On The Course April 26th

Fernando and the crew working on blowing the debris off of #7 green

We have made some very good progress on the course today. Most of the covers are off of the greens and we have the front 9 greens almost cleaned up. We still have a couple of covers that are frozen in the bunker on #4 and #7. We should be able to get all of the covers off the greens tomorrow. We will be hauling covers to the barn tomorrow and setting up the front nine greens for play on Sunday. The executive course is still a little wet but we are going to get tee markers and flag sticks out on that Saturday morning for a 12pm opening. The driving range tee is open hitting off of the mats and we will get the chipping green opened up on Saturday. There is still a little ice in the old cups and once we can get that out we can change the pin locations and start using the green.

 

Overall the greens look pretty good and the fairways are getting better every hour the sun is out. We should have another great day tomorrow (Saturday) to get some work done. We will be working sod patches and drainage holes as we have time. We have a lot of work to get done next week as the grass begins to grow and the trees start to leaf out. We will be cart path only for a little while until the fairways firm up and we can get the mowers on them.



Left side of #16 green as is was being uncovered



Looking from #10 green back towards the tee box.

#18 Green being uncovered

On The Course April 22nd

Still a lot of snow in certain areas of the golf course

 We have lost most of the snow from this past storm but are looking at another Winter Weather Advisory coming in this afternoon. We having a Grounds Meeting tomorrow at 4pm and will be looking at the forecast and outlook for opening the golf course. This weekend is shaping up to be really nice but we do not need a lot of snow this evening. The course is saturated with water but we do have some wind in the forecast and that should help dry out some of the course. A couple days in the 50's with some wind would be perfect.

The crew is working hard on some detail projects and are ready to get out on the course and get the greens uncovered. We have done just about everything we can to be ready to go but we need Mother Nature to help us out. It doesn't take the Excelsior mats on the greens very long to dry out if the sun is out and the wind is blowing. We will be doing everything in our power to get the course open as soon as possible. The soil temperatures in the greens have been hovering around 29 degrees for the last week. This has been one of the longest winters that I can remember and hopefully it won't last much longer.

Drains are open and flowing

Water sitting on #9 Fairway

Medina Golf

egmcmanus' photostream on Flickr.

On The Course April 10th

A little snow on the course this morning with more on the way!

 When are we going to open? As soon as spring decides to show up we will get the 2013 golf season underway. We had the earliest opening of the golf course last season and we are looking at setting the record for the latest opening. I keep thinking it just takes a couple nice days to get everything where we need it to be to get the course open. I am not seeing any nice days in the long term forecast but it has got to turn at some point. There is 6-11 inches of snow in the forecast for tonight into tomorrow. It looks like we might have a couple of good days next week. We will see!

We have most of the covers ready to come off and the staff is ready. With the cold nights in the forecast for this week we thought it would be best to leave the greens protected a little bit longer. They look really good under the covers and we don't want them getting damaged by pulling the covers too early. We are monitoring soil temperatures and looking under them daily. They have not started to grow to this point. High temperatures in the middle 30's are not going to get them growing under the covers. We will need a couple of days in the 50's to get the snow to melt off and get the covers to dry out.

The crew is continuing to work on cleaning up debris from the tree trimming this winter. They have raked most of the small branches and debris into piles and Troy has been using a wood chipper to make some mulch for the walk paths on #7.

Troy chipping branches from our tree pruning.

On The Course April 8th

Bentgrass patch in the middle of 16 fairway surrounded by some damaged Poa annua.

We are slowly getting some progress done on the course this week but the weather is not helping. We received over an inch of rain the past couple of days and the course is saturated. The frost is starting to come out of the ground and the ground should start to dry out. We are expecting more moisture in the form of rain and snow over the next couple of days. We are going to wait until this next cold spell swings through before pulling all of the excelsior blankets off of the greens. The greens are looking really good right now and I do not want them to get damaged by the next cold front moving in Wednesday. The covers have dried out a little today and we were able to get most of the staples pulled out. We will most likely start to pull the covers on Thursday and Friday if the weather holds. The course is really wet and needs to dry out a lot before we look at opening. Below is a video of a spin through the back 9. If you do not see the video from mobile device please check the blog from your web browser and you should see the videos.

On The Course April 5th

Fernando rolling an excelsior mat on #7 green of the Executive Course.

Looking from tee to green #7 Executive Course

It took most of today for the staples to thaw out enough to get a couple covers pulled. We were able to get some of the covers off of the Executive Course and several Tees today. The equipment we have stored in the Barn over the winter has been cleared out. The excelsior mats that we use to cover the greens will be stored in the barn over the summer months. We want to make sure the mats are as dry as can be when they are stored. If they are rolled up wet they will get moldy over the summer. The forecast next week is calling for a chance of rain on Tuesday and that could slow our progress for pulling covers next week.

On The Course April 5th

We have added some Mallard Hen Houses to several of the ponds on the course.

The slow melt has continued and we are inching closer to being able to get the covers off of the greens. We still have some frozen ground that is holding the staples in the ground. We should be able to pull some covers on some of the tees today as well as the Executive course greens today. There is some rain moving in this afternoon and over the weekend and that should help pull the frost out of the soil.



Above is a video of the front nine from yesterday. It is just a quick tour through the front nine from the cart path. I did take a couple shots underneath a couple of the green covers and liked what saw. We are getting close to mostly clear of snow and should be able to get a lot of work done next week. We have been working on cleaning up branches and debris throughout the golf course as the snow melts. I will continue to post some videos and pictures over the next week and take a closer look at the condition of the golf course. We just need some sun and warm nights to really get the course ready to open. Please watch Foretees and this blog for updates regarding the course opening. Next week's forecast does not look as good as we would like but it has been changing daily.

On The Course April 2nd

Bryxton Gibson spreading some humates on #14 Green to help the snow melt.

 We had a really good snow melt over this past weekend. We are able to see most of the covers on the greens and a lot of turf is starting to become exposed. The temperatures for tomorrow look to be in the low 50's or upper 40's so we should continue a good melt through the rest of the week. The ground is still frozen at this point and we ask that everyone stay off of the golf course until we are going to open. When the turf thaws it becomes pretty fragile if it refreezes during the afternoon there can be considerable damage.

The course is looking like it will be coming out of winter in pretty good shape. The fairways have been covered in ice since the beginning of January but they are looking better than I expected. We should be able to get a good summary of the condition of the golf course later this week. I will be posting some videos and pictures over the next couple of days showing the progress of the course and what everything is looking like. We have the Grounds Staff working on cleaning up debris on the golf course and finishing some tree work.

On Monday, April 1st, we applied some humate organics to the surface of #13 and #14 greens. They were still holding some snow and we wanted to accelerate the melting process on these surface to get them clear by the weekend. We will continue to monitor areas of the course and help with the melting process where we can. The range tee is almost clear and as soon as the frost comes out we will be covering that with covers to help  increase the soil temperatures and promote growth.

Close up picture of the humates with some larger particles but also some finer dust covering the surface