In Full Swing

After a pretty mild winter with little snow fall, but consistent temperatures below freezing and above brutal negative temps we had minor disease pressure. I was mostly concerned about the front nine. This year was my first year to schedule a snow mold app on fairways and tees. We had about the same snow pack on the front from last year. There was a chemical that I had to spray at a low rate (well within the bounds of the label rate), but gave us enough protection through winter. Below are the results of no tees and fairway application in fall of 2013 comparing to this last fall snow mold application of 2014. This result does come with a price, but I think it is totally worth it. We have all 18 hole open and looking pretty good to play by mid April. Last year we had a late green up around the end of May. 

Top Spring 2014

Bottom Spring 2015

Above: Spring 2014  #2 approach

 Above: Spring 2015 #2 approach

#6 Tee 

Top: Spring 2014

Bottom: Spring 2015 

 Below is a comparison from the best looking spot on the course in 2014 to the worst looking fairway on the front(not that bad though).

Spring 2014 #5 green 

Spring 2015 #4 Fairway 

 Their was a lot of success but a lot of work. I had spent three days clearing off greens and 12+ hours clearing off water and slush, to help the greens get the earliest kick start on green up. But it all paid off in the end. The family was a little mad that I couldn't spend time with them a couple weekends. Mother nature gave me an opportunity and I used every minute of it. Below was March 8th and about 41 degrees but felt like 50. I thought it was June!

 Above was a low water dam that collects water at spring melt. Better believe that this spot is going to get some drainage! Two years ago when this area melted in early march it formed ice in this same exact spot and did quit a bit of damage to this green. I'm just glad I got to it the day of thaw.

 Above is #13 green and  a difference in two hours at 51 degrees on March 9th

Above shows proof it is a good idea to use covers. I wish I could of left this on for about ten more days but we needed to get the front nine open for play.  

Besides working on all the equipment this winter I renovated the shop bathroom. I was always ashamed to let anyone use our bathroom, and one day I had enough and just tore in to it and found some really gnarly stuff. I ripped everything off the walls and put up FRP to have a whipable surface, and put a cove base on the bottom of the walls. To finish it all off I super-cleaned the floor and put down grey Epoxy to make the floor easier to clean. 

Below with the generous help from members. I was able to borrow a nice miter saw, and create/ adopt an idea that I took from my previous course to make yardage post. These will go on every par 4 and 5 to aid in quick yardage estimation. They will sit in concrete and will be easy to remove and place.  

We couldn't just have new yardage post without making new tee makers to match. Advertising will go on both sides of each maker giving the same about of space as our old (billboard) tee markers. I think the natural cedar looks better anyway. All this cedar has inspired me to make some permanent post and rope so stay tuned, because I think there is more cedar projects to come.