On The Course December 18th

The rain over the past weekend has left a layer of porous ice on TOP of the Excelsior Mats.

 I walked out of my house Saturday morning and was greeted by rain falling from the sky. I never get a very good feeling when it rains in the middle of December. We have been out on the course looking around and I am pleasantly happy with what we have seen. With the big snow we received before the rain it has helped keep any major ice from forming. We do have some porous ice just above the turf surface and in several low areas on some fairways some thicker spots of ice. As you can see in the picture above the ice layer is on top of the Excelsior mats and the moisture did not reach the surface of the greens. This should help with any blowing snow issues we could face in the coming weeks. This rain event has help set up the loose snow and we have a good blanket covering the entire golf course.

#1 Fairway has a porous ice layer above the turf canopy.

 The tees and fairways look really good under the blanket of snow. We do have some small pockets of ice in some low areas but nothing to be too concerned with at this point. We have much colder temperatures in the forecast with the night time temperatures in the single digits and the daily highs in the low 20's and Upper teens.

The screening slats are being installed today along CR 116 and should help with some of the road noise and traffic distractions. Should look really good when the new trees leaf out in the spring.

Screening slats are being installed on the new section of fence along CR 116.

On The Course December 13th

New berm on #2 along CR 116

 We were able to get a lot of work done on the course late in the season with no snow until just recently. Troy and Brandon were able to get most of the Native areas mowed and cleaned up with the Weidenmann flail mower. We spent a lot of time getting some trees removed on #2 and pulled the fence along 116 so we had some room to add some fill material for a berm. The berm was built an we planted 18 spruce trees and 4 Autumn Blaze maples back on top. The fence was replaced with a slightly taller fence and we will be adding in some screening slats on a portion of that fence. We were able to get several Autumn Blaze Maple clumps planted to the south of the forward tee to help with some screening along CR 116.

With almost 10 inches of fresh snow over the past weekend the course is in great shape for winter. We just need the cold temperatures to stick around for the next couple of months and we will be looking at anther great golf season for 2013. We have made a couple trips around the ski trail with the tractor sled and it has plenty of snow. We are looking at getting some more snow this weekend.

If we are able to get some more colder weather we will start some tree removals and will be burning brush before the end of December. The crew has been working on repairing and painting coolers stands, benches and tee markers. The grinder in the shop has been running everyday since the end of the season and Shaun has made some great progress on getting cutting units ready for spring.

If you have any questions on course conditions or anything in general feel free to contact us at anytime. Our shop hours are 7am-330pm Monday through Friday.

We have planted 3 Autumn Blaze clumps behind the Forward Tee on #2

Closer look at the berm addition on #2

On The Course November 20th

Fill material we have stockpiled at the barn from the cart path project

 We have begun work on replacing some trees along #2 fairway and creating a mounded area to help screen the golf course. We are going to have a section of fence replaced with new fence and a portion of that will have screening slats installed to help with road noise. The project should really come into shape tomorrow with most of the dirt work being completed. We are planting 17 spruce trees on top of the new mound to replace some of the removed trees.

The fence installers will be coming in the first week of December to finish repairing and replacing the damaged fence. They will also be doing some minor repairs as well as replacing the gate that we have at the entrance to the barn area.

We been able to get some work done on the course with the unseasonable weather we have had over the past couple of days. Troy and Brandon were able to get some more of the native areas mowed and cleaned up. The greens are relatively cold as the Excelsior mats are able to prevent them from warming up during the warmer days. The greens we have looked at over the past couple of days are looking great and we have not seen any excessive growth or snow mold.

Mounding area before any dirt work has been done.

On The Course November 6th

Covering the Championship Course yesterday and today. We were able to get most of the front nine done yesterday and will be working on covering greens later this morning. We have some rain right now and will hold off a little while if the greens are too wet. We should be able to get all of the greens covered by Wednesday but we are expecting heavy frost for Wednesday morning.

On The Course November 3rd

Bryxton helping Jason with our irrigation blowout.

 We have made very good progress on our winter closing procedures. We are going to be covering the Championship Greens starting Monday, November 5th. We have deep tined the Chipping Green and Practice Green #10. These two greens do not have any internal drainage or slit drainage installed in them and therefore need the additional help for surface drainage. The deep tine holes are 3/4" wide and 7" deep. This should give a good avenue for some surface water to get into the root zone.

The irrigation system has been blown out and winterized. The process went really well and we saw no big issues that we will have to deal with next spring. We have a couple of small projects for the pump house buildings late this fall. Fernando has been mowing a couple of the Native areas down with the Weidenmann and we will continue this as the weather allows over the next couple of weeks. We have seen some wildlife activity with several Red Tail Hawks enjoying some hunting over the freshly mowed areas.

