Early Winter Update

Things have continued to be fairly busy around the golf course even though the season is over and snow is on the ground. We have been busy indoors getting everything prepared for the 2015 golf season.

We completed all the reel grinding and repairs just before the end of December when my Assistant was done for the year and goes on winter break until March. All the reels are now back on the mowers and ready to do some cutting in 2015!

Some of our reels after being ground

Reels back on the mowers

I am mostly done all the equipment maintenance and repairs. I am hoping to be very close to being done by the end of this week before I go on my little bit of a Christmas break. The work done in this process is all the major service and lubrication work and then any repairs that need to be completed that were not done during the season. This has been a little bigger job than past years which makes sense as a large portion of our fleet is now 5 years old and coming off lease. As a result we will be keeping most of the equipment for another year but a few pieces that are starting to show their hours are being replaced for next year as the cost of upkeep would be greater than the value in keeping these pieces.

New steering rack installed on a Gator

Once I am back from my Christmas break I will quickly wrap up what equipment work still remains and then most of my work will shift to the office. I will be completing all our cultural and agronomic calendars and reworking some of our programs for 2015. Our employee safety and OH&S programs are going to be completely overhauled this winter also. And then ofcourse our general record keeping, IPM and maintenance programming needs to be gone through quickly and altered for 2015. 

One thing that has been going on outside is Mother Natures unpredictability. In the second half of November she finally supplied us with a nice snow cover and had the course looking pretty good to start the winter with some very ideal temperatures also. She then decided to warm things up here a little bit in December and it has resulted in the majority of our snow cover melting away. There are a few problems associated with this. First off, we need snow cover to protect the turf from the extreme colds and winds of winter so I am hopeful that she will give us a little more snow here soon to build up the insulation again. But the biggest issue with the melt is the formation of ice. As of right now the areas that I have checked on the course are seeming to be looking okay. There seems to be very little ice formation out there so I am expecting that we will be okay. It appears that most of the water that did form was able to drain off the green surfaces from under the tarps and the only ice that we are really seeing is around the edges of the snow drifts that remain. The ice that I am seeing in these areas does not seem to be very thick and it is also quite porous. Porous ice is what we want because basically the cloudy white appearance it has indicates the presence of air pockets within the ice. Basically this means that the exchange of fresh air can still take place and the turf can still breathe. Another positive thing that we have on our site is that our greens are not very old overall and our weedy grass population is not very high (Poa Annua). Poa Annua is a type of grass that naturally seeds from the presence of its seed within our soils. Poa Annua can be a very desirable turf type for golf courses but overall it is not very desirable in climates like ours. This is because it can not tolerate cold temperatures or ice cover very well. So basically our mostly pure bentgrass greens should be fine in the few areas of ice due to its cold hardiness and ability to survive under ice conditions for well over 100 days.

No ice formed under the snow on the greens

Porous ice where there is ice

I have seen a few pictures of courses from British Columbia to Manitoba that have not been as lucky as us and the ice formation is major. In this case the labor required to remove the ice is major, plus the added stress is terrible. So for the sake of my fellow superintendents I hope that most of us have avoided the ice and for the ones that have not I hope the removal process is quick and successful.

I will have another update for everyone sometime in January updating you about what has been going on at the course and the plans for the rest of the winter. Until then I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and a happy and healthy holiday season!

Hole 16 this past summer

That's a Wrap!

So another season has basically come and gone for us. It was a challenging but very successful year! Mother Nature seemed to be against us most of the year but we still managed to accomplish a lot. 

The month of October was a very busy month for us. We performed irrigation blowout from October 20-22 and the process went quite smoothly this year. All winter disease protection fungicide applications were completed on the greens, tees and fairways to help us survive the winter. After irrigation blowout we performed two irrigation repairs so that we would not have to worry about them next spring. One of the jobs was replacing the old leaky isolation valve at 8 tee box that occasionally liked to flood that area. So now we should all have dry feet when we walk up to the tee at 8. 

