HIGHLAND CC GROUNDS

We have decided to open the golf course for play this Saturday, April 3rd at 10 am. With the forecast being so good for the next few days this "soft" opening is inevitable. The golf course is dry enough to handle foot traffic at this point. Our staff is doing their best to complete as much work as possible for Saturday (clean up, mowing, path work, bunker work). On Tuesday April 6th, we will close for the remainder of the week to complete any project work, etc. We are looking forward to seeing everyone out here!

Last weekend's severe winds brought down some rather unhealthy trees in the woodlot on #16. As you can see from the pictures, the trees that fell are out of play. However, this illustrates the need for constant tree care of the older trees on our golf course. Our department has been working away at this recently, but there is still an astonishing amount of work to be done. In this case of #16, we will get into this area once the ground in the woodlot is dry enough. As mentioned the damaged trees are out of play, but are rather unsightly and could pose some danger. If we do not get to these before the golf course opens, I will notify all members of the potential danger in this area.

One of the sections of our member survey was regarding the condition of our fairways and landing areas. Overall the comments were very positive. Most of our members have noticed that we have been mowing our fairways shorter than in previous years. This provides a tighter, more dense surface for ball roll and to hit off of. There was a comment about some areas that are thin and require some attention. On a clay based golf course you often run into issues with heavy compaction and wear areas. Particularly during the height of the season when golf carts are heavily used (including tournaments, etc). Turfgrass has a hard time growing in these areas of heavy compaction because roots cannot navigate through the soil when it is rock hard, etc. We are beginning a new era of fairway maintenance at HCC . We have recently purchased a fairway aerator and a fairway verticutting unit. We are going to be using this aerator (which slices into the root zone) to relieve compaction. I posted some pictu...

Today is our first day of course clean up. With the beautiful weather that we have had lately, the golf course has dried up enough for us to get out and begin cleaning up branches, sticks and other debris that has come down over the course of the winter. Our staff will be on foot and carts will be restricted to cart paths only. The weather is going to take a dive next week (cold and rainy), which will slow down this rather large task of course clean up. There have been a number of members out on the golf course walking their dogs and enjoying the sunshine. I would just like to remind everyone to please come prepared to clean up after your pets. Thank you and here's to a warm dry spring!

Earlier this week we removed the covers from our greens. We are pleased to say that our greens wintered very well. We always try to remove the covers right before the greens start to grow. This reduces the vulnerability to colder temperatures after the covers are off. We have continued some tree work and are actively awaiting the valley on #2 to dry out so that we can continue the cart path rebuild. We have been using pumps to help speed the drying process on #2. I will keep everybody updated on this project's status.

This past winter one of our seasonal employees produced some new yardage indicators for our fairways. Rob Williamson planed out some of the "Highland Oak" to make them. As you will remember, we milled some wood from last year's tree removal efforts. You can see from the picture, the new stakes are much more natural and subtle looking. These definitely fit into the classic feel of HCC.

With the warm temperatures and rain in the weather forecast, we are preparing our greens for a rather quick melt this week. As you will see in the pictures, we have shoveled out some positive surface drainage channels in the snow at the front of our greens. These channels will allow the run off of snow melt and rain to drain the green surface freely. Some areas of the golf course have rather thin snow cover while some other more sheltered and shaded spots still have up to two feet of heavy snow on them. We will continue to monitor the progress of the snow melt until the snow is completely gone.

For the most part the survey results pertaining to our tee areas were positive. The tees have been culturally worked rather heavily since I began at Highland. Our department has aerified and topdressed the tees numerous times and will continue to do so. We have seen some results as far as more level surfaces, tighter, more consistent turfgrass cover (divot recovery) and realignment of the tees in general. I would however like to address a few of the biggest concerns from the survey. 1.The recycling of the garbage on the golf course. Comments were made that we should have recycle containers at every tee. The Grounds Dept. services all of the tees everyday in the heart of the golf season; part of this is emptying the garbage containers. One of the elements of this process is separating the recyclables out of the garbage (once back at the maintenance facility). I feel that this is a more efficient and cleaner way of doing this. For us to add another container to every ballwasher (25 of th...