Troy and Brandon have gotten most of the greens ready for winter by cutting sod strips out of the water runoff areas and exposing most of the drainage holes on the putting surfaces. They were able to get the Nursery greens covered and all of the mats are staged and ready for Monday. We have a good couple of days next week to the rest of the work on the greens done. The weather looks to get a little warmer for a couple of days before the cold sets in.

Fernando has been mowing some native areas and kicking our a few mice that the Red Tail Hawks have been cleaning up.

The crew has hauled most of the Excelsior Mats out to the course.

We had deep tined the Chipping green and Practice Green #10. Covers have placed on the greens for the winter.

On The Course October 31st

Range tee has been uncovered and deep tined

We are winding the season down and will be closed after this weekend. We are working on getting the golf course ready for winter. We started pulling golf course accessories and will start our snow mold preventative applications on fairways today. The fairways will be blown off to remove any debris and then sprayed. Please keep your cart on the path as much as possible today and through the weekend. We will be spraying greens and tees tomorrow and should be ready to get the greens covers put down early next week. The Frankenstorm has backed up our weather patter and the forecast temperatures continue to drop. We will be ready to cover greens starting Friday if necessary.

Brandon has been running the deep tine machine a lot over the past week and has most of the fine turf areas completed. The range targets and a couple of the practice greens are all that are left. If time permits we will be deep tining a couple areas of the Executive Course greens. Sheldon will be out later this morning with the aerovator working on the range floor. Jason has been mapping irrigation heads over the past couple of days so we are able to work on our irrigation map this winter and make sure all of our data is correct in the irrigation computer. Our compressor rental should be here later today and we will start blowing the irrigation system out as soon as it arrives. We could be running some more stations later this morning before we blow the system out.

Brandon has deep tine all of the tees

On The Course October 29th

We will be working on drainage holes again this week.

 We have been watching the forecast very closely over the weekend and right now we should have a window of weather to cover greens November 5, 6 and 7th. We will be getting everything ready this week for closing down. We have to pull all golf course accessories, spray snow mold protection, deep tine tees, drill more drainage holes, aerify range floor and a long list of other tasks. If the weather forecast changes we will be ready to cover greens Thursday and Friday of this week.

It typically will take us 3 days to completely cover greens and get them stapled down correctly. We will be spraying our snow mold protection Wednesday and Thursday of this week. We will be blowing out the irrigation system starting Wednesday afternoon through Friday. If we still have a 3 day window to cover greens November 5, 6 and 7th we will keep all of the Championship course open through this next weekend. If our window of time shortens we could be covering the back nine starting this week. Watch for updates from Foretees or this blog over the next couple of days.

Brandon will finish deep tining fairways this week.

Lorelei McManus ready for the hay ride this weekend.

On The Course October 26th

Rubiel spinning out some bunkers with the Sand Pro

 We have had a couple of rains over the past couple of days and even some snow yesterday. The moisture has been needed for the rough areas and especially the trees. Today we are pretty frozen on the course and will be working on winterizing the Golf Cart fleet, moving some equipment into winter storage and organizing the shop. We will be rolling greens and changing pin locations  later today once the course has thawed. We are only looking at a high temperature of maybe 40 degrees for today. We are expecting a extended frost delay over the weekend with the night time temperatures in the low 20's. We will be watching the weather really close over the weekend and into next week to determine a closing day. We are hopeful to get through this weekend and into next week.

Next week will be a very busy week for us as we will try to finish our deep tine of the fairways. We are also going to be working on drainage holes on the greens and getting the mats hauled out of storage. We will start removing golf course accessories next week and get them cleaned up and ready for winter refurbishment. We have marked some trees on the course for possible removal. The trees marked are under consideration for a number of different reasons. Some are affecting the cart paths or creating shade issues on a couple of greens. We also have several areas that are large clumps of Ash trees and our plan is to remove a few ash trees and replace with different species. With Emerald Ash borer on our door we want to make sure we are proactive in our tree plan.

If you have any questions regarding the golf course, winter closing or tree maintenance feel free to contact me at anytime.

Brandon has finished a couple more fairways this week with the deep tine

On The Course October 23rd

We received almost 2 inches of rain overnight. The course is holding water but should drain off pretty quick with the dry conditions. There are still some puddles on the greens but should be on time for a 9am start. We will be changing cups and blowing leaves off of greens and tees. We will not be running the tractor blower in the fairways until it has dried up. The crew will be working on cleaning some equipment and several other off course projects.

We have started to auger some drainage holes in a few of the greens and will continue this process later this week. We have added some holes to most of the greens over the past couple of seasons and it has helped with some of our drainage problems. As you can see in the pictures in this post we are drilling about a 4 foot deep hole, 4 inches in diameter and filling it with pea rock. The plug we take out to auger the hole is then placed over the pea rock until we cover the greens We will then remove the plugs and add a little more rock and leave open for the winter.

