Golf Course Update May 14th

Golf Course Opening Schedule

Hawk Golf Course - Today the Hawk Golf Course will be open on 18 holes at 8:00am on a walk on basis only. The irrigation system will be pressurized on the Hawk Golf Course today so you may see sprinklers popping up and down.

The cart path relocation & paving project continues on 16 Hawk. Members can expect 3 or 4 staff members completing the drainage, irrigation and top soiling components this weekend. Sod work is scheduled for Monday and paving will be completed Tuesday May 24th.

Raven Golf Course - The back nine Raven holes will be open this weekend and the front nine will open on Monday at 12:00pm.

The irrigation renovation behind and to the left of 18 Raven green will be completed as soon as the irrigation system is up and running, this should be early - mid next week.

Par 3 Mats

The new Turf Hound mats are being utilized on the par 3's because the grass hasn't started growing yet and tees will become riddled with divots before the season gets to far under way. The plan is to utilize these mats until the turf is actively growing which depends on soil and air temperatures. Members can expect to see the mats removed by next weekend.

Winter Injury To Many Turfgrass Areas in the Rough

Members that have had the opportunity to enjoy the golf course this week have noted that the rough is in poor condition. It is very obvious to see that any areas of turfgrass that were treated with winter fungicide treatment (greens, tees and fairways) wintered quite well. There is a stark difference between areas that were treated and not treated.

The green grass seen in this photo had been sprayed with a preventative winter fungicide application and the rough that is brown has not been sprayed. It is normal procedure to only spray greens, tees and fairways. The major cause of the snow mold damage in the rough
was primarily due to a record duration of snow cover up to 170 days (November 17th- May 7th).

The many areas in the rough that appear dormant are not going to recover and staff are going to have to re sod these areas. This repair of the rough is going to be a significant project that will take weeks if not more than a month (weather is the wild card).

A plan is currently being devised and repairs will begin early this coming week. In the mean time, strategy for dealing with issues such as traffic control with golf carts and maintenance equipment, and golfer inconvenience to mention a few challenges are being considered. Full communication to members will happen immediately once the repair plan is devised and member impacts are understood.

Twitter

Approximately 40 members are now following me on Twitter. For those of you not familiar with Twitter you are not alone. I am just now learning how to use this resource as a tool for communication with members. If you log onto http://twitter.com/priddissuper it will take you to my tweets. You can follow instructions from that page to sign up for Twitter to get up to date brief communication tweets (140 characters or less) on issues relating to the golf course. If you are a smart phone user you can download a twitter application for free and tweets will automatically be sent to your phone.