Dear Members,
I hope everyone had a great winter and are as excited as I am about getting the golf course up and going for a great summer. Just when it looked like spring was going to make a grand and early entrance we are back to more typical April weather. As I am sure you have all noticed the course cleared very rapidly over the last three weeks and we are currently left with a little snow in some bunkers and ditches. Winter was a difficult one with many courses seeing ice damage to one extent or another and we are no different. There are a few areas on the fairways and rough that are slow coming back due to icing issues early in the winter. They are scattered and with a little seed and TLC they will be back in no time. A few of the greens were also affected by some icing. Even with our early snow removal, having tarps down and deep tine aerification last fall, some of the more exposed, windblown areas on some greens saw ice development. These areas are small and confined to only 4-5 greens. We aerified and top dressed the greens this past week and that should help with these areas, along with some seed and additional fertilizer. These areas will be a little slower to come back; however, I am confident you will have the best greens possible for an April 28th opening. It’s been a while since we’ve been able to open in April, with the course snow free! Very Exciting!
My crew and I have been busy pulling snow stakes, cleaning up around the course and taking care of all the little things that need to be addressed from the winter. We have been blessed with some early season weather and are making great progress. The extensive mouse/vole damage that we see every year is much less significant this time around and should aid in course recovery time. The other animals; elk, deer, moose and bison; certainly made their presence known and left us with plenty of clean up, as is the case every year. We are going to continue cleaning up the course, work on the bunkers and get the greens in shape. This will involve a good deal of large equipment on the course between now and the 28th. We will be verti-cutting (vertical cutting) the fairways, tees and approaches and putting sand down to help the soil profile and “tighten up” these areas. This is part of our new focus on drainage and improving the soil profile to aid in a drier, firmer course. In addition, we will begin adding small areas of drainage and amending the soil to enhance water penetration and begin getting rid of those areas that consistently hold water. We will be blowing and sweeping up all the debris left behind by winter. In addition, we will be working on bringing the bunkers back in shape and getting ready to finish up our sand amendment project that we started last year to provide firmer more consistent playing conditions in our bunkers. There is much work yet to do in order to get the course in playing condition, as well as, the need for warmer soil temperatures but we are on our way! It’s going to be a great year, let’s all keep our fingers crossed for a quick return of those 60-70 degree days!! Please don’t hesitate to let me know if there is anything I can do for you all. Look forward to seeing everyone out on the course.
Andy Erskine, GCS
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