On The Course June 29th

The crew has been really busy all week with maintenance and storm clean up

 We are mowing greens this morning as the rain gently falls. The rain front is moving through this morning and should open up for a great day. We have not received very much rain this morning as the heavier rain passed through the east metro. We are getting the course ready for play this morning and the crew will enjoy the rest of the day off after a long week of carrying branches and moving logs. Corey is setting pin locations for the Amateur Qualifier this morning.

We are almost done with the clean up from last week's storm. We have a few trees that still need to be addressed but the play areas are in good shape. We should have plenty of firewood for this next winter. We have started to haul fill material to the Green Tee on #3 and will continue this project next week. Monday we will be venting and topdressing greens. We do not have an outside event scheduled for Monday and will have the first tee open at 12pm.

Pete Maiers blowing debris off of the tee on #11

Troy working on the Willow by #9 Pond

We have started to haul some fill material to the Green Tee on #3

On The Course June 28th

Corey and Gabriel chipping brush form the storm last week.

 We have had a busy week clearing all of the debris from the storm last Friday. We will be finishing chipping the brush and hauling the rest of the logs to the barn. We have been juggling the crew around to try to make sure we keep the maintenance of the golf course at a high standard as well as deal with the debris from the storm. The crew has done a great job hauling material and getting everything cleaned up. We still have some work to do but the weather outlook looks pretty good. The course should start to dry out and firm up a little bit. The temperatures are going to be cooler and the humidity is low. Should make for a great weekend.

We will be venting and topdressing greens on Monday. With the greens drying out we want to make sure we get some air back into the soil profile and help the root system as we head into the heat of summer. The topdressing will help smooth and firm up the surface of the greens. We have started to haul fill material to the Green tee on #3 and will continue working on that over the next week.

Alex Rooney mowing collars and approaches

On The Course June 25th

Clean up will continue today with the chipping of brush

 We are mowing and rolling greens this morning before we continue on course clean up. The recent storms have left a lot of debris on the course. We have a wood chipper on rental today and will start working through the course chipping the brush piles that have accumulated along the cart paths. We will get the course set for play this morning and then will be hauling logs and the remaining brush to the barn area. Yesterday we were able to get the greens sprayed with fertilizer and fungicide.

We are going to be mowing fairways today and they are long. We will be doing a second mowing on them if the weather and time allows later today. We want them to dry out a little bit after the first cut and then they will clean up pretty good on the second cut. Sheldon is on the rough mower knocking down the rough in areas. He will be skipping wet areas and areas with standing water. He will be mulching the leaves that are on the ground from the storm. We are looking at the possibility of storms this afternoon after 6pm but the long term forecast is looking pretty good for the weekend.

Troy felling a large ash tree with storm damage

Storm Damage 6-21-2013

Thanks to the group of members that came over this morning to help with some branch clean up. We were able to get a lot of sticks off of the fairways and we will be letting them drain off before we blow the rest of the debris off. We have 12 trees that will be removed and several other that need some pruning. There are several trees in the out of bounds areas that we have not addressed at this point. Please use caution when playing the front nine this afternoon.

There are still some hanging branches on the back nine that we will be working on tomorrow. Most brush and logs will be hauled off the course on Monday if it dries out enough. The brush will be chipped and we will be stacking the logs to be split later this fall.

On The Course June 22nd

We have received 2.25 inches of rain since last night.  Heavy winds has brought down several trees throughout the golf course. We are without power at the club and I cannot load any pictures this morning. I will be posting pictures later today. We are going to evaluate the course at 12pm to determine if we will open today. We have trees blocking the cart paths on 18, 17, 13 and 12. The crew is heading out to start the clean up process. Troy and Pete have the trash pumps running down on 6 and 7. We will be clearing paths and working on any hazardous hanging branches to make sure the golf course is safe for play. Check back later today for pictures of the course.

Erin McManus
Superintendent
Medina Golf and Country Club

On The Course June 21st

Topdressing #16 Fairway

 We received almost an inch of rain overnight with a lot of high winds. We had a lot of debris throughout the golf course this morning. We were able to get debris blown off of the greens and they firmed up enough to be mowed. There were a lot of little branches and leaves on the fairways. The crew worked most of the day getting the playing surfaces cleaned up. We will be catching up on some mowing tomorrow if we do not see any more storms this afternoon or evening.

We were able to get all of the approaches topdressed on Wednesday and Thursday. We also topdressed all of 9 and 16 fairways. If the weather improves over the next week we will continue this process throughout the fairways. Our goal is to get some sand on all of the fairways several times before fall. This will help firm up the surface and help dry out the fairways to improve the playability from spring through fall.

