On The Course May 31st

If anyone was wondering what the white structure is between 3 and 4 it is our weather station. Our intern Nick Walters put the finishing touches on it last week. The weather station communicates to our irrigation computer where the weather data is monitored and logged.

We have a little more spotty rain in the forecast for this morning. We are mowing and rolling greens today. The fairways and rough areas are a little too wet to be mowed but we will get some rough areas done as they dry out. Collars and approaches are being mowed.

It has been difficult to get on a consistent mowing schedule with the rain. We also haven't been able to get many of our spring projects done but we are starting the irrigation project on #15 and #16 rough area. We are adding a few heads to help cover the rough between the fairways. We will be working the area up and seeding it later this week once the irrigation is installed. This is a heavily tree lined area and the trees take up a lot of the moisture that gets to the ground. We added an irrigation loop to the left side of #15 last year and that really helped that area.

On The Course May 30th

Happy Memorial Day. Well it is beginging to become a rucurring theme but we once again this morning received .6 inches of rain in the time span of an hour. The course again is very wet and until further notice will not be playable. With the continued saturation of the course it is taking longer and longer for it to dry out every time we receive one of these rain events. Once we are able to open today the cart restrictions will be cart path only. Please keep all four tires on the paths at all times it is very very wet out there. When we are able to we will be fixing and raking bunkers this morning, we will also be cutting cups and tee service. The range tee will be set on the mats today also. We are working with the pro shop this morning on an appropriate time to open the course, please contact the pro shop with any questions. Thank you for your patience.

On The Course May 29th

It is another nice morning at the club. There is a little rain in the forecast for later this morning, hopefully it will miss us. We will be rolling greens this morning, cutting cups, raking bunkers and mowing tees. The course should be in great shape for the afternoon shotgun. All of the annual flower beds have been planted so enjoy the colors as you make your way around.

Greens Aerificaiton Spring 2011

Above is a video of our process for aerification this spring.

On The Course May 28th

We recieved a little rain overnight which isn't slowing the Grounds Staff down this morning. They are busy preparing for the 8:30am Men's Memorial Shotgun. We are mowing and rolling greens and after just putting a few balls on 1 and 2 the greens are rolling pretty good. With 0.3" of rain we have some of the puddles back in the fairways and rough areas. We will be cart path only for today! The course is starting to get dried out but with a little rain we have standing water again.



The pool is set to open today at 11:00am. John Gimmestad has been busy the last couple of weeks getting everything dialed in and set to open the pool for the season.

Have a Great Memorial Weekend!

On The Course May 27th

We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. They are starting to firm up and are rolling nicely. We have a busy mow day today with some rain in the forecast for later today. It looks like it should only be some short light rain but with the lack of dew this morning and relatively dry air I am hopeful most of it will dissipate when it gets to the Cities.

We are still working on getting the rough mowed and cleaned up. We have mowed most of what is not still wet twice this week and are doing our "Friday Mow" today to get most of the play areas done. On fairways 16 and 18 you will probably notice a little sand in the fairways. We are topdressing these two fairways to help firm up the surface and try to keep them a little drier. Once the sand dries we will drag it into the turf.

With the lack of rain for a couple days and the course starting to dry out we are going to go to a 90 Degree rule for carts today. The 90 Degree rule means you drive down the path until you reach your golf ball at an angle of 90 degrees. Then you may proceed off the path to your ball with your cart and then return to the path before proceeding to your next shot. We still have a lot of wet rough areas so be careful when you are driving the course exspecially on #14.

On The Course May 26th

We are mowing and rolling greens today and the course is starting to dry out from all of the rain. We are set up for a great sunny day. Collars and approaches are being mowed this morning. We are taking advantage of a couple dry days to get our first fairway spray application completed. We will be working on that most of the morning.

Our flower crew will be getting the rest of the annuals planted on the course today and we will start repairing the perennial bed around the practice green. As the fairways and rough dry up we will start doing some sod patching on areas with winter damage. The areas with ice damage from the winter are the same spots that take the longest to dry.

On The Course May 25th

We have a little weather system moving through today with some rain. hopefully it will not amount to too much moisture.