Closing the golf course is always left up to mother nature. We are closely watching the forecast and will be discussing some options at the Grounds Meeting today. We have scheduled our irrigation blowout for November 1st and 2nd and will be spraying our snow mold protection early next week. We need about 3 good days to get all of the golf course covered and closed. We will finish drainage holes this week and start removing golf course accessories. 

Troy, Jason, Bryxton and Rubiel augering holes.

Rubiel filling drainage holes with pea rock.

On The Course October 18th

Covering the range tee to promote some divot recovery

 We will be rolling greens this morning and blowing leaves. Sheldon will be out with the rough mower mulching leaves. Brandon was able to get 3 fairways deep tined yesterday and will be working on #13, 15, 16 and 18 today. We should be able to get all of the fairways done next week. The deep tine hole will stay open for the winter and allow some surface water to enter the hole and freeze causing a good fracturing of the soil beneath the turf canopy.

Jason raised an irrigation head on #9 that was not performing well because it was too far below the turf surface. We will continue to work on several low irrigation heads this fall getting them ready for next season. The crew will finish pulling annuals and cutting off perennials in our flower beds and preparing them for winter. We were able to get some bulbs planted last week that should look really good next spring.

We have a Grounds Meeting on Tuesday, October 23rd and will be discussing fall projects and course closing procedures. This weekend is looking to be perfect for golf with high temperatures predicted to be in the middle 60's. The long term weather models are showing a weak El Nino affect going into winter which should mean normal temperatures. The next 4-8 days are predicted to be a little above normal and then below normal for the following 7 days. The weather models change daily and we will be watching them very closely. We are planning on blowing the irrigation system out November 1st and 2nd and applying snow mold fungicides shortly after that.

Brandon will be working on deep tining the fairways over the next week

Jason worked on an irrigation leak on #18 approach as well as raising a head on #9 green

Great Sunrise yesterday morning

On The Course October 17th

We have been pretty quiet on the blog over the past couple of weeks. We have been blowing and mulching leaves a lot and will continue to try to keep the course as clean as possible going into winter. The big question is "When are we closing?". We will be looking at the forecast over the next couple of weeks and will prepare the course to be ready to close. We still have a lot of work to do to prepare everything for winter. We will be auguring some drainage holes in the greens starting next week and are starting to deep tine the fairways this week. Brandon will be out with the deep tine machine on #10 and #12 fairways later this morning. We will get several done this week and should be able to finish this process next week. The deep tine will open a hole into the fairways and as water gets into the hole and then freezes over the winter it will fracture the sub-surface soil opening more ares for root development next spring. This will enable us to try to get a better rooting depth in the fairways and firm up the fairways throughout the growing season.

We have covered the turf portion of the range tee to try to help get some growth and germination of the seed that was put down last week. We will be pulling the cover this morning to mow and clean up the tee. The cover will be replaced and left down until next week. Greens were mowed yesterday and sprayed with fertilizer. We will continue to blow leaves off of the fine turf areas today. Rain is forecasted for the next couple of days but could be hit or miss for the golf course.

On The Course October 10th

Blowing Leaves!

We have been busy over the past week or so trying to keep up with the falling leaves. We have had some good fall color and now the daily task of keeping the leaves clear of the fine turf areas is taking up most of our time. We have some pretty cold frost this morning and will be working on some projects out at the barn area. The range tee has been aerified and topdressed. We will be covering the turf portion of the driving range tee later today. We will be hitting off of the mats for the rest of the season.

We have planted a few more trees in some areas of the golf course this week. We have a large ash tree behind #1 green that was struck by lightning this summer and will have to be removed this winter. We have planted several large Patriot Elm trees as well as a Sugar Maple behind #1 green to help replace the Ash. We will continue to work on some plantings on the left side of #2 in the coming weeks.

On The Course October 5th

 Just a few fall color pictures!!

 

On The Course October 4th

We are mowing and rolling greens on this brisk and breezy morning. We have no frost on the course but the wind is blowing and it is feeling pretty chilly. We are mowing fairways today in anticipation of a pretty heavy frost tomorrow morning with a predicted temperature of 34 degrees and a feels like temperature of 23. Should warm up just enough to get the Ming Scramble off at 12pm. Brandon will be changing pin locations this morning and Javier is servicing the tees. We will try to blow some leaves today but with the heavy wind it will be a challenge.

I have included a short video of the fall color on the course. If you cannot see the video you might need to click on the web page and access the blog from the website. If you have signed up to get email alerts when a new blog is posted make sure to check your email inbox for a message from feedburner to acknowledge the email.

Fernando Patino mowing greens

Ron Mielke on the fairway mower.

On The Course September 29th

Assistant Troy Tschida and his new addition to the family Logan! 6 pounds 14 oz born at 3:49am
Congratulations to Troy and Stef!

