The golf course officially opened on April 17 this year for play. So far it has been a pretty good season as Mother Nature has been fairly nice to us given the time of year that it is. We had all the tarps removed from the greens on April 14 and would like to thank all our volunteers for coming out to help. The first cut on the greens took place on the 16th.
The first cut taking place on the greens
Since there was too much frost at the time of opening we were not able to pressure up our irrigation system yet, so a lot of tank watering took place to keep the greens happy. The irrigation system was turned on on April 21 and went as well as it typically does here. We had quite a few breaks again this year which is not an uncommon thing for us. So far we are up to 16 breaks this season.
Taking watering in progress
One of our irrigation breaks
We have started some of our fairway repairs already for this season. Our highschool students went around and filled most of the bare spots with topsoil to bring it back up to grade and then raked in some Alkaligrass to fill in these bare areas. This process will be taking place a few times this season as we are creating a seedbed and will keep seeding until the alkaligrass establishes well and the fairways are full again. Any of the larger areas that could not be spot seeded will be overseeded using a tractor and overseeder soon.
One of the reseeded areas
We have began our fertility and disease management programs just recently as the soil temperatures are now reaching acceptable levels.
Two exciting projects have also taken place at the club already this season. The old rotten patio wall at the clubhouse has been ripped out and replaced with a very nice block retaining wall. We would like to thank JJ Fischer, Geoff Charles and their crew for the work on it.
The new retaining wall
We have also dealt with some of our drainage issues from 18 green to 9 green. We have had a creekbed dug all the way from 18 green to 9 green and dug a pond in front of 9 green. The idea here is for all the water that stands around the clubhouse, 18 green, 1 tee, the putting green, driving range and 9 green to run into the creekbed and then be contained in the pond and as a result prevent most of it from running down 9 fairway. It will also help to dry up all those other areas that traditionally are very wet and unsightly. We would like to thank Kelly Brady, Jason Pederson and Streamline Oilfield Service for their work on this project.
The pond infront of 9 green
An area of the creekbed
In the upcoming weeks we have a lot planned. We are hoping to solid tine the greens soon, overseed the larger bare areas with Alkaligrass, cleanup and reseeded the creekbed and pond excavation areas and continue with our regular course maintenance. We have accomplished a lot so far this season and by my next update I expect that we will have accomplished even more.
Looking down hole 10 this week
No comments:
Post a Comment