Winter injury update

The injuries the greens sustained due to ice cover this past winter are healing and coming along, here are some pictures that show the progress:

March 18

April 3

April 22

 

We've sodded the large dead patch on 7 green and plugged out some thin areas on 5, 9, 12, 16, and 18.  All the of the thin areas on the greens are receiving 'special' treatment - increased fertility, less mowing, no rolling and increased mowing heights.  If you can be patient with us for a few more weeks, they will look dramatically different.

 

The injuries we sustained were due to ice cover for an extended period of time, suffocating the turf.  In 2014 we had the opportunity to remove the snow, melt the ice and prevent damage, we never saw a warm up in February to accomplish that this year.  Assuming we have winters like this again, we will do all we can to prevent this from reoccurring. 

Snack Shack open

The interior renovation of the 15th hole snack shack is near completion and is now open.  All new plumbing fixtures were installed, we updated the overhead door, replace all the cabinetry and added a new counter top.

Todd had a lot of custom fitting to do with the cabinets and counter top.  He was able to perform most to the work in our shop before bringing them out to 15.

The plumbing was finished a week ago, the cabinets were installed this week.  We have a few touch-ups to do and some painting to complete the project.

 

Thanks to Todd for all the work in making this a much cleaner and modern facility.

Productive day for a rain day

The last few days called for rain during most of today, I'm happy that wasn't the case.  This time of year we have a lot on our plate and all-day rains like we had last week really slow down our progress of projects.  Today ended up being a great day and we accomplished a fare amount for our limited staff:

• Mowed greens
• Mowed approaches
• Mowed rough
• Mowed green and tee banks
• Fertilized clubhouse lawns and green banks
• Blew off all debris from playing surfaces
• Picked up all the sticks from the last few day's breezes
• Sodded the damaged area on 7 green
• Plugged damaged areas on 5, 16 and 18 greens
• Sprayed weeds on all the tees
• String trimmed all areas around the back of the clubhouse
• Cleaned up debris and leaves from the back of the clubhouse
• Replaced a broken sprinkler head
• Repaired a leaking water valve
• Sharpened the reels on the fairway mower

This morning, Eric started off the day by sodding the damaged area on 7 green.  This spot had very little signs of green tissue and would've taken a while to fill in.

 

On the remainder of the greens, Eric and Adam have been plugging smaller areas to speed up the recovery process.  This is quite an undertaking and time consuming process, but it is our current priority.  When this project is completed we will shift our resources to repairing all the stump holes on the course, then move on to edging and mulching all the landscape beds.

 

Yesterday, Eric, Adam and Matt finished sodding the tee on 7.

The new forward tee on 7 turned out great.  In the near future, as it dries out, we will roll the tee smooth and topdress out the imperfections.  I suspect we will be placing the gold markers up in a few weeks.

Winter damage

Now that the greens have started growing, we are able to see where the winter damage has occurred.  A few greens have significant damage and will take a month to fully recover, most of the greens have just a few small spots that will heal rather quickly with some warm weather.  This damage came from ice cover over the winter, we were at the limit of ice cover on poa greens.

12 green suffered the most damage.  If you look at the picture below, you can see how far we have come but this green will take another month to get back to normal.  We are seeing a fair amount of green turf underneath the brown just waiting to pop up, a majority of this will grow back on its own, there will be a few spots that will need to be plugged out.

There is also damage to the greens from other sources - foot traffic.  This is a great example of why we close the course once the grounds freezes and the turf stops growing.

Someone decided to walk across 9 green at some point while we were closed, leaving a nice trail.  Eventually this too will recover, I see a little green underneath the damaged turf.

One of the capital purchases we recently made was a bed knife grinder.  This grinder allows us to grind the knives for all our reel mowers.  This machine is safer, quicker and provides a quality of cut that we couldn't match in the years prior.  We put it to good use this week.

Grounds update

We are slowly greening up out here, great conditions are not too far off.

Here is 12 green as it sits today.

Just two weeks ago, 12 was more brown than green.

The project we've been tackling during the last two days has been the bunkers, getting them in shape for the season.  All the winter debris has been removed, the bunkers have been edged, all the weeds have been pulled and the washouts repaired.  The staff did a great job yesterday working through the rain and putting a big dent in the bunker repairs.

Eric is fixing one of the perennial washouts on 5, then putting the finishing touches on the bunkers with a final raking.