 What a great start to the weekend with Troy and his Wife Stef giving birth to their first child. Logan Tschida was born this morning at 3:49am weighing in at 6 pounds 14 ounces. The weather looks to be perfect for the weekend and we will be preparing the course this morning with no frost. We have had some frost over the past couple of days and it will be nice to get our right away to prepare the course for play. Bryxton will be setting pin locations today and the greens will be blown off and rolled. With the colder temperatures we are not seeing very much growth on the greens over the past couple of days. We will be giving them a little bump of fertilizer early next week as we are to have a few more warm nights in the days ahead.

JD has been sending lots of updates from the Ryder Cup and below are a few pictures of the Minnesota Vikes crew that has been on the grounds of Medinah over the past couple of days. The US finished strong yesterday and are leading 5-3 which will make for a very fun day of golf.

The "Vikes" at the Ryder Cup sitting on the interview stand

"The Vikes" with "The Donald" yesterday during the Ryder Cup.

Most of our new equipment has arrived!

On The Course September 27th

I talked with JD this morning as he was watching the Grounds Crew prepare the putting green for the Ryder Cup at Medinah. He sent me several videos of the crew and I posted one here. If you are viewing this on a mobile device the videos sometimes do not show up but if you go to the blog page you can view the videos.

  We have a little frost on the course again this morning and will be delayed in preparing the course. We will be rolling greens later this morning and changing pin locations. The crew is headed out to pull carts and work on the barn area. Jake has finished planting the trees on the North side of the golf course and he will be bringing in a couple for the Club Lawns.

Mr. Diemand sponsored some Wounded Military Veterans out on the course yesterday.

On The Course September 26th

New Spruce Trees being planted behind 11 green

 We have a little frost delay this morning. The crew is working on some frost projects around the course getting equipment cleaned up and cleaning up the barn area. We will be mowing greens this morning after the frost has lifted and will be setting the course for play. Fairways will be mowed and we will be putting some more sand down on #6 fairway.

Jake has been spading in some trees behind #11 over the past couple of days and should have those wrapped up today. We will be also adding several trees to the club lawn early next week. SkyTree will be back out next week to finish up our tree inventory and map. This will be a very valuable tool going into the future to manage our tree plan.

'Patriot' Elm tree behind #11 Green

Congratulations to Bob Davidson on his perfect shot on #4! Wanted to see if he could follow it up on here on #8.

On The Course September 22nd

We are mowing and rolling greens on the chilly morning with a temperature of only 41 degrees. Jason and Brandon are setting the course for play this morning. It is a little windy this morning and we will be blowing leaves off the fairways and fine turf areas. Tomorrow is forecasted to be closer to 32 degrees for a morning temperature. With no cloud cover expected overnight it could be a really frosty morning tomorrow.

Next week we will have the spade truck out placing some spruce trees behind #11. We also will be spading in a couple maples and a Patriot Elm on #11. We have several other areas of the club house lawns that we will be adding several trees over the next couple of weeks. We are working on plan for the area along the left side of #2 that will help with some screening problems.

On The Course September 21st

Brandon and Rubiel tamping the trench lines on #12

We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. Fairways, collars and approaches will also be mowed. Once the greens mowers are finished we will be working on replacing the sod on #12 fairway over the drainage lines. We were able to install all of the pipe, pea gravel and top mix yesterday. The trenches were watered to help settle some of the sand/soil and Fernando and the crew will replace all of the sod. We will keep the fairway cart path only for a couple days to give the sod a chance to take hold. The sod will be hand watered over the next couple of days.

We have topdressed a couple small fairways and will continue this into the beginning of next week. There are only a couple of fairways left to solid tine and scarify and we should be done with that work on Tuesday. Brandon and Jason will be setting the course for play this morning and we should have a cooler but sunny weekend. Warmer temperatures return for next week which will help with the turf building roots.

On The Course September 20th

Fernando and Gustavo moving sod from the drainage area.

 We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. They are getting better ever day and with the exception of a couple are getting close to being back to normal. We will be trying to finish the drainage on #12 today as we should have most of the day to work. Yesterday we did not want to fight working through the Guest Day with over 80 players. Brandon will be working on spraying fairways this morning and should have all of them done with the exception of #12 which we will have to finish once the drainage is done. We are in for some cooler weather this weekend but back into the low 70's next week.

Yesterday we were able to topdress #13 and #4 approaches and will continue that process going into next week. We should have most of our aerification and scarifying done early next week. We will be deep tining fairways later in October depending on the weather. This will help with surface drainage as well as to get some soil fracturing during the frost of winter. The deep tine hole will provide an access point for water prior to the winter freeze. When this water freezes in to hole it will help fracture the soil under the turf surface to open more channels for air, water and roots.

One of the larger drainage projects we have done in awhile.

Troy and Jason trenching some drainage in #12 Fairway