Irrigation blowout being performed

Greens fungicide application

The replaced valve at 8 tee

The final and biggest job of the month to be performed outdoors has also been completed. We have all of the greens tarped and snowfenced and all the tees are snowfenced. We should now have the course all protected so that we can form a nice insulating layer to get the turf through the winter.

Hole 15 tarped and fenced

Most of our work upcoming will now transition indoors. Things like equipment servicing and reel grinding will begin soon. The 2015 budget has to be completed in November as well. Then after that we can focus on equipment repairs and programming for the upcoming 2015 season.  

Aerial photo of Mainprize taken by Drew Brady

A Busy September and October

September was another very busy month for us. We completed aeration on all the greens and tee boxes throughout the course. Fairway aeration should also be wrapped up this week. We aerate these areas on the course for many beneficial reasons. Aeration is important in re-leaving compaction of the playing surfaces from golfer, maintenance, and equipment traffic that takes place throughout the season. It is also valuable in removing thatch, which is the dead and decaying plant matter that builds up at the surface from cutting and other cultural practices. Too much of this thatch is a bad thing and can really limit the plants root depth, water holding capacities, air flow, etc which all will result in an unhealthy plant. Aeration also helps to promote new growth by the action of us cutting the above ground root systems that "creep" from our creeping bentgrass with the aerator tines and creating new growth points. Another important factor that aeration allows for is the improved water infiltration, air circulation and nutrient contact with the soil. So overall, aeration may be a nuisance for golfing and it may make a mess of things, but it is a very important and necessary operation that we perform that greatly helps to keeps our turf healthy.

Greens being aerated

Tee box aeration

Fairway Aeration

We are also in the process of re-doing the drainage in the left greenside bunker on hole number 1 that is consistently wet. We should wrap this job up early next week and it will then be one of the nicest bunkers on the golf course. 

Our final fungicide applications will be taking place on greens, tee boxes and fairways beginning this next week also. The fungicide helps to protect the plant from any winter fungus borne disease that could develop and harm the turf. The most common disease that we would encounter in the winter in Saskatchewan would be snow mold. The fungicide does also help to protect the plant against winter stresses like desiccation. Desiccation is the drying out of the plant tissues to the point of death from exposure to extreme cold and drying winter winds.

Irrigation blowout will be taking place Wednesday or Thursday next week. This is usually a two day process in which we blow compressed air through all of our irrigation lines to remove any water to prevent the lines from freezing over the winter. The freezing can destroy irrigation heads, connections, valves and stress the lines.

Irrigation blowout last year

To finish off the month of October we will be tarping all of the greens and putting snowfence on and around all greens and tee boxes. We tarp and snowfence these area to help protect the turf from the extremes of winter. The tarps act as a layer of insulation and the snowfence helps to trap snow which helps to insulate the turf. The process is basically performed to prevent desiccation, which was something I had just talked about.

So we are keeping our fingers crossed that Mother Nature will be good to us for the rest of this month so that we can easily carry out all of these jobs and have the golf course go into winter happy and healthy so that we can get off to a great start to the 2015 golf season next year!

A frosty view of holes 4,5,6 and 7

A Long Awaited Update and a Wedding!

It has been a very long time since my last post so I have a lot to update you all on this time.      Another golf season has almost come and gone. This season went by particularly fast for some reason compared to most. It is hard to believe that the kids are back in school and fall is almost here. We had a very busy season this year though and I am thinking that is a big part of the reason why the days flew by.

Overall this season has been very successful. We have continued to make many improvements and repairs to our irrigation system and continued to greatly improve the general conditioning of our golf course. The greens, tees and bunkers are without a doubt in the best condition that they have been here in quite some time.

What a typical greens looks like on the course this year

The biggest success and overall improvement for the course would have to be the re-opening of the flooded holes 4, 5, 6 and 7 though without a doubt. These holes were out of play for almost four seasons and are definitely among the nicest holes on the course. We are happy with the stage that these holes are at so far, but some time to mature is definitely still needed. The fairways need some time to finish filling in and the greens need a little more time to harden up and for us to smooth out the surface. So we appreciate your patience with these holes at this time and can assure you they will be in the shape they should be very soon.

