Friday, February 10, 2012

What A Difference A Day Makes

Snow is falling again providing a blanket of protection before the cold weather hits.  Tomorrows forcast is for temperatures dropping into the single digits and high winds.  The new snow will help protect our greens from the harsh weather ahead.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Winter Work

By looking at the course you would never guess that we had a blanket of snow about 6 inches deep just a week ago.  The trend this winter has been very mild with very little snow cover.  We have been keeping a close eye on the new putting green surfaces watching for ice build up or desiccation.  If the need arises we will use our oldest spray unit to haul water out and spray the putting surfaces to keep them hydrated.  We will need to seriously consider purchasing green covers for the greens that get fumigated this fall.  A repeat of this year’s winter weather could set back the opening of the new greens if not protected by covers. 

Besides worrying about the winter weather, (or lack of) we have been painting tee markers, applying weather preservitive to wood benches, water coolers, etc. We have also done much of the necessary tree trimming and removed a couple hazardous trees.  Sunlight and air movement has long been an issue on #6 and #5 greens so we have been working on opening up the east-southeast areas to allow for more air movement and to maximize the morning sun.  In the picture below you can see the trees we removed along the property line and we also removed some very large trees in the woods behind the green.