Yesterday marked the beginning of spring for us, and then of course we get a good blanket of snow last night and the temps are supposed to drop off the deep end here for the weekend. I took a walk yesterday because it was 40 degrees and was moving snow off cart paths so I can get out and do some tree work.
As of yesterday, this was a view looking back from the hill on #4. There is a large puddle in the second fairway bunker on #3 fairway, but that is to be expected this time of year.
I, however, did see some things that I wasn't to pleased about.
This is a picture of #9 green on the North West side of the green. Snow fence didn't cover this spot; learned my lesson here and will extend the snow fence line farther next winter.
Here is a little closer view of that same area. Notice the dessication around the outside of the circle? There seems to be a bulls eye design, basically a black-eye for the green, and me of course.
Here is another closer look at the turf. The picture doesn't do it justice, but if we were able to look at the turf very closely, you would see almost all of the leaf tissue was gone. You can see in the upper left hand corner of the picture the dessicated turf and about half way through the picture moving diagonally towards the lower right is where the more extensive damage occurred. I suspect a feeding animal given that almost all of the leaf is gone down to the roots, but I also can't rule out abrasive rubbing. Our snow fence was badly damaged due to a lot of high winds this winter and this may be the reason for the spot.
It's not all doom and gloom here to start off spring! I want to let you know that golf is just around the corner. We have 13 people scheduled to start working for us on the maintenance crew this summer and with that number we should get some projects done. I currently have a good list going on the projects white board in the shop
Here is the new and improved Wildflower job board... Nothing too fancy but it has space to let the crew know whats going on, even when I don't know what's going on.
There seems to be a lot of concern surrounding honeybee and native bee numbers in the United States. Myself being a lover of food, this definitely is a major concern that I feel we need to address here at Wildflower. I do not use insecticide, and according to Dr Gary Reuter from the U of M, herbicides have little effect upon the bees. With the decreasing amount of forage for these very important bees, we have been discussing our best options for improving our bee sanctuary areas around the course. As most of you know, a honeybee will not sting you unless there is a REAL good reason, and there are many golf courses that employ honeybees as pollinators. With a foraging range of 2 miles, there is a vast amount of space for these pollinators to forage on our course. Our main priority is to increase the amount of food that is available to the pollinators because it benefits the area in two ways; improved pollination and aesthetically pleasing colors in the natural areas of the course. My wife and I attended a beekeepers class at the Brainerd Arboretum a few weekends ago, and golf courses got a pretty bad wrap by the presenter. When I spoke with him after the presentation, I tried to explain that golf courses do a lot of hard work trying to lessen their impact on the environment, but it fell on deaf ears as he wanted nothing to do with my explanation. I feel it is our duty as superintendents to inform the general public of our practices so we don't get these black eyes in the spotlight. Not trying to sound arrogant or talking down on people; just saying that we aren't Carl Spackler anymore. ( As much as I admit I spent many Halloweens in a bucket hat, boots and a sweat stained, dirty T-shirt) There is way too much to talk about on the subject, so I'll move on...
Planned Projects:
Opening up between 9 black tee and 1 green is something that I have put on the top of the list. For a visual, when you are on the cart path going to 1 green, this area is on the right side of the cart path about level with the back of the green just before you make the turn to go behind the green.
With a lot of mature Oak around 9 tee and 1 green, there is restricted air movement and as we all know leads to some problems. My plan is to limb the trees up to around 8 feet to allow air movement across the turf, while not getting rid of any tree that adds to the aesthetics of the hole. Clearing the under-brush and leaf debris will allow us to come in and turn the ground over and get some wildflowers established in this area. This will be an on-going process, as when you disturb the soil, weeds will have a good chance to take hold of the area. Planting little areas such as this will help us keep on top of the weeding throughout the year as opposed to doing multi-acre areas to begin with.
Another project on the list is the green complex of #9. This is a tough hole given the bunker placement and the fact that if you go too long, your in native hills and if you go too short, your in a very large and deep bunker. Meeting with the course architect last fall, he and I decided to make the hole more playable from the back, right side where the native mound comes down to the bunkers on the southwest side of the green. This is going to be a huge project, with some dirt work involved, but I am confident that it will improve the playability of the hole and add some much needed visual from the tee box. We will focus on removing most of the back right bunker and bringing some of the native mound down to match the grade of the bunker surround. We will then take sod from the driving range to speed the recovery of the area and to return it to play as fast as possible. With the addition of a landing area in the back, this will give you the option to go for the back pin placements and not be penalized for over-shooting the green.
There will be other projects going on around the course this summer, but I don't want to let all the cats out of the bag at once!
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