Monday, January 25th, 2010

Last week started of with a lot of clean-up following some pretty sever winds. The crew made quick work of it and had most of it cleaned up by Tuesday. Wednesday the entire staff spent the day at the annual OGCSA Crew Seminar held at Tualatin Country Club. It was a day well spent as they each came back with something new learned.

Project Update
Our big project this week was the renovation of the practice bunker. This was a project that was well over due. As you can see by the before and after pictures we removed quite a bit of sand that had built up over the last 8 years. Unfortunately we will need to keep it closed until the sod has a chance to take hold. I would hate to open it to early and loose all the great work they guys put into it. It is nice to have such a large large turf nursery that we can dive into a project like this and not have to worry about purchasing sod off site. Zeferino told me he is ready to take on the next bunker project. I had reservations at first but I came in this morning and the crew was ready to take on the right front bunker on sixteen. We got it stripped today and will be laying new sod in the morning! It is looking great and the guys are real proud of their work. I will post some new pictures later this week.

 












Northwest Winter Damage Update
Tuesday,  News Channel 8 aired a story on the condition of the greens in the Portland area. (see video to the right) It is good to see that they felt it a worthy story to cover. It was one of those weather events that comes just once in a while which left the greens at the winters mercy. As superintendents it is frustrating to see courses take such a hit. All these guys are good friends and you just hate to see them go through what they are experiencing. There is no doubt that will get them back in shape but it is going to take some time. Unfortunately the damage happened so early that now they must wait out the rest of the season for the soil temps to warm up.

Just a reminder that Monday will be the USGA webcast on the winter damage to putting greens in the Northwest. The more I ask around the more I hear of courses that have lost large areas of grass. Perhaps through opportunities such as this webcast, superintendents will be able find the common thread that allowed some courses to escape damage while others took a complete blow. The webcast is intended for not only superintendents but to all who wish to learn more. It is hoped that many managers and professionals will view it as well. For information please refer to my last post and follow the links or just contact me and I will forward the email with all of the pertinent information.

This week the weather cooperated and allowed us to cut the fairways on Thursday. We also managed to get two mowings on the greens this week as well. I am very pleased where our greens are right now. We didn't escape the cold weather and experienced a severe dormancy onset but the grass is back and growing like it should. The only real damage we experienced related to the cold was on the new tee on fourteen. For some reason it yellowed out and hasn't come back like the rest.