A view of what hole 6 looks like now

For the fall we are planning to complete some work on improving course drainage, cart path work and the construction of a new bentgrass sod nursery. This will all be completed along with our regular fall preparations like, aeration, fungicide applications, irrigation blowout and fall fertilization.

Greens aeration from last season

One other event that had occurred in the past month that personally had kept me very busy was my wedding. I was married on August 16th to my beautiful bride Janet. The day was excellent and I would also like to extend a big thank you to another great Saskatchewan golf course, the Royal Regina Golf Club. We hosted our reception and dance there and Jay Began and his staff did an amazing job. It is definitely both a beautiful and top notch facility!

A picture from our wedding day at the Royal Regina

We then spent the week after the wedding in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina on our honeymoon. We had a great time and it was a great time to recharge after a busy work and personal life period. 

Golfing in South Carolina

We hope everyone has enjoyed this golf season so far and the overall product that we are providing to you out on the golf course. We look forward to a successful fall and hope the rest of your golf season goes great! 

Hole 17

Early Summer Update

            Well the summer weather is finally here for us! The consistent rain has been hard on everyone and everything and I really hope we are past it now.

       We are getting closer all the time to having the flooded valley holes open. The grow-in and maturing of the holes is coming along quite well now and we are getting closer to being back on track. We will have all the excavation and trenching completed today on all of the bunkers that were flooded and will hope to complete all the new bunker drainage and renovation by next weekend. 

      We have all of our students working for the year now so it has allowed us to get at a few jobs that have been putting off. Bunker edging on the entire course has already been completed and the students are now down on the flooded holes to completing the bunker reconstruction of all bunkers and the completion of cartpaths on those holes. Once these jobs are done we will be very close to being ready.

A bunker after being edged

        I would like to thank everyone for their patience with us this spring. Unfortunately, we had a few areas that had suffered severely from the harsh winter and this had a negative effect on the course. To top things off the excessive moisture and lack of heat has made recovery for these areas near impossible this spring. With the improvement in the weather now, all of these areas are recovering or have already recovered and we expect they will be back to 100% soon. This was a harsh reality for a lot of our province this year as overall the condition of most golf courses has not been as good as hoped after such a difficult winter and spring. 

This is what the damaged areas have looked like

      The next month will be very busy for as us we hope to complete every job on the flooded holes and to have them open for play. After that we can carry on with the many other planned projects for the rest of the golf course. 

Hole 15

End of Spring Update

A lot has happened since my last blog post and we are now into full swing with this golf season. We have been very busy since opening and have accomplished a lot. There has been quite a bit of rain the past month and a half and that has also helped to make things a little more difficult. Once again, I would like to remind you that if we are posted as not allowing carts on the fairways for the day to please follow this ruling. Keeping the carts out of these areas really helps to eliminate traffic stress on the plant and eliminates the chances of rutting up the course or making a mess of things. 

The course survived the winter decently but we have had a few issues from it being such and cold winter without snow cover. There are a few areas on the fairways, tee boxes and greens that had desiccated (plant dried out from exposure to the cold winter winds to the point it freezes to death). We are starting to see some recovery in these areas but it has been slow going. We have overseeded some of the really bad areas in the hopes of speeding up recovery. This has been a common problem for many golf courses across the province unfortunately just because it was so cold. 

Desiccated area that was overseeded

We had a very difficult time with the irrigation fire-up this year again. To date we have had a total of 26 breaks that have been repaired. Unfortunately when our irrigation system was installed bolt-on saddles were used at all connecting points. The problem with this is that they never used stainless steel bolts when they were installed so all the bolts are now beginning to corrode and break apart and cause irrigation breaks. It is an unfortunate reality that we are aware of and we will just continue to repair them as we need to.

A repaired irrigation break

We have seen our take-all patch disease that we have battled on the greens for the last three seasons on our greens already. We have been monitoring for it closely and have taken the correct actions to fight it, so as of right now it has not had much of an impact on the course. 

