Ahhhh..... It must be spring!

The snow has melted, the temperatures are rising and now the sure sign that spring has arrived. A pair of baby foxes (kit's, cub's or pup's) have been posing for photo's on a sunny day in April behind the 15th green. As the spring turns into summer you should be able to see these youngsters playing on the hillside in front of the 16th green.

What a turf cover can do in the spring.

With the last of the winter's snow fall behind us we can now concentrate on trying to grow grass. This is a picture of the 9th tee that has had a turf cover on it for about a week. The cover usually will do two things, prevent wind desiccation and increase the temperature under the cover. This would all depend on sunshine amount, air temperature and wind speed. We have measured the increased in the past of 8 degrees warmer than the air temperature outside the cover.
The reason we place a cover on this tee is to try to hasten the divot repair from last years play. Hole #9 is a short par 3 which players usual take a couple divot's on their practice swings and not so much on their actual swing. Multiply those divot's by the number of golfing rounds we get and.............you get the picture!
This cover will be on and off the tee for a good part of April based on the weather and golf schedule.

Bunkers completed at the 18th green complex.

 Working between Sundays snow event, the bitterly cold days and the bone numbing winds of Tuesday we were able to complete the bunkers at the 18th green. Some of the changes include reducing the size of the right side approach bunker while sliding it closer to the greenside bunker. This also will create additional fairway area in front of those bunkers. The area in the picture that does not have sod will be the fairway area extension.

Just (3) three more days until the "Breakfast tournament".

With the continuation of the "winter that keeps on giving" this was no real surprise when we came in this morning. I would imagine that if it is a sunny day today most of the snow will be gone by late afternoon.

Bunker construction left of the 18th green.

This picture shows the roughed out shape of the bunker with the edge lines painted in orange and flagged (the flags were place due to a forecasted rain event coming which would wash away the paint).

This is the end result in this area. You would assume that this result would be achieved in a short period of time after the bunkers are roughed out. The pic at the top of the page is only the first 20% of the total work involved. The bunker would still need to be edged, dug to final depth, drainage installed and fabric liner placed. And we must not forget.........sand!

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

It may have snowed last night and your drive to work today was a real pain in the #&*@ but the grounds department was still able to get some work done (besides snow plowing). We were able to install 55 tons of sand into this bunker on #18.   

Friday, March 14, 2014 Golf course will be open for walkers on Saturday March 15th.

Tuesday, March11,2014 Almost there!

Daily melt alert!!! Monday March 10th 2014

I am sure that everyone is wondering when the golf course will open. Starting today I will blog pictures of the golf course to keep everyone in the loop on the melting snow. The forecast is telling us that it will be in the 50's today and the 60's tomorrow, we can only hope. As a reminder to everyone, until all the snow melts it is almost the same as a continuous rain.

Fore The Golfer: Why Bunkers Are Not Consistent