We are mowing greens, tees, fairways and rough this morning. We are going to try to get as much mowed as we can without making a mess in the wet areas. There are still a lot of wet areas throughout the golf course. Tees are being sprayed today and if the fairways get cleaned up today we will be spraying them tomorrow. We have had very short windows to get maintenance done on the course. Jason is working on some irrigation on th short course today. Most of the flowers have been planted around the clubhouse with only the beds on the course left. We will be replanting the perennial beds around the putting green early next week.



Above is a picture of what turned out to be the winning birdie put on #9 for Amy Anderson in the USGA Women's Qualifier.

On The Course May 24th

What a crazy weather weekend with almost 3.5 inches of rain. The crew was able to get the course playable for the USGA Women's Open Qualifier on Monday. Jason, Justin and Nick were out pushing water off the greens at 4:00 am. Troy had the rest of the crew getting mowers ready and Jorge was on the Sand Pro with a flashlight trying to get the bunkers worked up a little bit. The Grounds Staff was able to get the greens mowed and bunkers raked before the event started at 8:00am. There was still a lot of water throughout the golf course but the event finished up with Amy Anderson winning with a 36 hole score of 141 and Kelly Shon with a score of 142. Both have qualified for the Women's US Open at The Broadmoor in Colorado.



Today we are mowing and rolling greens. The course is still pretty wet in the rough areas and some fairway spots. We are mowing collars, approaches and a little bit of rough on the Executive course. We might be able to get out this afternoon and mow a couple of fairways.

On The Course May 22nd

We have received 2 inches of rain on the course since the rain began yesterday morning and 2.8 inches of rain total over the last two days. The course is at this point completely saturated as you can see from the picture below taken this morning between 6 and 7 fairways. At this point we are waiting for the course to drain to a point where it is manageable for maintenance and play. We will be out this morning repairing bunkers once the water that has built up in them recedes, and getting the course into playable shape. The course will be closed until further notice. Watch for updates on the course via foretees postings, or by calling the pro shop. Thank You for your patience.

On The Course May 21st

We have received 0.7" of rain overnight but it looks like it might be clearing. We will be delayed slightly this morning with the weather but are going to be mowing greens with walk mowers, changing pin locations and mowing collars and approaches.

We are going to start raking bunkers this morning and will mow greens as soon as they dry out enough. We should only be delayed 30-45 minutes this morning. With the range tee being fairly saturated we will be hitting off the mats all day.

On The Course May 20th

Today we are mowing with triplex mowers and rolling greens. They are getting better day by day and we should have the walk mowers back on them tomorrow. We are spraying greens on the short course as well as the Driving range tee. Fairways, collars and approaches are being mowed today.

We are still working on some irrigation programming and will have some irrigation stations running on and off today. We do have a good cell of rain moving in this morning but we are hopeful it will dissipate before it reaches us.

On The Course May 19th

We have had a great stretch of weather the last couple of days to get a lot of work done. Fairway aerification will be finished today. Greens will be mowed with triplex mowers due to a little sand still on the surface. We should be back to walk mowers on Saturday. We are spraying greens today with fertilizer to help get them ready for the weekend. The irrigation system is still being tested and we have been running a little water overnight. The system is working very good with only a few minor problems that we will get worked out. Our goal is to have most of the computer programing and field testing done by June 1st so we are ready to run the full system if needed.

On The Course May 18th

The greens are looking really good after aerification on Monday. We are rolling the greens this morning and we will be mowing them this afternoon after they dry. Jason and our Intern Nick are installing the last controller on the short course and will be working on a leak on #2 of the short course. We will be testing more stations on the irrigation system today.

We are mowing collars and approaches, rough and the Hogan walkways on some holes. We are going to try to finish our fairway aerification today with 14, 15, 16 and 18. The fairways we have already aerified were fertilized yesterday.

On The Course May 17th

Very busy day on the course yesterday with greens aerification. Our aerification process this spring started with a single verticut followed by a light topdressing. The greens were then aerified with 8mm solid needle tines at 1.5" spacing. We were able to get to a depth of 5.5 inches. This has softened the greens a little bit but has opened up the soil profile for gas and air exchange and should set us up for a great summer. The process is a lot less disruptive than the core aerification process we used in the fall.

