Looking Forward to March 15th

After a winter of heavy snow cover the course is looking to be in good shape as we approach spring. All the snow has melted from the course and recent winds have helped to start drying things out. Our fall fungicide application and heavy topdress have proven effective in protecting the Greens, Tees and Fairways and are all looking good to start the season. Our Rough areas however, have sustained a large amount of snow mold. (Our rough is not sprayed with fungicide as the cost would be far too high). The snow mold we are seeing is a result of the heavy snow cover which blanked the course from early December till late February. Combine this with the late leaf drop in the fall and you have a recipe for disease as the leaves decay underneath the snow. We expect the Rough to fill itself back in with-in 1 - 2 months of spring growing period. For the time being the Rough may be thinner and patchy in areas, but this is not something out of the ordinary for our Club, and I believe many other courses will see similar disease patterns in their Rough this spring.

The good news for everyone waiting to dust off the old sticks is that we are gearing up to open the course for Friday March 15th! As this date fast approaches we will be cleaning up the mess winter left behind. Blowing and sweeping up leaves for the Bunkers, Fairways and Rough. Mulching leaves and debris, clearing catch basins, removing snow fences and taking the course accessories out onto the course. We will also be charging our Irrigation system and beginning our Spring Fertility Program, as well as final servicing of our equipment.

We also have seeded our Chipping Green and Nursery last November and are already seeing some germination of the seedlings. We covered both of these areas with a permeable cover after seeding to protect them from the cold of winter and traffic from geese and other critters. Today we removed the cover from the Chipping green so we can apply irrigation to this newly seeded area. We plan to remove the Nursery cover in the coming days and may recover them if we predict the temperature to drop down below freezing. Below is a picture of the Chipping green after we pulled the cover off today.

We are looking forward to the start of this season and seeing everyone out enjoying the course. See you on the 15th!