Work has been continuing on the four flooded valley holes (4,5,6 and 7) throughout this spring. The areas have now been cut many times and are at a stage where they need to be cut regularly. We are a little behind schedule on the holes compared to what we had hoped for due to the major irrigation issues on the rest of the course, but we are trying our best to get caught up. The winter was not kind to a few areas of our newly seeded turf also. The cold temperatures killed off a few areas on the well established tee boxes and fairways that we are now trying to recover. We have been spot seeding these areas regularly and fertilizer has been applied as needed so we are now trying to be as patient as possible and allow these holes to fill in better and mature to the point that they can be played. We will also have to do more grading and seeding around a few of the tee areas that were not done last fall, build new cartpaths, and renovate all the bunkers on these holes before opening. So it is our hope that we can get them open as soon as we possibly can and we will be working our hardest to try and make that happen.

Hole 7 fairway after its first cut of the season

We are also just finishing up with our first fertilizer application to all the fairways and rough on the course this week. We expect that this should really help to wake up any of the winter damaged areas and really help to fill in any other thin areas. In the next little while we will be continuing with plenty more work on the flooded holes and be continuing to perform and execute our regular programs on the rest of the course to get things into the best condition possible. 

Hole 7 green looking towards 4

  

  

A New Golf Season

Well it is finally here... the 2014 golf season! We opened the golf course for play yesterday and are very excited for what will be certain to be a great season. We were finally able to remove the tarps off the greens on the 21st after being delayed about a week because of strong winds. The greens were then cut yesterday morning for the first time and the course was set-up for play.

3 green freshly cut and set-up

Since my last blog post we have been very busy. We began removing all the snowfence from the greens and tee boxes the last week in March. This job took almost two weeks to complete. Once the temperatures had warmed up enough we then matted and cleaned up the fairways from any debris and the cores that were left remaining from last falls aeration.

14 fairway being matted

We also completed the construction of a new cartpath around the clubhouse going towards 10 tee. We have now routed the cartpath in-front of the clubhouse, behind 18 green. This is much more attractive then the old path which went behind the building and right by the kitchen door. It also makes accessing the patio to pick up food and drinks after the front nine easier and allowed us to create more room for parking the golf carts.

The new clubhouse cartpath

We will now be continuing with the addition of more cartpaths throughout the course for the rest of the spring. We have currently began work on hole #2. We are hoping to receive some rain the rest of this week. This will be a great thing for the course and with the combination of some heat, it should really get the entire course growing. We are hoping to be able to fire up the irrigation early in May but it will all depend on the frost in the ground. 

We have a different routing for the course again this year until we can get the flooded holes 4,5,6, and 7 back in play. We will no longer be playing hole 4 green. Instead we will now be playing  the tee shot from 4 tee boxes down to 7 green. Hole 8 is finally back in play as of this year for the first time in 2 years. It will currently be playing as hole #5. We have put a lot of sod down on the fairway on hole #8 this past two weeks in all that areas that had lost turf in the past from the poor and saturated conditions. So as a result for the time being hole #8 will not be in ideal condition but once the frost leaves the ground and the run-off soaks in things will be greatly improved and very playable. From hole #8 (currently playing as hole #5) we will continue to the three practice holes and finish the front nine on hole #9 just like we have the past two seasons. This routing will allow the traffic to flow much better and will eliminate all backtracking that had occurred in the past. 

We will continue to be very busy in the month of May. Between irrigation fire up, cartpath construction, construction and preparations on the flooded holes and our regular daily maintenance we will have a very full work schedule. We have many huge projects planned for this year and hope to complete them all and once again see a major improvement overall on our golf course. 

A view under a tarp on April 7

March Update

As the temperatures are starting to warm up and the forecast is beginning to look a little better the 2014 golf season will now finally be creeping into everyone's mind. This winter has been a successful one for myself. I was involved in the hiring process of our new Food and Beverage and Proshop Managers in the beginning of December. I am very excited to now have Jim Lowey and Jim Ambrose joining us for this season. They are definitely going to do a great job at our club in 2014. 

