Mocking Up

Today we began the process of finalizing the Elk fencing installation. As the parts required for the fencing continue to arrive, we finally had the chance to put together a working version of my concept plan.  What you see in the picture above  will become the future of our winter greens protection program.

All things considered the design will stay essentially the same but minor tweaks will be done to ensure the Elk remain on the out side looking in.

Back By Popular Demand

Due to the overwhelming positive comments we received this year about our new expanded intermediate rough  cuts, we will be adding a few more.  These new  areas will be found on holes #1,#3,#7,#15 and #18.  All in all these areas will make up about 40,000 sq ft or just under an acre of new intermediate rough.

These extra cuts are targeted in areas where the higher handicap players tend to hit, now these areas will be more player friendly and help with pace of play. 

What Are The Blue Dots?

What are the blue dots around some of the greens are for ? The answer is that we are marking the locations for fence posts that will installed to support material to protect the greens from winter wildlife damage. The post will be spaced every 25 feet to provide enough support for the fencing material. Once we have layed out the initial post configuration we will then locate the underground irrigation system components before any posts are installed. 

You all are aware of the damage that was caused to the greens by the Elk last year and we will be doing all that we can to avoid a repeat of that damage. Currently the greens are scheduled to go on temporaries beginning December 1st as they are every year, at this time the greens will be closed off with fencing for the remainder of the winter season. There is also a chance that some of our more trafficked greens will get fenced off before the December 1st date, the most likely candidates for this would be greens #4,#6 and #10. In one night the damage caused by the Elk can require month’s of recovery time that includes wasted man hours installing thousands of replacement turf plugs to the greens.

These fences will be eight feet tall in order to keep the wildlife from jumping over them. We are still currently engineering the final configurations of the fences, but at this point they will be constructed out of steel fence post and tennis wind screens will serve as the fence boundaries. The reason we are using a fabric as the fencing itself is so that we can still easily access the greens during the winter for maintenance purposes. A more rigid material will become unworkable in the middle of winter when temperatures are routinely in the single digits.

Once again the Board has stepped up and provided the necessary funding for this extremely important project of protecting our greens. In the next several weeks we will begin to install the post for the fences at the greens locations in advance of the ground freezing. These post will be in play, so if your line is effected you will be allowed to take a drop from the obstruction. These post will be an inconvenience for some of our later season play, but I believe the benefits will far outweigh the damage that is caused annually. The wildlife is spectacular to see up close and personal, but it comes with at a price.

Turf Slapped

A Golf Course Superintendent could only wish.......

And So It Begins

It is once again that time of year when the wildlife namely the Elk and Deer have a negative effect on the golf course. These animals have been back for a while but until recently their damage was minimal. It seems as if each morning we are finding more and more damage to the turf throughout the golf course.

This year the Board has funded a greens protection program in which protective fencing will be installed at most of the greens that have had historical damage to them. The timing for fencing will be around the 1st of December which is our traditional date for closing the greens and utilizing temporaries throughout the winter months. The timing could change for our more trafficed greens by days or even weeks. We will begin installing the support post in the next several weeks before the ground becomes frozen and we are no longer to get them in the ground. These post will be there long before any of the fencing goes up and will add some additional challenges for the golfers around the greens complexes.

This protection will go a long way in helping to protect our greens from avoidable damage in the winter months. It will be a welcomed change in the spring to not have to spend the first several months repairing the damage to the greens. Thousands of plugs and and countless man hours will be spared and will be more effectively utilized elsewhere. 

Urine Burn

Hoofing It Up

Needle Drop

One would think that a tree classified as being an evergreen would mean that pine

trees keep their needles indefinitely. Pine trees actually only keep an individual needle for

two or three years. After that time period, the tree stops feeding the older needles and the

needles die in the fall, turn yellow or brown, and drop off the tree.

Each spring the pine trees grows new set of needles, while each fall the pine tree sheds its oldest set of needles. Some years a pine tree may shed two sets of old needles, making the fall needle drop even more apparent. This year with the abundant moisture in the we had a great year of needle growth.

This fall there is an incredible amount of needles that are going to fall and fortunately for us us the last several days of high winds have blown the majority down in one shot.  Now the cleanup begins.  

Older Needles Turning Brown