Water

 Needless to say it has been a crazy week.  After receiving about 6" of rain in two days our dike system filled up.  Most all the crossings were under water.  We installed two bridge systems to help allow access to keep the golf course as playable as possible.  There were many areas we had to manually pump out.  Each day brought on a new challenges, most days the course setup was different.  Thank You for your patience, we are now fully open.  Below are a few pictures. 

Water #10 Fairway

Water behind #1 green

The bridge crew on #2

A special Thank You to those that loaned us pumps to use, one member brought lunch and others provided beverages.  Thank you so much and the Maintenance Team appreciated it!

Through it all the course has finally started to mature into it's summer condition.  Our cold spring did not help the new seed in the fairways, they are finally starting to grow.  The greens are looking good, just in time for tournaments.  

We are now fully staffed for the summer.  There is always a punch list of items we want to accomplish.  Most days the list grows by a few items.  As the team members are trained we hope the list will start to shrink.  It's all the little details that take some time for new team members to catch on.  If you see anything that needs attention please let me know, we will take care of it.  

Sometimes you need to stop and enjoy the view you are given

We will see you on the course.  

Ross

Just starting to grow

 Only about one month behind schedule everything is starting to grow.  Yes we will hang on for about two weeks with this surge of growth.  

Our greens are just now getting up to a good soil temperature to start growing and rooting.  We have had several inches of rain so the soil is rather saturated.  It is always important in the spring to let the plants be somewhat happy and develop some good roots going into the summer.  With all the rains our penn cross grass is puffy right now, this may continue as we keep some areas more moist trying to grow new seed in several areas.  So for now we have not started any verti-cutting or lowering of height of cut.  We did over the weekend use our new turf trainer on the greens.  This basically drags over the grass plants standing them up, providing a better cut way less aggressive than verti-cutting.  Speed of green will come as they warm, dry out and we get on a more normal maintenance routine.  

The new seed in the fairways is starting to grow.  When we seeded we used a low mow blue grass / rye blend.  What we see coming up right now is the rye grass, the blue grass should germinate within the next week or two.  It is real important to keep your golf carts off these new seeded areas until they are fully mature.  Shown below is the germination starting.  

Please Stay Off All New Seed Areas!

Our weather looks to be more normal.

We will see you on the Course!

Ross

Mother Nature is in Control

Springs like this we are reminded of just how much we are not in control and just along for the ride.  We are having very cold spring.  Most areas of turf have barely started to grow at all.  

Above is a picture of #9 fairway.  This one, of a few, fairways we are having some issues with.  End of February we had some ice, ice during this time is not usually a problem.  This year is different as the cold weather and freezing night time temperatures have extended way more than normal.  As a result we have ice damage, some will be real slow recovering others will need to be over seeded.  The over seeding process will start as temperatures warm.  Please drive your cart around any of the brown or thin areas.  

Irrigation start up is real slow this year.  As of today we will have the main lines fully pressurized.  Through the process we did find a couple of hair line cracks on valves, so they were replaced.  Other than that we are dealing with the normal huge amount of hard water deposits, as shown below.  

Hoping for some normal May like weather.

We will see you on the course.  

Ross

Ready for The Season ??

 We had a brief moment of the golf season.  Now Mother Nature decided to give us some much needed moisture.  At this time we will take what moisture we can get.  Shown below is #8 green with a fresh coat of 4.5" of snow.  

This winter we purchased a newer product on the market, it is called the Turf Trainer.  This product was developed by a fellow Golf Course Superintendent.  The concept is really simple and effective, basically dragging artificial turf on the grass.  This will stand the turf grass up and give a better quality of cut.  I am not sure if this will replace verti-cutting or any other practices at this time.  We plan on using this mainly of the collars/aprons and greens.  There will be a slight learning curve, I am looking forward to some great success.  

WE ARE READY!!!

We will see you on the course!

Ross

 A few weeks back it really looked as if we would have an early start to the golf season, now we are looking to be much more on a normal schedule.  

On my recent walk around the course I found the greens to be mostly cleared off with little or no ice accumulation on them.  Each one I checked also had good moisture levels, even considering the dry winter.  

The fairways are partially covered in snow, many areas have ice accumulation on them.  This ice should not be much of a problem currently, as the it has been present for a brief period of time.  This really shows what a lack of surface drainage we have in many areas of the golf course.  It is no coincidence that the fairways that struggle are the few that drain the worst.  

We did finally receive one of our capital items purchased last fall.  It is a new utility cart.  This will be nice addition and upgrade to our ever aging fleet.  

The work in the Maintenance Facility continues on.  We are getting close to finishing up on the main equipment.  We will then move on to the golf course accessories; including benches tee markers and all other accessories.  When to time comes we will begin course cleanup, there may be additional cleanup with the amount of tree work accomplished this winter.   

When will spring break for the Golf season to begin?

We will see you on the course.

Ross