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
