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.