Large Ash tree fell in the wind Friday morning

Corey Heasley with all of his personal protective gear cutting up down branches

On The Course June 19th

Tom Hoverson planting a Hard Maple on #6

 We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. We have Junior Golf this morning followed by a Guest Day shotgun event at 1pm. Corey is working on deep tining 16 and 18 fairways this morning. Troy is training in our new Technician Pete Maiers on course set up and the intricacies of pin locations at Medina. We have had a couple of nice dry days and hope the streak continues the rest of the week. Fernando was able to aerify a portion of #9 fairway yesterday. He cored the thin areas of the fairway and the crew will be hand topdressing those areas with sand and seed later today. We will continue this process on some fairways the rest of the week.

Laura Hoster, Winfield Solutions, is taking data readings on a wetting agent trial we have set up on #7 green of the Executive Course. This is the second year of the study on the Executive course and it has given us some good data on the different wetting agents available on the Market today. We will begin to gear up for some heat as we are seeing some 80's and possible 90's in the forecast for next week.

Rubiel Dorantes mowing #8 green this morning



Laura Hoster taking data readings with a turf moisture sensor on #7 green of the Executive Course

Invitational Pictures

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Invitational Saturday, June 15th

We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. Fairways, Collars and approaches are also getting mowed. The 3:30am start has the crew adjusting to mowing in the dark for a few hours but they are very excited to get the course ready for the final round of the Invitational Tournament. We were fortunate to only get a few sprinkles overnight which should make for a pretty good golf course today. Most of the storms have rolled past and we are looking at a really good stretch of weather over the next week.

We will be busy working on aerifying and seeding fairway spots this next week. If the weather forecast holds up this week we will begin building the white and green tee on #3. We want to make sure we are caught up on all other golf course tasks before we allocate time to building the tees. With several consecutive dry days we should be able to catch up on most tasks.

Fairway mowers rolling down #9 fairway at 4:00 am. They already mowed #18 and #1!

On The Course June 13th

Corey and Troy have been pumping water from the low areas.

 Over 1.5 inches of rain yesterday and thankfully the heavy rain missed us. Unfortunately the amount of rain we received on the already saturated course forced us to close the course yesterday. Troy and Corey have been running the trash pumps moving water out of the low areas. The crew will be working on bunkers this morning and we will be walk mowing greens later this morning. Troy will be setting the course up for the Invitational practice round later today. We have a 1:30pm shotgun and will be cart path only all day.

The helicopter seeds from the Maple trees are dropping and the Cottonwoods are sending fluffy white seeds all over the course. We will be blowing some of these areas today but hopefully we get a little wind to help move some of the seeds off the trees so it won't be a mess too long. There is a chance that we will be doing some late evening mowing as soon as the course drains. We were able to get all of the fairways mowed yesterday morning before the rain. Most of the rough was mowed on Tuesday but we will need to start mowing again.

The crew is working on bunkers this morning

I really did take this picture today! Sun is going to shine today.

On The Course June 12th

Alex Rooney mowing collars and approaches

 We are mowing and rolling greens this morning. Fairways, collars and approaches are also being mowed today. We were fortunate enough to not receive any rain last night but it doesn't look like all of it will miss us today. Invitational Tournament starts Thursday with the practice round. We will be setting the course up for the tournament on Thursday morning pulling tee markers and changing pin flags. We have the crew starting really early on Thursday, Friday and Saturday to make sure we have enough time to get our daily tasks completed.

Bill Ruone on #5 fairway

On The Course June 11th

The new scorecard boxes look very sharp

 Invitational Week!

We are looking at a pretty nice couple of days with some sun today and warmer temperatures. Clouds are moving back in later this morning and we have a very slight chance of rain this afternoon. We are mowing and rolling greens today. Fairways and rough will be mowed. The course is starting to dry out a little after the rain this weekend. We will be 90 degrees on most of the golf course except for a couple holes where the fairway is still too wet. Please obey the signs as much as possible. Corey is working on deep tining a couple more fairways today. With a quick roll and a mow most people will not even notice that the process has been completed. There is a 3/4" hole that is 6" deep all over the fairways. This will help with surface drainage and get some good turf rooting going into summer.

Fernando and the crew have been working hard fixing thin spots on fairways with sod. We are getting close to have most of the bad areas done and will still be seeding a few spots in the coming weeks. Please watch cart traffic in this areas as it will hinder the growth of the seedlings. This is one of our busier weeks with Junior Golf starting as well as the Invitational Tournament.

Emmanuel blowing clippings of the green after it has been rolled