The season of 2018

Writing this blog can be interesting because it is written for our golf customers but primarily read by others in the golf industry. Oddly our stats show more page views from France than the United States in the past month and I have a few regular readers from Ukraine. Jacobsen G10 is one of the top search terms used to find our blog so that can explain the overseas views. Google analytics is amazing and scary. No matter where you are from I hope you enjoy the blog and I am sure golfers John and Steve will be the first to comment!

2018 was a year of mixed weather with a horrible snowy spring a great summer and a horrible cold wet fall. Overall it is best to save the good weather for the summer months when the daylight is long and most of our customers play but the wet periods were frustrating. I have been on the property 22 years and have never seen water oozing out of hills and tee banks as we have had this year.   

2018 was a year of highs and lows. The high point of the year was hosting the Wisconsin State Golf Association Boys Junior Championship. 17 year old Piercen Hunt of Hartland won with an amazing 12 under for the 54 holes to win by 7 shots. Hunt is the 2 time state boys high school champion and all eyes will be watching to see if he can pull off the 3-peat.

Hosting a statewide tournament is exciting for the staff and
members who volunteered their time. 

Prepping for a big tournament is exciting for our staff inside and out. Agronomic practices for the year are set in spring with a goal to peak for these 3 days of competitive golf. Extra shifts before and during the event ensure the course is playing at its best and the players and spectators enjoy the event.

The other highs were from our many successful outings and events that go off without a hitch in thanks to our hard working staff.

The lows were mainly weather related as we saw multiple April snows just when golfers are trying to get out to play. Then after a pretty good summer flooding rains in late August closed the course for days and left some damage to fairway turf in its wake. Grass can sit under cold water without much issue but when it is warm and the turf is trying to grow it can “suffocate” fairly quickly. All the bad areas have been seeded, underwater again and seeded again. Fortunately the damage was not widespread and only effected 1% of our 40 acres of fairway turf. 

The floods from late August had most of 1 fairway along with parts of 9 and 18 under water for days.
This water comes from off the property and has a lot of silt in it causing it to look like chocolate milk.
The water in our other 9 ponds is a nice blue color. 

The other low of the year was it was the first time we had a difficult time finding staff in both departments. We are fortunate to have a great core group of long time employees but both the clubhouse and grounds departments had a challenge finding employees to replace our students who moved on to internships or their careers.  It was almost comical as we are used to new employees working for years and instead we had a steady stream of employees quit before their first day or last only a few days. If you know of a local student or retiree looking to join our team in 2019 have them give us a call. Most of our staff is part time and we have a great group of people working for us. 

Despite the rain we were lucky to finish a few projects in late October. Over 1,000 feet of 4" drainage tile was added on holes 1, 4, 5, 20 and 21 to fix areas found to be problematic during this wet season.  Along with drain tile on hole 5 the berm on the left front of the green was extended to divert water away from the approach and to fill in a perennial low area that held water and was prone to damage from cart and foot traffic.

The bunker reduction on hole 14 was finished to switch from a difficult to play and maintain 3,000 square feet bunker to a grass area with 800 square foot bunker that will not wash out. 

A reduction was started in November on hole 6’s 5,500 square foot prone to wash out bunker. The portion closest to the tee will be grass and 3 small bunkers that will not wash out will replace the upper potion of the bunker. Fill material for the project was given to us by the city of Fond du Lac from a nearby project. It saved them a lot of time hauling and saved us from buying material. This project will continue into 2019.  

14 Bunker was prone to washout from water off the green.

The new bunker will not wash out and save a lot of time in labor.
With woods left and marsh right and the pond protecting the green the hole is still difficult. 

It sounds like an easy thing to fill in a bunker and grow grass but there is a lot to it as sand in and around the bunker has to be moved or it will cause turf issues for years. Drainage often runs through the bunker and has to be protected and saved or replaced. The benefit of the bunker reduction is reduced maintenance costs and in hole 14 and 6 I believe a better golf hole for the average golfer. 

The new silver tee on hole 14 to give a yardage separation between the red and silver placements is nearing completion. Top mix has been graded and allowed to settle and we need to give a final hand grading and then sod the bank and seed the top. It is planned to complete this yet this year with a dormant seeding on the tee surface so the grass emerges in early spring.

That is the highlights, hopefully I will see you on the fairways on a warm sunny November or December day!

Sometimes even frost is beautiful.