Throughout December and January the grinding and maintenance of the turf equipment reels took place. During this process the reels are completely disassembled and then put onto the grinder to be ground and to restore the spin and relief grind edges on the blades. A new bedknife is installed on the reels and it is ground to what is considered "true." We then grease and lubricate all moving parts, pivot points, and bolts before the reels are reassembled. Once they are reassembled the reels are tested for quality of cut using paper. It is the action of the blades of the reel moving against the bedknife that actually performs the cutting. This is basically the same type of action as a pair of scissors. The reels are then reinstalled on the mowers and ready for another year of quality cutting.

A reel being ground

Freshly ground reels reassembled

Reel mower cutting action

After reels are completed, the usual equipment servicing and repairs take place. This includes fluid changing, greasing, broken or worn part repair or replacement, painting, leak repairs, and many other preventative maintenance measures. I am just in the process of wrapping all of this up for the winter. 

This winter I also moved my office down onto the main floor of our maintenance facility. I transformed one of the less used rooms into my new office. Being on the main floor allows me to be closer to my staff and work area and will allow my staff or the public to access me easier.

My new office

This past February I also attended the 2014 Canadian International Turfgrass Conference hosted by the Canadian Golf Superintendents Association in Vancouver. I picked up new information, tricks and theories at the conference that will definitely be very valuable to our club this season and down the road. I attended sessions that included topics such as disease, turf varieities, green speed, soils and new theories to the industry. It also provided me the opportunity the meet and network with many superintendents that I had never met before and a few that I had already known. 

Education session at the conference

We are on track with everything that needed to be done this winter and are ready for the spring weather to come. We are very excited for the new golf season and can not wait to get out onto the course and continue to improve things!

Looking across to hole 15 on March 5

  

Looking Ahead to 2014

It has certainly been a very interesting winter so far this year. We have had some major temperature extremes in both highs and lows. As I look out onto the golf course right now there is not a lot of snow cover out there. But as we all know that could change very quickly in Saskatchewan. So now is the time where we will look ahead to 2014 and everything that we have planned  in our turf care department. 

We are excited to announce the promotion of Lidia Bowen as our new Assistant Superintendent. Lidia joined us as a labourer last year from the golf course in Estevan and we feel that she will do a great job with this new promotion.

We will be hoping to have the flooded holes (4,5,6, and 7) open in the early summer. We completed the seeding and early stages of the grow-in last fall. So we will now just have to allow the turf to establish and mature a little more and maybe complete a little overseeding to the few weaker areas before opening. We will also be restoring all the bunkers on these holes and running cartpaths throughout. We will hope to have all of this completed before the holes are open. 

Looking down hole 6 last fall after seeding

We will also be continuing with cartpaths on the rest of the course as early as we can in the spring. We would like to be able to complete this on the entire course by the end of the 2014 season. It will be great to have this finished and as a result to have the effects of our traffic wear be much less and to be able to allow carts on poor weather days even.

We will also be continuing will the sodding and seeding of any weak areas in the fairways all the way throughout the year. Our fairways have come a long way the past few years but they still have a long way to go so sodding and seeding will help a lot. 

Stripping sod for cartpaths and laying it in weak fairway areas

We will also be doing a lot of work to the bunkers just like the past few seasons. They will be once again all edged and sand will be added to the green side bunkers as funds allow. 

A freshly edged bunker

We are also hoping to be able to begin to address some of the drainage problems that exist on the course. This will most likely involve excavating the area and adding drain tile and crushed rock but we will also be looking at other alternatives to fix these problem areas.

We will also be continuing with our regular maintenance program that we have been using the past few seasons that has proven to be fairly successful. So with the continued execution of our program (fertility, cultural practices, irrigation scheduling and management, pest control, etc) and continued improvements to the irrigation system you can once again expect the overall conditioning and playability of the golf course to greatly improve this season just as it has the previous two seasons. We are determined to bring this golf course from one of the worst conditioned courses in the province, and turn it into one of the best conditioned. And we feel that after the past two seasons that we are well on our way!

Hole 15 last fall