Monday, March 29th, 2010

Course Conditions
It is hard to believe April will be here in a couple days. It seems like we have spring for two months already. The nice weather has sure been a blessing but don't think the rain will be over anytime soon. The forecast is for lots of rain this week, perhaps up to an inch today. Today we scheduled to aerify the tees which may be a wash. I am hesitant to aerify now and topdress later for fear of the holes closing up and then being unable to fill them with sand. We have borrowed a neighbors aerifier which will enable us to get the job done twice as fast. If we can't get them done on today we will be aerating then next possible day. The plan is to do the tees this week and then aerify the greens next Monday. This year we will be using the mini tines which will heal much faster and will have a very small impact on ball roll. If all goes well the greens should be putting nicely by the end of the day when we finish. Pray for nice weather!

Tuesday's nice weather allowed us to topdress the greens for the first time since early December. We managed to get quite a bit of sand down which will smooth the greens considerably. Here are a couple of pictures of the crew doing what they do.


The recent nice weather has allowed us to let the carts out on the fairways. The course has really dried up nicely. I played with the Men's Club on Wednesday and was very happy with the conditions. I played in down, but the others of course still felt they had to lift and cheat! All in all it was a great day even if I had to play with may favorite "Duck Fan". Harold Plough is one-in-a-million. Aside from his attire he is a pretty cool guy! Here's to the off season.
GO BEAVS!

Tuesday I was invited to visit the JB Sod farm and see their new creeping perennial ryegrass sod. This is unique because perennial ryegrass has to be planted with  netting so it will hold together when it is cut. This new grass has creeping characteristics similar to Kentucky bluegrass and doesn't require netting. Testing has shown this grass to not only exhibit creeping characteristics but also display minimum thatch accumulation. I definitely feel this will be the grass of the future. Since it has the ability to creep, the divots should recover much quicker. We have already started using this on our driving range tee last fall and are planning on using it on all of our teeing surfaces this year.