Greens were rolled and broom at the end of the day yesterday. We have most of the championship course irrigation up and running. We were able to water the sand topdressing into the greens. The front nine greens were fertilized and watered in yesterday afternoon. We also were able to get a lot more weeds sprayed.



Today we will be rolling greens, mowing fairways, tees and rough. The rough is drying out and we are getting a majority of it mowed. There will be some areas that cannot be mowed. Front nine fairways are being fertilized as well as back nine greens. We are going to continue on our back nine fairway aerification.


The weather is going to be great today and we should get a lot done.

On The Course May 15th

Hopefully we have a string of good days to get the course dried out and get some work done. We are getting ready for aerification Monday morning. We are using an 8mm needle tine for greens this spring. We will be verticutting lightly and then aerifying the greens. We will be topdressing with a light layer of sand to help smooth the greens out.

This morning we are rolling greens, changing pin locations, shortening the tee locations a little bit do to the wet conditions and touching up the bunkers.

On The Course May 13th and 14th

Blogger's server was down yesterday so I could not post course conditions yesterday. We received 0.8" of rain on Thursday and have continued the streak of barely getting enough dry weather to mow everything before we get more rain.

We rolled greens Friday and were able to get a couple irrigation leaks fixed. We were also able to finish our wetting agent application on greens. We could really see the difference in the greens that received wetting agent before the rain and the ones that didn't. The wetting agent helps pull the moisture off the surface and distribute it into the soil profile.

This morning we are mowing and rolling greens. The slight breeze we have had all night has started to dry things out. The rough areas are still very wet and we will remain cart path only for today. There is a slight chance of minimal rain today. The course should be ready for the 9am Shotgun for our Men's Opener.



The weeds we have sprayed this last week are definitely dying!



The picture above shows another pin hole size leak in a steel pipe. This will be a common occurance for us over the next couple of years with most of the steel pipe we have on the course has been in the ground for over 40 years. Ask Jason how fun these ones are to fix?

On The Course May 12th

We had an irrigation leak on #6 fairway yesterday morning when Jorge got a little too close with the aerifier. Jason will be working on getting that fixed later today.

We dodged some rain yesterday only getting a short shower. The course is drying out and the turf is growing well. We had the rough mowers out in full force yesterday and we should get all of the rough mowed by the end of today. We are spraying greens with some fertilizer today to get them ready for our aerification next week. We are using very small tines next week so our disruption should be minimal.

Tees, intermediate rough, rough and greens are being mowed today. We are going to be testing more irrigation stations throughout the day today. We have 95% of the new control system up and running with just some computer programming and some fine tuning left to do.

Front nine fairways have been aerified and we will be working on the back nine later today if the forecasted rain holds off.

On The Course May 11th

What a great day yesterday was! We were able to get a lot of work done with the nice warm weather. The course is still a little wet but we were able to get a lot of weeds sprayed and started aerifying fairways.




Fairways are being aerified with 1/2" solid tines which are a lot less disruptive than the coring tines. We have been too wet all spring to pull cores so we are going to continue to solid tine fairways and approaches the rest of this week. Next week we are aerifying greens on Monday with very small tines.



Above is an image of the flowers from the Pear tree we put in the front of the Proshop last season. It will be one of the trees that flowers first. The Crab Apple trees should flower shortly after the Pear tree.

Today we are mowing greens, fairways and rough. We should be able to get most of the rough mowed this week if we do not get a lot of more rain. Yesterday's heat wave really helped the growth of the turf. Fairways 4,6,7,8 and 9 will be aerified and the rest will be mowed.

We were able to run a couple irrigation stations from our new computer central control system yesterday. The little things we as turf managers get excited about!!

On The Course May 10th

Fairways and approaches are being aerified today. We are using 1/2" solid tines at a depth of 5 inches. This aerification process should be minimally disruptive. We will be working #1 forward and will keep going the rest of the week with decent weather.

The weather has warmed up and the rough is starting to really grow. We will have both spray rigs out today working on weeds in rough areas. We are using a new herbicide on some areas that is slower to kill the dandelions than a tradition 3 way herbicide. It does a better job of killing the dandelions to the root so regrowth and second flushes are limited.

