This winter has been an interesting one to say the least. It can easily be said that everything we do on the golf course during the summer is in preparation for putting to bed a healthy golf course that will survive the winter. Three certainties that we prepare for every winter are the guarantee of severe cold, it will snow (we just don’t know how much) and the fact that weather forecasters would never make it in the stock market. The big winter promised by forecasters and bolstered by a continuing La Nina weather pattern has been slow to come, at least so far. All of our snow has come in fairly significant storms sandwiched between weeks of dry weather. We have had extreme cold, temperatures in the 40’s early on and even a nice rain storm around Christmas. There has been nothing real unusual for a Jackson winter in that it has been predictably unpredictable. That being said, I am sleeping relatively well these days knowing that we did everything we could this summer in preparation for the winter and we have a great plan for the spring melt to get the course back into the playing conditions you all expect. The conditions have been a challenge for some areas in the rocky mountain region with several courses dealing with ice issues on their greens. Prolonged periods of ice on greens is a sure fire way to have turf loss come spring. This is another reason; one of a hundred; that fall aerification is so important in our region. All those holes helps the water drain and lessens your chances for standing water to accumulate under the snow and turn to ice. We have been extremely fortunate, considering we didn’t aerify this fall as we have done in past seasons. We were able to deep tine (8-10” deep solid holes) our greens prior to putting tarps down and that in and of itself has been key to our lack of ice. I know of at least one course in the area that is currently battling ice on greens and they did not poke any holes in their greens this fall. When the ground froze early and hard this year it set up potential problems when we got the rain around Christmas. I feel for those in the industry that were not able to poke holes this fall. We had the “perfect storm” early this winter to set up for ice. All that being said, I am confident we will come out of winter in very good shape. 
**Example of ice on greens…note the lack of aerification holes that would have aided in draining the standing water**Anthony Benes and I have been hard at work laying the ground work for a comprehensive environmental plan for the property. We have been investing a lot of time and energy educating the cross country skiers about the fact that our course sits squarely in the middle of an elk and deer migratory route. Emphasizing the fact that everything on the south side of the road, encompassing holes #9, 10 and 11, is designated Natural Resource Overlay because it is critical winter moose habitat. Limiting our impact on these areas by requesting all dogs be leashed and minimizing the other impacts on wildlife by sticking to the trail, not breaking new trail and steering clear when we do see wildlife. As we mentioned earlier, we have partnered with the Teton Science School and tagged several deer on the property this winter to track their migration and identify hot spots with respect to road crossings. Anthony recently became certified as a mapping volunteer through the JH Wildlife Foundation and JH Nature Mapping. He can now map observations to be used in research and to help better understand the impact of our activities on the golf course. It’s easy to forget that the wildlife was here long before us and we owe it to the wildlife, community and the environment to minimize our impacts on and around the property. We want to continue our mantra that “wildlife has the right of way” on the golf course.
If there was ever any doubt about our proximity to the elk migration corridor...the elk answered that for us this past fall as nearly 400 of them made their way south towards the Elk Refuge
