage.

We have started to cut some of our fairways, there are still a few wet spots out there but its nice to be able to get cutting.

We have been able to do our first cuts on the greens and are working on getting the tees cut also. With the soil temperatures still remaining under 10 degrees we are not seeing much growth but everything is cleaning up well with the cuts.

Spring Update #2

 Not what we are looking for at this time of year, unfortunately another day that will slow down our clean-up on the golf course.

Spring Update

The weather seems to be improving enough and the course drying up so we can begin the process of getting the course ready for the golfing season. There are many wet areas out there still that are limiting how much we can accomplish without making a mess. Hopefully the rain holds off now so we can continue preparations.

The results of the winter on the course have been pretty good. Our chemical applications have controlled almost all snow mold activity. Our combination of solid and perforated tarps on the greens has helped protect the greens from ice build up and the consistent snow cover throughout the winter. The two areas that have seen damage from the winter are the 15th green and the front of the 17th green. 

 We have begun the process of removing all the damaged areas on #15. With some cooperation from the weather we hope to have this replaced in the next week. It will then need some extra time to fully recover before we begin playing on it.

We are taking sod off our nursery, piece by piece to replace the damaged areas.

 Nursery grass getting ready to move to green on 15

This is the front of #17 green (Freeze/Thaw injury in the spring - notice foot print pattern from walkers going across the green in early spring). We are seeing recovery in this area and will be overseeding it to help it fill in.

Spring getting started 2

What a difference 5 days makes!! At the beginning of the week we were 70% covered in snow and now we are down to 10%. The majority of the remaining snow is in the rough along the south side of treed fairways. We have had a good look at all of the greens now and the majority have looked good. The 15th and front of 17 are the only greens that have been hurt from the winter. There doesn't seem to be much frost left in the sunny areas now so its just time that is needed for things to firm up. We have begun some cleanup on the course but we are very limited to where we can go.

#1 Tee

#9 from the Green

#18 from the Green