Greens and tees are being mowed today. We are also working on some irrigation stations so if you see some heads running we are just testing stations and not watering the golf course.

On The Course May 9th

MGA Super Seniors today at 11am. We are currently watching a pretty good lightning storm roll through the area. So far we have just over 0.5" of rain.

We will be getting out on the course as soon as the rains stop and get ready for the tournament. Most likely we will be cart path only and hitting from the range mats. We will be changing pin locations and raking bunkers when the rain stops.

On The Course May 8th

A very Happy Mother's Day to all of our mothers out there. It's going to be another nice day on the course today with partly cloudy conditions and a chance of some lite showers later on. We will be rolling greens today, changing pin locations, and resetting the tees. We will also be pulling the covers on tees 1,13,and 17 today. With the last few warm days we have had these tees have filled in and greened up nicely.

On The Course May 7th

We were able to get a few stumps ground yesterday and Kent will be out again first thing this morning. We are going to work on cleaning these up later this morning after we get the course set up for play.

Today we are mowing and rolling greens. Pin locations will be changed and bunkers will be raked. Hopefully the rain holds off and we can get some golf in today. The radar is currently showing some rain to the west but it is dissipating as it gets near the Twin Cities.

On The Course May 6th

Above is a picture of an area on #18 fairway that had ice damage from the winter. The seedlings are starting to pop up and these areas will fill in over the next couple of weeks.

Hopefully a nice warm day for Friday golf! We will be mowing and rolling greens today. Pin locations will be changed and with almost 0.5" of rain total yesterday we will remain cart path only.

Our new Spray Technician Justin Ellison will be out today with the sprayer working on the clubhouse area and other areas prone to weeds.

On The Course May 5th

Dandelions are starting to make there appearance and so is our spray rig. We sprayed a couple acres yesterday with herbicide to start getting after the weeds.

More rain today with a total of 0.25" this morning with a little more on the way. The rain should roll through this morning and be very spotty going into the afternoon.

We will be pulling the range cover later this morning and mowing the tee.

The range floor will be mowed this morning. We are evaluating greens this morning and will be mowing later this morning when the rain clears out as long as we do not receive too much rain.

There are several areas throughout the fairways that have been aerified and seeded. These are spots that have had some ice damage from this past winter.



Above is a picture of the Turkey Blind we have had set up on the course over the past couple of weeks. NO, we are not hunting turkeys but have been using the blind to keep working on irrigation controllers. We are replacing our old irrigation controllers and with the cold wet weather we are doing whatever we can to keep working. The blind was positioned on #11 for a couple days while the concrete base was setting up.

On The Course May 4th

Above is a picture of why we have been cart path only for most of the spring. The ground has been saturated and we still have a lot of surface moisture. With the cold, cloudy and rainy days the ground has not had a chance to dry out. When the course is ready to receive cart traffic we will open the course up to 90 degree rule. A couple days of sun and wind will help.

Today we are going to be rolling greens, changing pin locations, mowing collars, approaches and as much rough as we can without making a big mess.

Our irrigation controller installation has been going well despite the rainy weather. We should have all the controllers installed and wired this week. We will be testing stations throughout the week. We are not watering the course just making sure stations are working properly and that everything gets wired in correctly.

On The Course May 3rd

We have a little frost this morning but with clear skies and sun in the forecast it should be a beautiful day.

We are spraying tees today with fertilizer. We have covered a couple tees that need some extra attention. #1 Blue tee has been aerified and will be covered until the weekend, #13 and #17 Blue Tees are covered to promote some growth. With the cold spring we have been having we want to try to encourage some more growth on these tees.

We will be mowing greens later this morning when the frost lifts. Pin locations will be moved and we will be hitting from the mats on the range today. We will open the turf portion of the tee back up on Thursday (weather dependent).

Mouse and vole damage in the fairways has been cleaned up and seeded. We have cleaned up most of the rough areas and will continue to work on these throughout the week.

On The Course May 1st

With over an inch of rain yesterday the course is pretty wet. The good news is the wind has blown steady all night and things are starting to dry out. The greens will be cleared of any debris today and pin locations changed. We will also be raking green side bunkers.

There are still some puddles in some fairways and a lot of rough areas. We will remain CART PATH ONLY!