What's Happening in May

As everyone knows our opening day was on Friday, May 10. We have had a hectic last couple weeks, but things are finally getting back to normal. There are a few new things you may notice out on the course this year. We have new colour coordinated flags for this season. A green flag will indicate a pin position on the front of the green, a white flag is a center position, and a black flag is positioned at the back of the green. We will have ropes put up in front of #9 and #11 greens and in front of #10 tee box. The rope has been put up in these locations this year to reduce the severity of wear due to cart traffic in these areas. These are areas that come into play frequently and are not in as playable of a condition as they should be. You also may have noticed that we are painting the edge of the cup this year. This makes the cup stand out much more when looking from a distance.

New flags and painted hole

A reminder for this season is for everyone to try their best to not wear in certain areas due to cart traffic. I will be trying to move our traffic control stakes around as often as need be, but if you see an area that is obviously wearing from cart traffic please try to stay off of it and travel on another area. Doing this will allow for much better playing conditions for everyone. Also, when around green and tee areas please try to stick to the cartpaths as much as possible.

We pulled the tarps off the greens the week before opening and we were quite pleased with how the greens had wintered. We didn't find any disease from the winter and things had greened up quite well.

#9 after tarp removed

We had a bit of a struggle firing up the irrigation system this year. We had to make a repair to a section of our 12" mainline and have had a few other breaks to other smaller areas throughout the course. We now have these under control and the irrigation system is almost back to the working condition it should be. 

12" mainline repair

We are seeing the take-all patch that we had seen on our greens last year again this year already. This surprised me a little bit as we normally shouldn't expect to see it until the end of June, but all the conditions have been right for it to develop already this year. The high temperatures and humidity that we have seen are perfect for take-all patch. Also we are seeing soil temperatures of around 23 degrees Celsius which is perfect for disease. We have already chemically treated and fertilized for it so we are not expecting any real damage from it. The only thing it will affect is the aesthetics of the greens. You may see some brown patchy areas on the greens that may look almost dry, but more than likely you will actually be seeing the take-all patch. It is a soil borne disease that can take around five years to get rid of. We will get rid of it by altering our fertility and lowering our pH to a level that will not allow the disease to produce. 

Take-all patch on a green last season

I will continue to keep you all updated with what is happening on the course in the near future and true my best to keep these updates as frequent as possible. 

Things are starting to take shape