Cold April Showers

If the old adage proves true, we're in store for an abundance of May flowers.  It's no secret that all of Wisconsin has been stuck in a cold, wet weather pattern, and the remainder of this week unfortunately looks no different.  After three nice days, we're in store for a few more inches of rain.  Not counting today's precipitation, the area has officially received 3.97" of rain in April, and the average rainfall for the entire month is 3.4".  It looks as if we're on track to double the monthly normal average.  As far as temperatures go, the average temperature of March was 26.6 degrees (34 is normal), and to this point in April the average has been 39.8 degrees (43.8 is the to-date normal).  All of the aforementioned data has added up to a soggy golf course and turf that is in no hurry to grow very actively. 

However, the course has been officially opened for the year, and it was nice to see a fair amount of golfers enjoying yesterday's beautiful afternoon.  The April 16 opening tied for the third latest opening on record (since 1973) and was exactly two weeks after the average opening date of April 2.

Although it has been a difficult spring to get a lot accomplished on the course, the course is slowly coming together.  With the exception of the wooded area between holes 14 & 15, the entire course has been raked, and we have been working on picking up the many piles.  All greens and fairways 1-10 have been mowed, and we also dimpled, seeded, and topdressed the greens that suffered from some winter injury.

As many have probably seen, a very large oak tree on the right side of hole 14 fell last week, and it ripped off a few adjacent limbs on the way down.  Unbeknownst to us, this tree was rotting away belowground, and it happened to fall in an area that has made cleanup impossible to this point.  With the slope and wetness of the downed tree's location, we will have to wait until conditions dry before we can get our heavy equipment to it.



My small frame provides scale for the very old, very large, uprooted oak tree.

As the weather allows, course supplies will continue to filter from the shop to the course, and we will begin tackling the remaining normal spring projects that are needed to get the course up to par.  Hopefully, the weather will start to cooperate and that the golf season will get in full swing before too long.

Winter Wrap-up

Now that the snow and ice have melted in most places, we have a pretty good idea on how the rollercoaster winter of 2013 treated the golf course, and for the most part, the news is good.  The vast majority of the putting greens have little to no damage, but there are a few that will likely have some winter injury.  However, even though it has been relatively warm over the past week, we won't know for sure until the turf starts actively growing.  Some of the Poa annua looks off-color and dinged, but when we inspect the lower portions of the plants, the newly-forming leaves look quite healthy.

Eight green appears to have suffered the most injury, and it is likely that some if it (20%) will be dead.   This green suffers from poor drainage and what does drain goes directly towards the large evergreen that shades it to the south.  Thus, the melted water refreezes in shaded areas that comprise the middle and back left quadrant of the green.  Otherwise, the greens that concern us at this point are on holes 10, 13, and 15.  While this isn't great news, we are happy to report that it doesn't appear as if temporary greens will be necessary on any hole, and the damage is not nearly as extensive as it has been in the past.  That being said, we will do everything possible to get them 100% healthy as quickly as Mother Nature allows.

Today, we removed the covers from 3, 11, and 17 greens, and they did their jobs.  Despite the extreme shade that each of these greens receive, the covers/foam kept the ice from damaging the turf.  Periodically throughout the winter, we would also use backpack blowers to stimulate air exchange under the covers.  All in all, we are very happy with how the covers performed this year.

The rest of the course appears to be relatively unscathed from the winter's wrath.  Even the areas by 3 green and 6/7 fairways that had very large, unintended ponds on them fared quite well.  We like to think that the pumping that we did on hole 3 helped the cause, and even though we'll never know if it made a difference, it certainly didn't hurt.

What appears to be the biggest casualty of winter is the koi population in the pond.  Three years ago, someone discarded a couple of unwanted koi, and in the time since, our couple of fish turned into a few hundred.  Combine that large population with a small pond with a maximum depth of 5 feet, and what you get are a lot of dead koi.  Once the pond thaws, we will have the unenviable task of getting them out before they stink up the place.

Despite a very wet and sloppy course, we have been carefully working our way around the property this week to take down the snow fence that wasn't iced in and to rake the billion of sticks that came down over winter into piles to be collected later.  To some extent, we rake under every one of the trees, but some (oaks and ashes) are definitely messier than others.  By the end of today, most of the front nine will be raked.  We will probably start cleaning the back nine next week, but because the majority of this nine lies on a north-facing slope, it thaws much more slowly than the southern-facing front nine.

At this point in the update, you're probably wondering when the course is going to be opening.  There are two basic parameters that need to be met before the course can safely open:  frost-free soil and actively-growing turf.  Without these, it's a muddy mess as it is right now.  Our best guess is that the course won't open before April 15, but with high temperatures forecasted to be pretty consistently in the 50s over the next few days, conditions could improve rapidly, especially if this weekend's potential rain drives the frost from the ground.  Rest assured that we will have the course open as soon as possible and that we are as anxious to get the golf season underway as you are.  As updates regarding the course condition and/or opening develop, we will be sure to keep you informed.