Monday, May 2nd, 2011

Nothing like a 20 degree temperature swing to start this week off. Sunday was a magnificent day with temps in the 70's. Today we'll be lucky to break the mid 50's. I'm keeping my fingers crossed we won't get to wet today at the Superintendent Invitational at Oswego Lake. I'm also hoping my swing won't give me to much grief after a long winter.

Tuesday Stone Creek hosted a seminar by OVS Pro Turf Center. The Seminar was on the Redox fertilizer product and was presented by DJ Pakkala. We had superintendents ranging from Bandon to Astoria to Sisters. I enjoyed seeing Ken Nice and John Whistler whom I don't normally get to see but maybe once a year. We all learned the science behind the Redox product and how we can get so much more with so much less. I have touted the benefits of the program in past reports so I won't get into that now. You can see new photos of John and Ken on my "Buck Shot" page.

Thursday was "Take your Daughter or Son to Work Day" and this year Steve's son Jaimon and my son Henry got up before the roosters and came to work with their dads. Why is it when it is time to go to school they have trouble getting out of bed at 7am and they can just pop right up 4:15 and head to work with their dad. Both boys had a great time. Jaimon spent time helping Mike change cups while Steve mowed the driving range tee and Henry spent time checking out the nesting boxes for activity. This was Henry's first opportunity to come to work with his dad, previously his brother was the one to come. Being his 11th birthday Henry had a great day at work and even wrote a report for his class.

I love this program as it gives us an opportunity to let our children have a chance to see what their parents do day to day while they are away from home. I think Henry quickly realized why his dad can sometimes get tired around 8:00 at night. Most of all I think this gives them an opportunity to visit a work place and start thinking about what they want to do when they grow up. I couldn't be more proud if my boys wanted to follow in my footsteps but I'll leave that entirely up to them.

The greens are pretty much healed and the tees are filling in quickly. Last week we applied a granular fertilizer on the tees which is starting to take effect. This week we will be applying a fungicide to the greens to help prevent anthracnose as well as applying a light dose of sand in which we will use our new roller brush to gently work it into the canopy. With the warmer temps predicted this week we should see the greens responding quickly.

As I said Sunday was magnificent and the Demo Day appeared to be a success. As I drove home the parking lot was overflowing, a situation I normally see when we have a double shotgun. Ted was busy giving lessons on the top of the range. I let them hit from our new "Natural Knit" ryegrass nursery which should prove to be a good test of the ability for it to recover with it's creeping ability. The lower range was packed with people trying out the newest in golf technology.

Finally, it is not official yet but the voting is complete and it appears that Stone Creek has won the NW Golf Guys Player's Choice Award with a 9.3% lead over the next course. The credit goes to the entire golf staff at Stone Creek including the cart barn, deli, proshop and of course the maintenance staff. Congratulations to all!