April Showers?

As we had around a foot of snow in the end of March it made for a interesting spring melt. I have been venturing out around the course in the last couple of weeks keeping a curious eye on tee boxes, greens, and drainage collection areas I had found that due to efforts of spraying fungicides and fall cleanup efforts damage was very minimal. Mostly abiotic stresses have occurred leaving lots of water in catch basin areas and large areas. Due to the depth of the frost all the drainage around the course was frozen.

Flooded drainage catch basin on right green side bunker area of 4. 

Drainage line between 4 green and the start of 5 fairway that feeds into the main drainage ditch.

Last frozen section of drainage to thaw closest to the tee on 15.  

With our cool weather in March and beginning of April we had a little Pink Snow Mold pop up on 9 green. We had a little snow cover that extended into march and prolonged cool and wet days that gave the disease the perfect environment to harbor this fungus. But with our 60 degree temps the disease symptoms slowly

faded away with the warm temps.

Close up of the front left part of 9 green.

Larger view of the lighter but larger affected areas.

Any holes that were significantly covered with snow also suffered from Snow Mold, unlike Pink Snow Mold the Grey Snow Mold on the fairways needs snow cover to develop symptoms. Just about every hole that has trees protecting them in the winter was affected. With a little bit of TLC these areas should bounce right back. The rough has not really been affected at all by the damage, and the disease symptoms were mainly confined to the fairways. 

#2 Approach riddled with a little bit of Vole and Grey Snow Mold damage.

View from #2 green looking at the approach. 

As we all make mistakes in our careers we sometimes forget to do things or make errors time to time. But here is a perfect example of what some people would think is disease. I fact the applicator forgot a pass or forgot to turn on the boom. So symptoms from Grey Snow Mold appeared from the lack of protection.

  

#6 Par 3 men's tee.

I guess around ten to fifteen years ago the club went through a little bit of a remodel updating some holes and irrigation. But to save money they literally cut corners to save on pipe. Instead of running the main line twenty yards to the nearest crossing they just went across the drainage ditch. They get an A for effort on the use of HDPE pipe, but poor execution on follow through. Now the wire that runs along pipe has broken causing the heads not to pop up.    

  

On a Brighter note as I said before I went around the course peeking under the covers, and what I found was very comforting. The greens are starting to green up relatively nice for the cool dry weather we've had so far.  

Underneath #6 green's cover. 

Number five looks the best out of all the uncovered greens with nice color and no symptoms of disease or stress.

#5 green 

So with any little bit of luck we can start golfing in two weeks and have nice weather in the 60's to 70's. But don't be shocked to see a little shot of snow in may. Just be thankful we don't have to deal with the weather they had south of us on Wednesday, April 16th.   

Spring Has Sprung

Wicked Waterways 

The time for golf is nearing and I thought we might as well start the blog off right with a picture of an epic failure on course. Here you are viewing the nice sight where the damn that keeps the river at an aesthetically acceptable height has now froze. So this weekend that we had temps up in the 50's created a lake on hole 10 from the creek to the main drainage ditch. The water was so fierce that the outlet of the water has eroded a three foot trench perpendicular to the main path to get to the green and next tee. I had the choice of digging in freezing water or let nature take it's course with our mid 60's temps today. I chose to let nature do the hard work.

     In the two pictures above you can see the thawed dam boxes that can control the height of each section of the drainage ditch. It's a solid theory in the summer, but when we already had two feet of ice it creates a back log of water pretty fast. Two of the three boxes are wide open but the last one that controls drainage from 10 approach and its drainage ditch is full of ice, and is restricting flow creating a huge lake. So hopefully with some dam luck we should see the issue fix itself in the next couple days. As for the cart path you might see a little better setup after it's fixed.