Missing: Spring

My apologies if I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but has anyone seen Spring?  As I look out from the shop onto the golf course, it looks as if it's snowed, but thankfully, it's just a really hard frost.

Just how cold has it been?  Well, one of the measures that we use to keep tabs on plant growth is growing degree days (GDDs).  GDDs give a good estimation on things like when you should apply a crabgrass or broadleaf weed preemergent, and we also use them to time our plant growth regulator applications on the greens during the summer.  Recent research from UW-Madison showed that applying Primo (a common growth regulator that we use) every 200 GDDs would keep the greens the most evenly regulated.  This helps to reduce clippings and maintain green speeds, among other benefits.  Anyway, GDDs are calculated by either taking the mean daily temperature from a weather station or by using an average of the day's high and low and subtracting a base number (either 32 or 50) from it.  As an example, yesterday's high and low was 44 and 30.  These numbers average 37, and when 32 is subtracted from 37, we see that yesterday's weather provided 5 growing degree days.  The reason for the lengthy explanation is that as of today, we're at 527 cumulative GDDs for the season.  Last year, we reached this number on April 14.  In other words, compared to last year, the plants are three weeks behind schedule, and that's quite a difference.

We're crossing our fingers that the 10-day forecast holds true and that frosty mornings are things of the past.  Simply put, we need some warm weather to allow the greens to fully recover from aerification and from the winter damage.  Speaking of that, we'll be taking the cover off of 17 green today, and it'll be open for play.  It still isn't going to be perfect, but the cover really aided recovery.  I'll put up some before and after pictures once we get the cover off.

Yesterday, the majority of the crew spent a good deal of time working on the bunkers.  They were edged with a string trimmer (which is a practice that we do throughout the summer), stragglers were pulled by hand, sand depths were probed and marked, and sand was moved from areas where it was too deep to areas where it was too shallow.  Lastly, they were raked smooth.  (I wish that I'd taken pictures of this process, but carrying a camera is something that I'm very good at forgetting.)  Because of this, the bunkers may be a little softer than normal, but they'll firm up within a few days.

As I said, let's hope that the warm weather is here to stay so that you can get out and play (and so that the grass starts growing).