Spring at last!

The weeks have been flying by and it seems the weather is finally cooperating for some great golf. I am a bit behind on my posts and it seems 6 weeks of work to prepare for late May golf was crunched into 3 weeks.

Thankfully college is out and most of our seasonal employees arrive this week to gleefully start mowing and maintaining the course. They are a valuable part of our team and allow you to enjoy great conditions day in and day out.

What happened to the trees????? This is the number one question I have heard this year as golfers returned to see some large trees had been removed over the winter. All of the trees large or small were losing branches during every wind storm and had become a danger to golfers. They were 40 year old silver maple or green ash trees that one were planted too close to the greens and two were at the end of their useful life. In addition the trees on 4 and 16 caused morning shade reducing putting green quality and the trees on hole 4, 16 and 27 had roots that went under the green and further reduced putting green quality.

• On hole 4 four silver maple and one ash were removed. New trees are not needed due to the tree line a little behind the green.
• One hole 16 three large silver maples were removed. Replacements will be planted to the center and right of the green only a bit further away.
• One hole 27 two silver maple were removed and will be replaced but further from the green.

You may have noticed we have resodded some of the collars around the greens where the grass was thin and reseeded fairways and collars for the same reason. 

New sod being laid on the collar on hole 5.

 

 

The sod came from Heath Farms near Coloma and is pure low mow bluegrass. It looks terrific and deep green. It should play well as soon as it is mowed a few times. The areas that were not sodded were aerified and then seed was was spread and spiked in. This process does not provide a instant green but will help those areas recover quicker. Most of the thin areas have some green in them but were damaged from water sitting in winter and were weak entering fall from last summers drought.

 

PROJECT UPDATES -

The 10 tee and chipping green seedlings are coming up albeit slow after the long winter and cold spring. The surrounds of the chipping green were all seeded but the green itself still needs a little more mix to be added before it is seeded sometime in the next two weeks. A few golfers have asked if we are putting top soil on the sand/peat moss material the green is made of now. No, the sand/peatmoss mix is the proper material to build a green that is healthy yet drains well for quality putting conditions.

 

The new red silver tee on hole 17 should also be seeded in the next two weeks. It has been graded a couple times and is ready for the irrigation and cart path to be installed. Then one final grading will have it ready for seed.

 

I hope to see you on the links and if you have any questions about the golf course do not hesitate to ask away! It is why I am here.