Week of January 23rd

 

The course is finally showing its winter colors.  Another awesome and productive week at the club.  The weather has been hit or miss with rain Monday morning, sunny on Tuesday, rain/snow for Wednesday and blustery for the end of the week.  

The guys used the rain Monday morning to our advantage power washing, waxing and detailing all of our equipment.  

Also, this week the team continued edging and cleaning cart paths.  They finished the back 9 last week and moved over to the front 9 with the hopes of having everything edged and cleaned up by the end of the week.  

We also continued trimming up trees around the course.  The main focus this week was the trees between the cart path on hole 6 and the fairway on hole 7.  Some of our trees are showing their age with tons of dead wood and signs of decline.  

On Tuesday we started deep-tinning our greens and we were able to finish up Wednesday morning before the rain.  We used a 1/2" diameter by 14" deep tine on all the greens to help with water infiltration, spring rooting, and winter freeze/thaw cycles.  

On Wednesday morning while we were waiting for frost to lift the crew removed the stumps in front of the clubhouse.  They were able to use the mini ex for most of the stumps but needed to remove 2 stumps by hand as they were close to the utility lines leading into the clubhouse.  

Now that the grass has finally stopped growing Brian our Equipment Manager has started the long process of grinding reels on our mowers.  This is a time consuming process as there are close to 40 total reels that need to be grinding and serviced.  

Work continued of the fence around the perimeter of the property.  Hole 1 is now completed and work has shifted to holes 2, 4, 5, 6 and 11 removing the damaged sections of the fence.  

Tree work also continued this week on Valley Rd. next to hole 11.  As you can see from the bottom picture these trees were in bad shape and could have fallen at anytime.  This section of the tree fell as the tree company was tying a rope in the tree for safety.  

Lastly, I wanted to address some comments I have been hearing about Cart Path Only Front 9 and Walking Only on Back 9.  The course has been receiving rain almost weekly for the past several weeks. During the winter time - when trees, grass and weather are not using the rain water - the course stays wetter longer.  Also decisions made for CPO and Walking are based on what is best for the turf.  Damage that happens this time of year will not recover until the spring.  

Thanks for reading.