Monday, February 8th, 2001

Course Conditions
 For the most part the course is in very good shape. As a result of the warm weather the grass is growing quicker that usual and we are still mowing the greens twice a week. The fairways seem to be getting softer so we will continue to restrict cart traffic until we have a good opportunity to dry out. Speaking of that, the forecast looks good for the next 5 days and we should have some great playing weather ahead. Next week we are planning on fertilizing the greens and treating them with a plant protectant to prevent any further disease development. We will also be treating the tees as well.

Projects
Last week the crew was busy completing many small projects around the course. Mike built an enclosure for the portable toilet on seven and will complete the enclosure on fourteen sometime this week. He did a great job.

Steve has put the finishing touches on the new range picker which should be ready for service this week. I took it for a test run last Thursday and was very impressed how it handled. What struck me most was how it handled coming down hill by not freewheeling at all. I cannot say enough about Steve and the effort he put into it. This will be an asset to the course for years to come.

We continued to do some minor repairs on the course as well. The broken edge on the large bunker on eight has been repaired as well as the wet low near the approach on eighteen. We also repair the grass along the cart path near the ninth white tee. These little projects make such a big difference in the over all appearance of the course. We will continue to work on these type of things as time allows.

Tuesday Damon Schrosk with Treecology came out and used his Air Knife on the root zones of three Douglas fir trees. On one of the trees we incorporated Axis which is a vitrified diatomaceous earth. The idea is to hold moisture and create airspace in the root zone to help the trees become stronger and thrive.  In the video below you can actually see the ground heave when the air is injected. We will keep a close eye on these trees to see if we can detect some improvement throughout the spring.