Working Towards an Early Start to the 2015 Golf Season!

Here we are again, March Madness, March 16th, 2015, uncovering greens at Minnesota Valley and preparing the golf course for opening! WOW! As the old saying goes, "the writing was on the wall", as we received very little snowfall over the winter and it just felt like it could be an early golf season. We actually opened the driving range last Wednesday, March 11th, due to a March Madness heat spell that pushed temperatures into the high 60's for several days. That wasn't going to last though, like it did back in 2012 when we opened a portion of the course on March 18th and all 18 on March 21st.  Temperatures look like they'll remain slightly above normal for the next two or three weeks, which means highs in the upper 40's or low 50's and lows in the upper 20's. Not exactly ideal golf weather, but hey, we're Minnesotans!!

Yup, the weather last week was ready for golf, but the golf course wasn't, but it's inching it's way there now. It's day by day monitoring conditions and determining when we could open part of the golf course. There's still frost in the ground and the irrigation pond still has ice on it. I'd prefer both to leave asap! Any turfgrass manager prefers there to be no frost in the ground when beginning to introduce traffic on the turf. The turf is still dormant and not growing, so it has no recuperative capacity. Any traffic on it will be detrimental to it until it has the ability to grow. This will require warmer temperatures that heat the soil and remove the remaining frost in the ground. Once this occurs, roots can begin to regrow and we'll also see some top growth. With frost in the ground and the pond frozen over, we have no ability to water the turfgrass. You cannot fill irrigation pipes in the ground until the frost leaves, otherwise the water in the pipe freezes overnight and breaks the pipes. I can't wait to turn the water well on and begin to fill the irrigation pond, but it's just too early to make that happen today. This is one of the things we can't error on! In this type of a situation, it's virtually impossible to predict exactly when the golf course will open. It's literally a day by day decision as to what we can accomplish to get us closer to that point.

Certainly, the demand is strong to open the golf course asap. We have half the green covers removed and within the next two days, they'll all be off. The turf looks great on greens! As we complete this process, that frost and ice is gradually declining. Within a week, I anticipate the ice to off the pond, and within two weeks the frost to out of the soil. For these reasons, I do anticipate an early start to the 2015 golf season. Perhaps we can open a few holes before the weekend, then the back nine, and then the entire golf course by late March. 

We'll keep you informed about the course opening this week and into next as we continue to work hard towards that goal. Nobody's looking forward to that time more than the MVCC Turfgrass Maintenanance team!!