Its Gonna Get dICEy!

 

This is what most grass growers do not want to see in the winter months, the dark grey areas in the middle of white greens.  While this has been a colder than normal winter, with frequent small snow events and the grass is probably hardened off, the next few days are going to get interesting.  The pictures show when the snow starts to melt and run off and then freezes overnight.  The ground is frozen, so internal drainage is not working which makes surface drainage more important.  A week or so ago, my staff cleaned off the fronts of greens allowing the last snow to fully run off, but the most recent snow is sticking around, experiencing melting and freezing.  More snow is forecast for tonight followed by heavy rains and 50 degree temperatures on Sunday.  Monday we will be below freezing and that will be the case all week.  Lets hope the hardened off grass will not wake up with the temporary warm temperatures before it goes through a flash freeze on Monday.  You can imagine once we get sustained warm temperatures how messy the course is going to be when the ground begins to thaw and final snow melts!

Great Progress on 16 and 17

 

This has been the first real winter in years.  We have a lot on our plate to help prepare for the upcoming refresh later this season.  Despite snow and frozen soil, we have been making progress excavating the new drainage ditch on 17.  This will tie into the ditch on 16 as well.  Once we get to March and hopefully get some warmer weather, we will do all the final shaping and then sodding and seeding will occur right after.

Also part of the project was the construction of a new forward blue/white tee for the  future new 16th hole.  We felt it would be wise to build it while doing the ditch work on 17 since a lot of fill would be available.  For the most part the tee is roughed in, squared and aligned to the new fairway line.  Once staff returns, we will be able to get this completed quickly.

Pushing Through Cold Weather

 

The staff continues to battle cold and white conditions.  What better time to get the lift around the course without creating any tire tracks on our turf.  We are more than halfway through the course with our pruning and hoping to have most of the trees done in the next 7 working days.

While the ground is still pretty frozen, we have been able to begin construction on the newly routed drainage ditch on 17.  While we are at it, we are constructing the new white tee on 16, which will be the official white and blue tee once the hole is renovated later this year.  It is great to be able to get a lot of the heavy lifting done now, but all the finish work will take place in mid to late March and beyond.  It will be a busy spring for the staff!

Tree Pruning

 Assistant Andrew Stilwell and Roberto Polanco are checking all trees for suckers and any dead wood.  We did this last about 3 years ago and really should be done every 2 years.  The monthly cost to rent the lift will cost the same as our tree contractor for 1 day.  With the cold temperatures, Andrew and Roberto are knocking it out of the park without leaving much tire damage.  We are thinking about 3 weeks to get the entire course and clubhouse area done.  Both are harnessed in and only elevating to about 25 feet since we did such a good job a couple of years ago.