Snow Depth Management of Putting Greens...

As mentioned in previous blog posts there is some ice formation on our putting greens. The typical late January thaw did not happen this year, so we are left with ice under the snow...a lot of snow. This week we began to blow the snow off of the greens in effort to expedite the melting process.The process of snow blowing is a large task. We had to snow blow access paths to the greens just be able to get through the very deep snow. We are clearing the snow down to approximately 3 inches. This will allow a faster melt...as some of the greens have upwards of 3 feet of snow. Our plan of attack is complete the first clearing by Tuesday, if the weather continues to warm up, we will blow them again to reduce the amount of water run off. Runoff can cause issues if it refreezes at night...so we want to reduce as much as possible. The forecast for the next 10 days is promising for melting. Sunny days with moderately warmer temperatures will help to melt the ice layer. All of our greens are covered with dark green permeable tarps that will attract sun and create a warmer area for melting.
During evaluation if we feel that we need to expedite the melting process we will apply black sand to attract the warm rays from the sun.

#1 Green snow blown down to a few inches of loose snow...

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Bunker construction on # 17

The past few days we have been able to make great strides on the bunker project on #17. All three of the new bunkers have been shaped and drained. Tuesday morning Ian Andrew our consulting golf course architect, will be painting the final contours in the bunkers. We will then install the bunker boards and back fill with topsoil to the new edges. Once the edges are established we will add the new sand and await sod. The rain and snow that we recieved over the last couple of days has had little effect on the rough shaping process. We are hoping for some drier days to complete the fine tuning and sod prepping.

Golf Course Update

As our season slowly comes to a end our department has been working away at year end projects. We installed drainage in a few areas of the practice range and short game area. These areas were perpetually wet and caused turf and aesthetic issues. We have also been chipping away at the bunkers on #17, smoothing out the faces and recreating the grass edges. These bunkers suffered some severe frost heaving in the faces during the winter after they were built. Our team has removed a number of trees and brush from around our maintenance facility to allow some expansion of our operation. We are working away at clearing space to install aggregate bins and sufficient staff parking. This will also allow delivery trucks and semi's to access our facility without any issues. We are also removing the fallen trees and brush from the woodlot on the right side of #16 fairway. This is a challenging area to work as it is a peat bog and remains wet even in the hottest and driest of summers (like 2010)...

Finish Grading on #2 & #12 Tees

With the great weather that we have had the last two days, we were able to get the tees shaped and all of the tee mix out to the tees. In this picture here, Derek Vergeer (our contractor) is finish grading #2 Tee to be ready for sod. Unfortunately the forecast is for rain the next couple of days and could hold us up for a bit. We are doing out best to complete these projects in a timely manner, of course with this blog we will keep you updated.

HIGHLAND CC GROUNDS

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