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Winter is here...

We would first like to wish everyone a Happy New Year! The snow finally arrived shortly after Christmas with a vengeance. The snow squalls have been very persistent over the past week or so, leaving well over 50 cm of fluffy snow on the golf course. The rain that persisted on Christmas day resulted in some ice on our fairways, mainly in the low lying areas. Ice can be a problem if solid ice cover persists for a long period of time (approx. 6 weeks). If history is any indication of how our winter will go, all of this snow will melt and re-accumulate at least once before spring.
We have already completed some minor renovations to our maintenance facility and have begun to service equipment. Alan Wood, our equipment manager has a long list of jobs and tasks to complete over the next couple of months. The septic bed for the Halfway house is nearing completion. The system is installed and we are just waiting for some favourable weather to put down the topsoil.

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The Practice Range Tee

Last fall we utilized a “new to us” method of revitilization for our practice tee. Our contractor TDS,  fraize mowed the surface of the tee to remove organic matter as well at to aid in leveling. The tee was then aerified and seeded to a new variety of creeping rye grass. We chose this type of turf grass as research  shows rapid recovery and a low growth habit. We were able to get some great growth in the fall, but the tee is still not ready for traffic and full use. The plan is to utilize the mats until growth has filled in some of the voids etc. We will then begin to slowly set up hitting areas on the grass tee. For a while we will alternate between grass and the mats with a 50/50 ratio of use. Once the grass tee is established and is in adequate recovery mode, the practice areas will be back to normal. As always our membership’s patience is appreciated as we try to improve these areas for use.

Cultural Greens Maintenance...

With the cooler temperatures this week, we will be performing some all important greens maintenance procedures. Monday evening (after the outside event) we will be doing a light grooming on both our greens and collars. This task will help to reduce the amount of lateral growth, therefore standing up the plants (for a better cut) and smoothing out the surfaces. Following the grooming we will be dry mowing all areas tonight to help clean up the debris. Tuesday morning we will be applying our biweekly light topdressing prior to play. Once the sand has dried, we will use our cocoa matt to drag the sand into both the canopy and the shallow grooming channels created by tonight's procedure. These practices in conjunction help to create a smooth, firm and healthy surface to putt on.

Greens Cultural Management Practices Schedule

The fall is a great time to perform a number of necessary cultural practices. Our goal is to amend the upper portion of the greens surface with enough sand to help insulate the crown through the winter as well as removing and diluting organic matter. Below you will find a schedule of cultural practices that we aim to complete before the covers go on and the snow flies!!! Wednesday, Sept. 30th- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt Tuesday, Wednesday October 13/14-Course Closure full core aeration with heavy topdressing. October 19th- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt October 26th- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt November 2nd- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt November 9th- Deep Verticut, followed by a sufficient topdressing. November 16th- Post Course Closure, Heavy topdressing followed by Deep tine aeration. Of course this is all in hope that the weather cooperates...happy fall!