Pumphouse Painting and More Course Checks

As I had said in my post earlier this week, I expected the pumphouse painting would be completed by the end of this week, and I turned out to be right. Bill and Lidia completed the painting this morning and did a great job. The difference from before and after is almost hard to believe. Before all the piping, pump motors and bodies, and platform were all extremely rusty and in need of some serious attention. Now everything looks great and the rusting process will be greatly slowed down. 

Pumps and Platform Before Painting

Pumps and Platform After Painting

I also was able to do an entire lap of the golf course this week to be able to check on the status of everything. For the most part I was quite happy with most everything that I had seen. I was able to get under the tarp on three other greens and they all looked just as good as #18 did. So I am quite optimistic that when the time comes that we are able to pull the tarps completely off and cut them that they should be looking very good.

The View Under the Tarp on #10 Green

It was great to see how effective our final fungicide application was in the fall last year. Not only are we seeing great disease control, but we are also seeing how much quicker things green up when the snow melts in the areas that were sprayed

Areas that were Treated vs. Not Treated

The only negative things that I have seen on the course so far from this past winter is a few areas of snow mold (microdochium nivale) on a few tees and a couple fairways that had larger amounts of snow coverage. I am not too worried about these areas though as the damage does not appear to be severe and these areas will grow in and green up as quickly as the rest of the course does and soon as the weather allows for this. But this does mean that I will be looking at my tee and fairway fungicide program for next fall to prevent this from occurring again. Otherwise I noticed a few areas of desiccation (cold winds drying out exposed turf areas in winter) on hilltops that are not in play and a few areas of mouse damage under areas of deep snow. These areas will all recover quickly and should be looking great once the golf season is here. So in conclusion, I am happy with how the course is coming out of winter and as soon as Mother Nature cooperates with us we will be ready for this golf season!

Snow Mold on #11 Tee

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