Winter Wrap Up

 Well here we go!  Seems that the golfing season is now upon us as we have the Shamrock Scramble this weekend and the MGA kickoff next.  It seems like only a couple weeks ago we were covered in snow and experiencing some of the coldest temps in a long while.  Yeah, it doesn't ever seem to transition slowly around here.  In this blog I plan to discuss our finishing touches to winter projects as well as some steps we will be taking to get the golf course into shape.  I am also going to touch on everybody's favorite subject, golf course etiquette, Wahoo!

Tree Work Review: 

  Now that we have gotten into March and are starting to send the greens mower out I suppose its time to put the chainsaws away.  We only have a couple more trees that need to come down and I am hoping to get them taken care of this coming Monday and Tuesday.  I apologize for the war zone appearance with all the limbs down everywhere, but the boys are gaining on getting them all hauled away.  We made a great stride this winter in opening up the sky around some tees and greens to allow air and sunlight to hit these areas.  The areas on 1,4, and 5 were pretty much just to beautify the course surroundings.  The pruning we did on 3 will not only allow for better turf on the right side of the green, but has made that hole a lot prettier from the tee.  The rough looking willow volunteers on the right still catch my eye from the tee so they will need to be removed.  By the end of Tuesday we will have removed 3 dead trees around 8 tee boxes.  The clearing we did between 8 green and 9 tees will hopefully give the white tee more air and sun plus makes the view back towards 8 a lot cleaner.  

  #11 green complex is a lot more open now.  Not that it will make that green any easier to putt, but hopefully we can keep some more grass on the bank.  We took 2 trees down in front of the blue tee on 12 since they were forming a chute to hit through and now we can utilize more of that tee box and spread the divots out a bit more.  I believe I have gotten more compliments on the removals we did in 13 fairway over anything else.  Hopefully it makes that tee shot a little less stressful.  The 2 dead ash trees came down to the right of 14 tees and 1 more on the left edge of 15.  And then there was "ground zero".  The area between 15 fairway and 16 tees.  This is only the beginning.  This clearing project will hopefully impact a handful of turf areas in a good way.  My initial thought last year was to try and get more sunlight on the cart exit area of 15 hence the boom lift pruning.  I also knew that this wooded area affected both tee boxes on 16.  The forward tee is the most humid place on the course, (even more so than 13 tees).  The big tee has also struggled with being to wet both of my years here.  These issues and my extreme hatred of brown patch led me to dive into this project.  There was a lot of fallen dead wood so I had been afraid to take the brush hog in there for fear of high centering.  So my weapon of choice was a weedeater with a steel blade.  We have removed a lot of underbrush and dead wood from the area, but there is still quite a bit more to do.  My ultimate plan is to have that entire wooded corner cleared up all the way back to the houses.  I will be leaving large healthy trees the whole way back, but I want to be able see up to 16 green from 15 fairway through the trees.  Another bonus to this area being cleaned up is that as I am screaming down 15 in my gator i'll be able to see people teeing off on 16 before its too late, haha.  

  And my crown jewel....the large tree up on the hill in #16 rough.  Talk about a huge improvement.  Hopefully if you end up on the left side you will have some sort of shot under the canopy now.  I also did a little pruning on the right side of 16, but that area is not finished.  There will be some removals next year, I just ran out of time this year.  The drains we installed on the right side of 16 fairway will help dry that area out, but we need to get a little morning sun on it as well.  There are a handful of nice walnut and oak trees on that berm that will stay, but then there are some other scraggly looking trees that will need to leave. The tree at 17 green had just a couple low limbs removed in an effort to add some sunshine to the green.  And to finish things out, we removed 2 dead trees in the native on #18.  Well, actually the wind removed one and we took down the other. 

Goodness that was a full winter!  I can't wait until things start to leaf out and green up to see and feel the difference.

Fairway Drainage Review:

   Aside from placing the sod back over the trenches on 14 and 16, we have completed the holes that I was most concerned about this year.  I touched on holes 5 and 1 in a previous blog, but we were also able to finish up 14 and 16 fairways this winter as well.  With hole 14 being so small and with such limited fairway space, I felt it was an absolute must to attack the drainage issue that was smack dab in the middle of the landing zone.  I am pretty confident that we have made a drastic improvement here.  Below are a couple pictures of the "soil" that 14 sits on.  Its no wonder that drainage was so poor.

#16 fairway was the largest of the holes we did this year and I am pretty happy how it turned out.  We did a good job of covering the entire right side of the fairway which has been destroyed by soggy conditions the past 2 years.  The tree pruning I started over in this area will help keep this area dry as well.  

In the last blog I showed some pictures of the water cooler houses, or at this point in time, the large trash can houses.  I also mentioned and showed the refinished traffic stakes as well as a larger quantity for this year, but we had not gotten to the tee markers at that point yet.  During the deep freeze Grant and I sanded and repainted each marker.  We went through a lot of podcasts and coffee and come to find out, I am no picasso.  

I think that about sums up our winter, which I feel was very productive.  With daylight savings time behind us now we can expect to see a lot more play out there so I would like to go over some simple golf course etiquette.  

Please repair your ball marks on greens each and every time.  Failure to do so is detrimental to the putting surface as each of us has seen.  It wrecks the smoothness of the green and then when my mowers go over them they get scalped off and will take a long time to heal.  I know there is always a lot of discussion on how to do it properly.  Below is a demonstration on the proper technique.  If you push towards the center from the outside edge it will "knit" the grass back together.  If you pry up from the low point of the mark then it will rip and tear the plant from its roots.  

I mentioned last year that when it comes to fairway shots that take divots to please replace the divot and top off with sand.  If there is no pelt, but still a divot just fill with sand and smooth with your foot.  

And here comes the big one.....Golf Carts.  I know that I will probably never get 100% buy in with this, but I have to talk about it.  Please be smart with where you drive your cart.  Please do not drive through the native grass.  Please stay at least 30 yards away from the green.  Please stay on the cart path for the entirety of each par 3.  And probably the one that irks me the most is when I see carts that have pulled 2 tires off the path when they park at a tee or green.  If somebody needs to get around you while you are parked then they can drive around you even if you still have all 4 tires on the path.  I see this the most when carts are parking at the blue or white tee on #7.  All of these items cause damage each year with a normal number of golf rounds.  Now last year, all of these issues were worsened with the fact that most everybody drove their own cart each and every round.  I understand that the Covid pandemic isn't over and there are still new cases, but those numbers are lessening.  I am not here to tell you how to manage your health, I am just pleading for the health of our turf.  The more people that pair up in carts, the less traffic stress for the course. Our rough got absolutely pummeled last year and to top it off, it then went into its dormancy period during a drought.  If you would do just one thing for me, then please pay attention to where you enter and exit the cart path.  Try to spread the traffic out and don't just keep following the beat down path each time.  We will try to do our best by moving stakes around to adjust patterns.  

I will also add that my crew and I are not innocent in the etiquette category.  It will probably do us good to revisit stopping and waiting on groups to hit shots or putt out before we drive by.  

So here is to a great 2021 golfing season and hopefully it never gets above 90 degrees outside, lol!  Please continue to stop me on the course or in the clubhouse with any questions you might have.  

Happy St. Patrick's Day