Off to a Great Start!

The golf course has now been open for almost three weeks and we are off to a great start. The weather has been pretty good with the exception of maybe a little bit too much wind but overall I think we have been lucky. The long range forecast for May is looking more like July right now so I think we are going to be in for a great month.

A look at the forecast for the next 14 days

Our regular staff was brought back into work early in April and we have been very busy getting things done. We managed to rescue the tarp out of the pond behind 12 green early in the month which was a huge relief as I was worried this was going to be a much more difficult job. We removed tarps off of the greens on April 8 and were very pleased with what we saw. The greens had wintered perfectly allowing us to never miss a beat to start the season.

The tarp after it was pulled out of the pond

A view of 16 green after the tarp was removed

The golf course opened up on April 12 and the irrigation system was fired up April 18. Between the 12th and 18th a lot of manual tank watering was performed to keep the greens from drying out until we could get the irrigation rolling. We have had 8 irrigation breaks so far this season which is pretty good compared to normal but one was a mainline break so that may count for a couple extra. But as of today the system is fully up and running and doing a good job.

7 green being tank watered

Our mainline break in the middle of 1 fairway

We are about a week ahead of schedule program wise as we have already applied our first take-all patch prevention and fertility applications of the year on greens. We will be really getting into our programs fully this first week of May as we will begin to feed all areas of the golf course and really wake the turf up growth wise and colour everything up. 

Our first fertility app of the spring being applied on greens

We have a few irrigation improvement projects that we will be working on soon and then will continue on to a few construction projects. As mentioned earlier the long range forecast is looking pretty good so this should allow us to really get a lot done in the near future. Aesthetically, you can expect the golf course to look much different over the next week or two, that is for sure.

11 green looking excellent for only April 16

It's Almost Time!

Mother Nature has continued with the warm weather and as it is now we are only a week to two away from opening! The course has dried up nicely and the frost is starting to leave the ground relatively quickly.

Since my last update we have been pretty busy. Two of our tarps on our greens had rips from the November wind storm that had spread leaving exposed turf. One of those greens was manually topdressed with sand to protect the turf as the overnight lows were still cold enough that there was a risk of damage. 

The area that was topdressed when the tarp ripped

The turf conditions we have observed so far have been looking very good. As of right now it looks like things are healthy and that we have survived the winter pretty well. Tarps will probably come off next week so at that point we will see the full picture. 

A view under the tarp on 3 green

My assistant was back to work on March 1 and she was busy getting the course accessories refinished and ready. After that she cleaned all of our equipment inside and out and they are now shiny and ready to go!

Refinished accessories and clean equipment

The removal of snowfence has just begun and will continue this week and into the next. I will also have staff starting next week so they will be dragging out the rest of the cores left over from fall fairway aeration, helping with snow fence removal and most likely be tank watering some areas as they begin to dry out.

1 green with the snowfence removed

We are very close to another golf season and we will have things ready very soon so that everyone can be back out enjoying our beautiful golf course!

A beautiful morning last summer on 17 green

Is Spring Already Here?

Well the weather in the month of February has certainly been above average and as a result we really have no snow left out on the course. With this being the case we hope that the temperatures continue to stay warm because with no snow we might as well get any early start on things if we can! The month of February also saw the hiring of a new Pro Shop Manager for the club. Mitchell Lutz will be joining us this season and we are all very excited to have him here.

I am currently monitoring conditions on the course right now and things appear to be good so far. My only concern is the couple greens that have some ice buildup on them. In the next week or so we will probably plan to get out to them with a pump to remove any standing water off of them and expose the ice layer to the sun so that we can get it all melted. We are not too concerned about it as they have not been under ice that long but the sooner we could get the ice off the happier we will be.

Ice under the snow early in February on 6 green

 
Since my last post I attended the Golf Industry Show which like always was a great experience that I picked up a lot of new things to bring back with me that we will be putting to use this year. Most of the equipment servicing has been completed and there are just a couple repairs that remain. 

One of my education sessions at the Golf Industry Show

My assistant will be back to work next week as March is already here and she will begin preparing and refinishing all of the course accessories for the season. As stated earlier we are hopeful that the warm weather will continue as we would love to be out working on the course by mid-March if Mother Nature will allow us.

We will basically be finishing up the last few things before the golf season is here but we are prepared and ready for the busy season to soon be here and to have the golf course open again!

We are all very excited to be seeing this again soon!

A New Year!

2016 is here and we are excited about all of the new opportunities the new year will bring! It has been almost two months since my last post so there is quite a bit that I can update you on. 

