Tag: course conditions

I walked the golf course yesterday and the property looks pretty good! We experienced some minor flooding and wind storms that has left us some spring cleaning. Ive seen alot worse at this time of the year so being fairly clean is a positive way to start the season.

The staff and I will start on March 16th. The first few weeks we prepare all of our equipment for the season. Since we are a seasonal operation this our time to make sure the equipment does not fail us in season. This entails changing hydraulic, oil, and anti freeze fluids, belts and bearings are checked and replaced if worn. In addition all of our small power equipment needs to be tuned up and ready to go. Its a team effort by the crew as we methodically work through all our equipment and this ensures a smooth ride for the rest of the season.

The turfgrass on the course is still dormant and sporting their winter coats. Everything looks normal for this time of year. The greens and tees are firm but the fairways are pretty soft.

It will take consecutive warm and windy days for the fairways to dry out and firm up. More importantly is the soil temperatures are still very cold. Cold soils drain slower than warm ones. Also with no fairway drainage we are really at the mercy of mother nature.

Its been a very mild winter and March is still very capable of delivering inclement weather. Ill look to reevaluate course conditions the week of the 16th and if possible project an opening day for walkers depending on the long range weather forecast. In a “normal” winter we typically open for walkers April 10th. In a few rare instances we have opened in March. Lets hope Mother Nature continues to be kind and we can get out and hit the links.

That was quite a storm! Two inches of rain and high winds have made the course an absolute disaster. Mother nature did some serious limb pruning on all our trees. We will be raking up sticks and branches for the remainder of our season.

The growing season has come to a conclusion. We will mow fairways, tees, and approaches only one or two more times this year. Next week we will start a deep vertical mowing on the greens. We will then topdress the greens and then solid tine them. In effect we are putting them to bed for the year.

Please call the pro shop this weekend to see if carts are available. I will reevaluate course conditions tomorrow morning.

We received 1.3 inches of rain in about a half hour. It washed out the bunkers and the fairways are saturated. More rain is expected tonite and its a safe bet that carts wont be availabe tommorow. However, we should be open for walkers tommorow.

All that rain really beat down the sand into the greens. They will clean up real nice in a day or two. You would never know that we just applied 18 tons of sand on an acre of bentgrass greens.

The last few weeks of weather have been a tough stretch to manage the turfgrass on the golf course. The hot and dry weather have exposed some of our poor soils on our greens, tees, and fairways. We have been maintaining the course very conservatively this past week and will continue this practice through this weekend with temperatures expected in the 90’s. This past week we cut greens Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The off days we only rolled them.

Tomorrow we will mow the greens and Sunday we will only roll them. The greens might have been a bit slower but our goal is for them to remain healthy as we prepare for our upcoming tournaments.

Please observe the white and green stakes and cart signs. These are out for a reason! The reason is to give the turfgrass a chance to survive this weather. Also, it is much easier to make a up and down around the greens in healthy grass than a trampled lie from a cart. Carts are not allowed near greens, on tee slopes or even on tees. Carts should not be driven behind the 6th green on the right side as you play the hole.

I encourage you to inform you playing partners or other members if they are not practicing proper etiquette. If for some medical reason you cant walk then i understand but please try and stay a reasonable distance from the greens and tees with a cart.

Thankfully we received close to a half inch of rain yesterday and the grass perked up a bit. That rainfall was a welcome sight and the turfgrass really needed that slow steady rain.

This weekend is going to be tough with the heat and humidity but next week it looks like the temperatures should be more tolerable. Hopefully we get some more rain next week so the property can really shine for the men’s member guest next weekend. Next week the weather looks favorable for me to put my foot on the gas and resume mowing and rolling greens every day. Stay cool and i hope to see you out in the fairways!