What a Difference a Year Makes!

The two-layers of green covers, were removed over three days beginning Monday, April 7th. the lower layer is a thin foam rolled out in nine foot wide widths, held down by sod staples, and is used to insulate the green. The upper layer is a tough impermeable poly that's made to keep moisture from reaching the turf. It's a fairly long process that requires calm days, otherwise the covers blow around and cannot be folded properly for storage.  I'm extremely happy with the way the turf came through. I sort of expected it, given the early snow cover and litterally no thawing periods throughout the winter. Besides a few deer tracks across them, the greens and collars are blemish free with a dense stand of grass. That goes to show you what a nice winter of snow cover can do for turfgrass, compared to the major buildup of ice on the turf last winter. Last year at this time, we were experiencing 16 inches of April snowfalls and evaluating how many of acres of dead grass there was on fairways.

This time around, we had a partial course opening on Friday, April 11th, a four-hole course so players could work the kinks out. Our Annual Member Spring Cleanup Day went off without a hitch the next day, at which time we opened the back nine. And yesterday, we hosted the local high schools golf tournament, with the medalist carding a one-under 72. Not bad at all for this early in the season!

It's cooled down some this week, but that hasn't stopped our progress on course cleanup and spring projects. We have an outside irrigation contractor on site, Hartman Companies, who is installing four new irrigation lines in the rough. This will be a great addition into areas that were never irrigated and proved difficult to keep grass in when it became hot and dry. After the new sprinklers are in, we'll be in those areas renovating them with new sod and seed.

We're also busy cleaning up tree stumps from the 20 trees that were removed this winter. We like trees, but each of these had to go. These trees were removed for one of three reasons, either they posed a safety hazard because their trunks were split, they were damaged by last summers storms, or they were seeding ash that littered the playing surfaces. The course will be better without them.

So, were off to the start that we wanted! Now we'll concentrate on grooming the course into the best possible condition we can. Just what we're here for!