The finish to the month of November was a difficult one as the temperatures just did not want to drop and freeze the ground for us. To top it all off we had the windiest day of the year which caused a ton of damage to our winter tarps and snowfence. We had two tarps totally blow off; one of which flew into a pond and will be frozen in the ice all winter. It took a lot of work but all the tarps were fixed and put back on as well as all the snowfence. So after that everything was once again protected for the winter. 

This was the tarp from 13 sitting 100 yards down the fairway

This was the tarp from 12 in the pond

The snow finally arrived a week before Christmas and things have worked out quite well ever since. We have seen nice temperatures this winter that have not been either too hot or cold and have had very little wind so this has allowed us to develop a nice snow cover that has set and will not be disturbed by the winds and should keep everything nicely protected. This is probably the most consistent snow cover I have ever had since coming to Mainprize even though it is not the most snow we have had at this time of year. 

This is our nice snow cover

During all of this time we have also managed to set all of the 2016 rates and budget. All of the reels have been ground and put back together and equipment repairs and servicing has just begun. I am currently in the process of hiring a new Pro Shop Manager for the 2016 season and we are optimistic that we will find the right person and have another great year in the Clubhouse as well. 

In the next month or so I will hopefully be finishing up all of the remaining equipment work and finish all of my fertilizer/chemical and cultural programming. I will be going to the 2016 Golf Industry Show the second week of February and will hopefully bring back many new ideas to help and improve our club into the future. 

The logo for the 2016 Golf Industry Show

I will try to write another post in February as to what we have been up to and our continued plans into 2016!

A look down hole 2 this past September

 

Winter May Finally Be Here

As I am sitting here writing this the wind is gusting up to 100 km/h and the temperatures are plummeting today. This is good and bad. The temperatures dropping is great as the ground will finally freeze and the turf plants will all finally go into winter sleep mode. The wind is not so good as I am preparing to have a lot of tarps and snowfence to fix after this before the ground is totally frozen.

Since my last post we have accomplished a lot. In the middle of October we completed our fairway aeration that we complete every October. We performed this to help to relieve compaction from golfers, mowing equipment, etc that takes place throughout the season. We also are removing thatch (dead and decaying plant matter), improving water, air and nutrient infiltration, and hoping to promote growth by performing this aeration.

7 fairway after aeration

Our final fungicide applications took place on the greens, tee boxes and a few select fairways. We apply fungicide before winter to prevent the development of winter turf diseases such as snow molds and Fusarium. Some of our fungicides are also formulated with a stress guard which we use to help to prevent winter desiccation.

Fungicide being applied on 5 green

Irrigation system blowout was performed during the second last week of October. During this process we hook up a very large sized air compressor to the system and blow compressed air through the all of the piping, connections and sprinklers heads to remove all water from these areas and prevent freezing of the system over the winter months. 

A sprinkler head being blown out

At the end of October every year we put tarps down on all the greens and then put snowfence up on all the greens and tee boxes on the golf course. The tarps act as a layer of insulation to help protect the plants from cold temperature and cold winter winds that dry the plant out and eventually lead to death (desiccation). The snowfence is used to trap snow and also provide a layer of insulation for those same reasons. 

11 green after being tarped and snowfenced

The process of grinding all of our reels and bedknives on our mowers will be completed this week. During this process the reels and bedknives are put on a grinding machine and a new cutting edge is established and any damage to the blades is ground out and the reels are brought back to square. 

A reel after it has been ground

Throughout the next few months I will then be continuing on with equipment repairs from the season, of which this winter there are quite a few compared to previous seasons. I will also be working through a lot of office work including budgeting, setting of 2016 rates, fertilizer and chemical programming and ordering, cultural and agronomic scheduling, safety programs, etc. 

That is all for now. I am looking forward to a successful winter and for this wind to disappear and leave my tarps alone so they can freeze down for winter. I will be back with another update next month. 

A look down hole 3 this fall

Looking Back on the 2015 Season

With the golf course closing for the season this week; it is the perfect time to look back at how our season went and what we have accomplished.

I'll start off with a quick update of what has recently been done and what the month of October has in store. We have applied our first two applications of fungicide in our winter preventative and fall take-all applications. Our final winter application will take place in the middle of October. We have completed our annual tee box aeration again for another year. 

