What month is it?

Supposedly, it's April 19th, and the average high temperature is 58 degrees.  Over the next two days, the high temperatures are forecasted to remain below 40 degrees, and it's currently snowing.  But, it could be worse.  Yesterday, the golf portion of a monthly Wisconsin Golf Course Superintendents Assocation meeting was cancelled because Geneva National was covered in snow, and the central part of the state is supposed to receive up to 10" of the white stuff today into tomorrow.  Ugh.

As you can imagine, this isn't exactly the weather that we'd like to get our greens healthy again, but we are doing everything in our power to promote recovery.  We spent the majority of yesterday tending to the injured greens with the following procedure:

1)  Double verticut to create channels conducive to seed germination.
2)  Poked small dimples in the greens to also enhance germination.
3)  Overseeded with creeping bentgrass.
4)  Fertilized 6, 14, 16, and 17 with starter fertilizer (specially formulated for turfgrass establishment) and fertilized the remaining greens with a standard fertilizer in order to hopefully stimulate growth and allow them to recover more rapidly from the upcoming aerification.
5)  Watered the greens to disperse the fertilizer and to wash the seed into the channels and dimples.

We also covered 17 green with an Evergreen cover that was borrowed to us by our friend, colleague, and former Blackhawk employee, Mike Bremmer.  Mike's currently the superintendent at the Wisconsin Club (formerly Brynwood) in Milwaukee, and we certainly appreciate the cover.  The Evergreen cover will promote recovery by heating the green via the greenhouse effect.  However, it's also breathable, which means that it won't get too hot in the sun and water's able to get through it.

Unfortunately, this means that 17 is now playing to a temporary green.  The decision to close 17 wasn't taken lightly and was strongly encouraged by our USGA agronomist, Bob Vavrek.  With the recovery that was documented in the last blog post and the actions that we took yesterday, we expect the green to be playable in the shortest time possible.  As you know, the slope of 17 fairway doesn't lend itself to any really good locations for a temporary green, but we've located it in the flattest (relatively speaking), most puttable location possible.  And, for reference, the current pin plays 25 yards shorter than the distances that are marked on the sprinklers and yardage plaques.