Two Years Later... A Look Back

Earlier this week I was looking back at some of the pictures I had taken from the summer of 2011 when I was originally looking into coming to Mainprize. It was hard to believe some of the changes the course has undergone. The overall condition of the course is now at a level that it should be. The golf course now has a level of respectability that it has not had in a long time. This really is a great thing to see as the potential that this golf course has is endless. There really is not a better layout for any golf course in Saskatchewan. The course has the ability to be one of the best in the province and I now believe that we are well on our way. 

One of the biggest jobs that we have had to take on since I began here was recovering from the flooding in 2011. The flood had completely wiped out almost four golf holes. The water left the turf on these holes completely dead. 

Looking down hole #5

Hole #5 green and hole #6

Hole #5 a month later after the water had choked out and killed the turf

So recovering from the flood would be a huge project. In the mean time we needed to have 18 holes in play so we reopened and reestablished the three practice holes that had been closed in 2008. The holes were completely overgrown and had the be cut down and the tee boxes and greens had to be completely redone. The irrigation system on these holes was also in desperate need of some major attention. By the July long weekend of 2012 we had these three holes back in play and were back to 18 holes. 

The third practice hole after reestablishment

We then finally began the re-grow and reconstruction of the four flooded holes in August of 2013. The holes have caught very well and should finally be back in play sometime summer 2014. 

Hole 7 forward tee looking great just a few weeks after seeding

Looking down hole 6 one month after seeding

The flood was obviously a huge concern but the rest of the existing course needed a lot of attention as well. The irrigation system was barely in working condition and suffered from many problems and breaks. The irrigation system is still not perfect but it is completely functional now and is almost as good as you could ever expect it to be. The bunkers on the course were in desperate need of some major attention also. Most bunkers had not been properly maintained or edged in many years. My younger highschool aged students deserve a huge amount of credit for the turnaround with our bunkers. They have put a ton of work into them and they are now looking very good. Other projects like drainage, cartpaths and turf repairs/sodding have made a huge difference to the course and a lot of these same highschool aged kids were responsible for the success of a lot of these projects.

One of the many irrigation breaks we have had to fix

A freshly edged bunker on hole #1

The biggest problem overall though was definitely the poor turf conditions of the greens, tee boxes and fairways in general. The course has responded very well to the changes in the maintenance procedures that we have been performing in the last two years. Our greens are now in as good of shape as anyone else in the province, the tee boxes are in mint condition overall, and fairways are slowly coming along but are greatly improved overall. 

Before

Conditions were brown and dry from no irrigation 

Dead spots on green

Dead spots on green

Closeup of dead spot

After

Conditions green and lush

Greens full of colour and no dead spots

Tees are dense and recover from wear quickly

The success we have had the past two years has been due to all the hard work my crew has put in for me. They have given me their all and performed excellently. It is great to see that all their hard work has finally paid off. We have also had many volunteers come out and help during projects like sodding and tarping. Without these volunteers we would not have been able to accomplish what we have so a lot of the credit also goes to them. The success the course is now beginning to see is only the beginning. The potential the course has is huge and I am confident that it will eventually reach this potential in the years to come.

Wrapping Things Up

We have been busy finishing up our final preparations for the winter months. On October 21 we began our irrigation system blowout. In this process we hook a large sized air compressor (1600 cfm) into our irrigation system and blow compressed air through our irrigation system at around 90psi. This process removes all water from the pipe, swing-joints and sprinkler heads of this system. This is necessary to ensure that the system does not freeze and crack/break from the water expanding within. This process is quite possibly the most important thing that we do each year. The irrigation system is such an important part of our operation so ensuring that blowout is done properly will ensure a properly functioning system and a system that will not need to be repaired. The process took about a day and a half this year and was completed on the 22nd.

The air compressor hooked up at pumphouse

It snowed on the 21st making blowout a little more difficult

We finished our last bits of winter fungicide spraying on October 25. The last areas that we did were the tee boxes and fairways. This will help us protect against the development of winter disease and protect against the extreme temperatures and weather of winter.

14 fairway after fungicide application

On October 30 and 31st we put all the tarps out on all 22 of our greens. We tarp our greens to help protect and insulate the greens over the winter. Extreme colds and winter winds can freeze and dry out the greens to the point of plant death. This is known as desiccation. So the tarps help to keep the temperature between the plant and tarp warm enough that the plant can handle it and it protects the crown of the plant from drying out from being exposed to strong winds through the winter. We then follow up tarping with snowfence. We put snowfence around the greens and our tee boxes. The snowfence helps to trap snow and hold it on top of the greens and tee boxes. Snow is the best insulation out of anything for the golf course. A good layer of snow will keep the temperature at the turf level much warmer than the air temperature and keep things alive. We will also be putting some snowfence across the fairways on holes 5 and 7 where we completed grow-in this year. The newly established turf is not as strong as our well established turf yet so the snowfence will help to protect these fairways from the winter elements so they are happy and healthy come next spring.

14 green after the tarp was installed

Looking out to the tarped 12 green on a beautiful fall afternoon