Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Maintenance Staff.

Winter Play

     I believe there has been some confusion to why golf course has been closed previously. The week of November 10th we received 4'' of snow.  By Friday November 15th we had a large portion of the golf course still covered with snow.  Temperatures Friday morning were in the  20's by noon the temps were climbing into the 40's.  Some members  thought course was closed because greens were thawing or frozen.  Course was not closed for thawing greens it was closed because of snow cover.  We opened the course around 12:30 pm.
      I believe some people think I am closing the course when greens are frozen.  I have never closed the course when greens were frozen.  Limited play on frozen greens is acceptable.  I have a problem with thawing  greens, the top is thawed or thawing but the underlying soil is frozen.  I like to see the freeze line down to 2.0'' to 3'' deep.  If we do get root shearing at that depth I can get our roots back to normal lengths by summer.  If play is allowed when freeze line is shallow 1/2'' to 1.5'' and we get root shearing.  I will have a harder time growing the roots back down to the desired depth we need for summer. In severe cases we could actually lose turf from wear and winter desiccation.
     Here we are again with 4'' - 5'' of snow covering the golf course.  Temperatures will be in the 50's  by this weekend.  Play will be allowed if greens are completely frozen, thawed down to 2'' and the majority of snow cover is gone.  You can get updates from the proshop.  If you are on twitter you can follow me at @ed_wachter for course updates.
     Root shearing can be very detrimental to our greens.  The illustration below will help you visualize what can happen.

Drainage work on #3 and 6 Greens

     We have been busy this week working on some much need drainage around # 3 and # 6 greens.  The back left of 3 green has been a issue for some time now.  We went in with a track hoe and installed french drain with laterals.  While digging out the drain we discovered a lot of sandstone rock.  Looks like the water is traveling on top of the rock layer.  The layer is 10 to 12 inches deep.  It was a difficult project because we were working around the irrigation lines for the green.  We seed and strawed the trench.  The area is marked as ground under repair.

Digging #3

Drain line and gravel installed #3

#3 ready for seed

#3 finished

     #6 was not as big a project as #3.  We had a broken drain line near the back right sprinkler head.  We dug up the bad section added some laterals and seeded and strawed this section.  The areas is marked as ground under repair also.

 Drain line and gravel installed #6

 We put in 3 laterals in #6

#6 finished

  We have 4 more greens we will be fixing drainage issues.  # 7, #9, #14, and #17.  Hopefully mother nature will give us more great working weather this winter to get this much needed project completed.