With nearly 4 inches of rain leading up to aeration week, we had to shift our plans and focus our efforts on greens and tees. Fairways were simply too wet to get our machinery on the course. We will resume work on the fairways next week.
We are happy to say, however, that we made great progress on the greens and they are ready for play Friday, albeit a bit sandy.
Our inability to do any work on the fairways means we have to do this work next week. The front nine, holes 1-9, will be closed Monday March 24th. The back nine, holes 10-18, will be open and ready for play.
The expectation is that between Monday and Tuesday, March 24th and 25th, we can complete everything we need to so we can have the full course ready for play Wednesday, March 26th.
We took the opportunity while we were closed to rebuild a few of our bunkers. Over time, bunker edges tend to deteriorate from sand splash and simply growth of the grass edges. We have begun to tackle some of our worst bunkers. 13 greenside bunker was one of those. We stripped it, regrassed it and will be putting new sand in this week. We also stripped the two bunkers on 1 green. They were in desperate need of regrassing as well. These will be finished Friday with sand added shortly thereafter.
Many of you have seen the work we have been doing in the irrigation pond on hole 18 and I'm sure many have wondered what we were doing. The project was twofold; one, to greatly reduce the reeds and rushes along the eastern edge of the pond, and two, to remove the submerged aquatic weeds that have become established throughout the pond. Both of these issues rob us of valuable water holding capacity and also interfere with our pump station. Both needed attention before they became more problematic.
As always, immense gratitude to our amazing staff for putting in the hours this week, and thank you to all of you for your understanding and support.
See you on the course,
Dale Engman, Golf Course Superintendent
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