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.