Spring Preparations...

It has now been two weeks since we removed the covers off of our greens. As mentioned before the greens wintered very well. We have since had both good and bad weather (typical) to continue spring preparations for opening on Monday (the 18th).

Greens have been rolled, mowed and verti-cut numerous times. Last week we took advantage of the good weather and put out a good topdressing of sand on greens. Timing was good with the rain on Saturday to work the sand into the canopy. Tees, collars, approaches and fairways have been mowed a couple of times (removes the brown tips that dormancy creates). We have been rather fortunate that all of the playable areas are in good shape, especially considering the very long and harsh winter that we experienced here in London. Last week we were able to get out on the fairways with the Superject and create some air channels for our clay soils to "breathe".

Our irrigation system was pressurized at the end of last week. This is always nice to get out of the way with as few breaks and leaks as possible. It's nice to confirm that we did a good job of winterizing both the system and the pump house.

We also had our arbourist in on Friday to grind out any remaining stumps from our fall and winter tree work. All stumps have been back filled with topsoil and are awaiting sod or seed.

Clean up was completed by midweek, but we are out again today picking up the remnants from this weekends high winds.

The crew is also out raking bunkers in preparation for play tomorrow. The bunkers also wintered well and will be receiving some fresh sand in the near future. By the end of the day we will also have all of the course accessories (ball washers, bunker rakes, tee blocks, yardage stakes and cart exit posts) out and ready for use.