Monday, March 15, 2010

From the Golf Course, March 2010

From the golf course!

I am sure many of you are anxious to hear how the golf courses made it through the winter. Since most of the snow is melted off, I was finally able inspect the golf courses and wanted to give you an update.

The January ice storm has left us with a lot of broken branches and a tremendous amount of debris. We have brought back some of our seasonal staff and clean up on the golf courses will be our main focus at this time. It is very wet out there so we will have to remain on the cart paths until we have some drying weather. In the mean time, we will be working from the cart paths and walking out to rake and do some clean up

I am very pleased on how the turf has overwintered. The turf is in very good condition but it is going to take some good warm days for it to be ready for play. We do have some snow mold on the bent grass areas but it is very superficial and should not present a problem. However, the bluegrass rough areas have been hit very hard and it will take some time for the matted down turf to recover. Once it does dry out, we will be able to get out to rake these areas to help promote growth to help it recover.

We will be taking off greens covers this week. Unfortunately, that does not mean that they are ready for golfers yet. Our main reason to get them off is to give them a chance to breathe and get acclimated to the spring weather. They have been covered up for almost 4 months and we need to get some air to them. It also gives us a chance to see if there are any diseases under the covers that we may have to contend with.

With all of that said, we will keep you abreast of golf course conditions and when we think we will have a possible opening date. We do need to have a considerable amount of drying days for us to be able to get out to do our necessary work to be able to allow golfers on. I know everyone is very anxious to get out and swing that club, but we need your patience while we wait for drying weather to allow us to work to prepare the courses for opening.

Rick Tegtmeier