Strange Sights

The rollercoaster weather pattern has continued this week, and after reaching a high of 45 degrees two days ago, the windchill dipped to -8 degrees last night.  The precipitation throughout the winter has been above normal and that's a good thing when considering the vast amount of soil moisture that was depleted during the 2012 drought.  The days are getting noticably longer, and I, for one, am getting antsy for the arrival of spring.  Last year at this time, temperatures were already consistently in the 40s, and the course was unknowingly three weeks away from opening.  That doesn't look to be the case this year, but you just never know.

The standing water that was pictured in the previous post allowed for an unusual sight...someone ice skating on the 7th fairway.  A picture of this gentleman skating on the course was also featured on the local news.

No offense to him, but we hope that this individual doesn't have the opportunity to ice skate on the 7th fairway in years to come.

Due to the relatively deep pond that had formed in front of 3 green, we also dusted off the trash pump in an effort to remove the free water from this area.  The drain tiles that we installed in this area were still thawed out, and by sticking the pump intake into the catch basin, we were able to move most of the water to the rough area between 4 tee and 4 fairway.

Unfortunately, there was nowhere to move the water that settled on the beginning of 7 fairway, and we have already ordered bentgrass seed in the event that this area doesn't survive the winter (although it still may).

In other news, Chad and I have been busy interviewing candidates to fill our summer crew.  Four employees from last year have graduated college and moved on and that means that we have a few more openings than normal.  But, we've had a lot of people apply and are confident that we will have another great group of employees this summer.

Dave, Omar, Angel, and Chris have nearly completed the maintenance on the many mowers that are needed to groom the course, and they will soon be moving on miscellaneous pieces of equipment that also need attention.  If time/weather allows, we are hoping to tackle a few minor shop projects before the course opens for the year.

An Icy Situation

When 0.6" of rain falls on a foot of snow that's covering frozen ground, you get this...

The pond on hole 5 is so full that it's nearly touching the green.  Water ran from the valley below 2 and 11 tees, across the cart path, and into the pond.

Hole 7 now has a winding, frozen river down much of the fairway.

The water from 5 pond ran across the range towards holes 6 and 7 to form a very large water feature.

The newly-formed pond in front of 6 tee is quite impressive (above and below).

Since my last post, the unwanted pond in front of the third green is now nearly up to the green's edge and is probably three-feet deep.

As you can see, we're not dealing with an ideal situation and even the rough has ice under the remaining snow.  You'd be hard-pressed to find an area without ice accumulation, and as has been discussed in prior posts, turf and ice don't always get along.  The good news is that the ice has formed late enough in the season that we aren't yet worried about it dying due to suffocation/anoxia.  With Poa annua, we start to worry about anoxia after 45 continuous days of ice cover, and at this point in the season, this is unlikely (but certainly possible).  Thus, as long as the turf didn't suffer crown hydration injury (which is instantaneous death), we are optimistic about the health of our greens to this point.  And, although crown hydration may have occurred, we don't think that is has to this point.

The previously-pictured areas of deep standing/frozen water do concern us.  We suspect that these areas will suffer damage, but it's impossible to say to what extent they will be injured.  Although the ponds that formed are the largest that we've ever seen on the course, the sloping topography of the course limited the amount of areas that collected this runoff water.

At this point, there is nothing that we can do to alleviate the situation, but if the ice cover remains on the greens for the 45-day threshold, we will considering removing it.  While the situation may look and sound ominous, we are holding out hope and are at least grateful that this didn't happen in early January.