How 'Bout the Weather?

Whew!  Sitting at my desk in what seems like the first time in two weeks, "whew" seems to appropriately summarize the days since the snow melted.  Without the luxury of seasonal workers, the crew had to go from 0 to 60 in the blink of an eye, and I hope you'll agree that they did a tremendous job of whipping the course into shape and getting all of the on-course amenities in place.  After opening the restroom near 6 tee on Wednesday, the course was basically fully operational.  Normally when we open, the weather is still kind of questionable, but with the lowest high temperature being 73 degrees since opening, that was certainly not the case this year.  The grass is growing like crazy, and we'll be spending much of our time over the coming weeks walking behind or sitting on mowers. This year's course opening of March 14 was the second earliest on record (since 1973) and was only topped by seven days in 2000.

What month is it?  Not only are the daffodils in full bloom, but the magnolia bush between 1 and 9 is already dropping its flowers.

Besides getting the course cleaned up, mowing, and putting out the course equipment (benches, ballwashers, rakes, etc.), we've also gotten our irrigation system primed, and the big intake pipes are in the lake.  Shredded bark has been added to the landscape beds by the clubhouse.  Select stump holes have been ground, cleaned, and reseeded.   Chad has also spent a significant amount of time seeding areas of the rough that thinned out during last summer's hot, dry weather, and we're cautiously optimistic that the seeding will have a reasonable amount of success.  Since most of the affected areas are heavily-shaded, it's difficult to establish seed due to tree competition for moisture and light.  However, with the warm soil temperatures, good soil moisture, and trees that haven't leafed out, conditions are about as good as they can be for germination to take place.  We're crossing our fingers.

Now that you've hopefully been able to enjoy the weather with a round of golf, you should have seen that the course did indeed fair well over this abnormal winter.  There is a very small amount of winterkill on the back half of 3 green, but it is already recovering very nicely with an assist from Mother Nature.

While it looks as if 80-degree days are going to be disappearing for the meantime, the weather is still forecasted to be more than reasonable for this time of year, and we hope that you'll continue to enjoy this bonus golf.  Although we've finally caught our collective breaths from the chaos of opening, the crew will still be more than busy going forward.