4 green after a fungicide application

October will be a busy month as we will be preparing for winter. We will be removing and cleaning all course accessories, blowing out the irrigation system, continuing with fairway spot seeding, snowfencing the tee boxes and greens and tarping the greens at the end of the month. As usual we will be leaving the pins in for most of the month and allowing people to come and golf even though the proshop is closed.

The 2015 season was a very successful season and it was finally the season where I really think we saw all of our hard work pay off. Rounds and revenue are well up compared to previous years and the course has finally become something to be proud of. Mother Nature was also pretty good to us this season which really does help everything. 

All areas of the course saw a great improvement this year. More bunker repairs were completed and sand was added to many bunkers. The bunkers are still one of our biggest problems and we will continue our work on them in the future. Drainage was improved this season with the highlight being the addition of the creekbed and pond between 18 green and 9. It is amazing how well this has worked and improved course playability.

Our tee boxes really did not need any improvement going into this year as they were already great but we kept up this trend and they are still always in excellent condition and without a doubt among the best in this province. The fairways were by far our biggest problem going into this season and they do still have a long way to go, but we did make a lot of progress with them this year. We were able to fill in and shrink a lot of the dead spots and we will continue to work at them next season until they are at a point that they need to be. The irrigation system is continuing to get better and better all the time and is becoming much more reliable which really takes a lot of stress away from us.   

The tee boxes on par 3 hole #4

A look down 13 fairway

  

The most important area on the golf course, the greens, had an excellent season also. The condition they have been in all season has been quite impressive. Our club is very proud of our greens and we know that our greens will not disappoint anyone that comes out for a round of golf. 

Hole #15 green

All of this amazing progress that we are seeing though could not be possible without the great efforts of all my staff within our turf care department. They have given everything they can to the golf course and you can see the amount of pride that everyone has in what we are doing. None of this would also have been able to happen without the support of our board of directors for giving us the tools and trust that we needed to accomplish everything. A big thank you goes to all of our members as well since they have stuck with the club through everything that they have seen and a few pretty hard years. You all deserve a great golf course and I am very happy that we are making the progress and beginning to give everyone the quality golf course that you all deserve!

Hole #9 in 2011 when I was interviewing for the job on top and the same 

hole in 2015 on the bottom

#12 green in 2011 on top and 2015 on the bottom

A beautiful morning sunrise on the golf course

Where Did the Summer Go?

It's hard to believe that as I am sitting here writing this that it is the last regular day of work for the season for all my summer students. Summer flew by just like it always seems to. I guess that just means that we are that busy around here! It was a great and successful summer though. We have accomplished a lot on the golf course and business is significantly up. 

Unfortunately it has been a while since my last post so I have a lot to update you on. The weather has overall been pretty great for us this summer. There was a lot of very warm weather and not a lot of rainy days. That being said; weather like that brings on its challenges. The turf experienced a lot of stress this summer from high temperatures and drying out. Localized dry spot was very common this summer. A localized dry spot is basically an area that can not be wet or is considered hydro-phobic. To deal with this condition we have a few tools. Most commonly we use a wetting agent which helps to alter the soil chemistry to either allow the soil to take in and hold water or push water through the soil profile. Another common procedure that we do is hand-watering. When we hand water we go out with a hose and soak down and puddle the dry area a few times to really help to push the water down and saturate the area. 

Examples of our localized dry spot

Bunker maintenance was one of our top priorities once our students had started. All greenside bunkers were edged again this season and 14 of these bunkers also had new sand added to them to improve sand quality and depths.

A freshly edged bunker

A bunker with new sand added to it

We did see the dreaded Take-all Patch disease that I am always talking about sporadically throughout the summer but it was a non-issue as we are so used to it now that our management program seems to be working very well.

Take-all Patch

This week we just recently completed our annual fall greens aeration. The greens are recovering nicely and should be putting great once again in the next couple days. 

A green being aerated

How the greens look after aeration

For the fall we have a lot of things planned. We will be aerating the tee boxes. We are planning to totally overseed all weak fairway areas once more with Alkaligrass. After we seed certain areas we will be putting ropes up to keep carts off of these areas. The ropes will help to keep traffic off of these areas and will as a result allow the new seed the chance to establish. We will be building and growing in our new bentgrass sod nursery. And then of course we will be performing our normal fall shut down procedures such as fungicide applications, irrigation blowout, fairway aeration, tarping, fencing, etc. 

We are hoping to have a very successful fall and hope that Mother Nature continues to be good to us to allow the golf season to keep going a little longer!

On a side note my wife and I are pleased to announce that on July 24th we welcomed our first child into the world. His name is William David Seibel.