HIGHLAND CC GROUNDS

Here is a link to an article that Robert Thompson of CandianGolfer.com authored on the devastation that has hit Ontario golf clubs as a result of the extreme winter that we all experienced... http://canadiangolfer.com/g4g/2014/04/25/ontario-courses-with-poa-greens-struggle-to-deal-with-cold-weather-carnage/

The golf course and practice areas will be opening this Saturday, April 26th. This opening date is a little bit behind our usual dates, but I think that after the winter we experienced we are fortunate to be opening before May! For the first time in my Highland career we will be opening the golf course with some temporary greens. As mentioned previously on this blog we suffered a fair bit of winter injury to our greens. Holes #1, #4, #8, #10 and #12 will have temporary greens mowed into the approaches for an undetermined period of time. Restricting play and traffic on these greens will allow full recovery in a reduced amount of time. We have instituted a plan of recovery including weekly fertilizer applications, constant moisture monitoring, plugging and minor sod replacement as well as light topdressing to fill in any gaps. We are scheduled to core aerify our greens on Sunday, May 3rd and Monday, May 4th. During that process we will be incorporating a healthy rate of Creeping Bentgra

Typically on the weekend of the Masters we are open and going full swing into spring, but not this season. The extremely long and harsh winter of 2014 continued well into March, therefore pushing back course preparations considerably. The weather has been up and down like a roller coaster. If you are a regular follower of this blog then you know that we have been dealing with ice accumulation on our greens since late December. Now that the snow has all melted and we have had a chance to inspect each and every green we can see the results of this epic winter. We did experience varying degrees of winter damage on our putting greens. The Poa Annua population on our greens is high (typical of an old classic golf course) and this particular species of grass is very susceptible to winter/ice damage. At this point we do not know the full extent of the damage as the seasonal temperatures have not been reached yet. A lot of the damaged looking turf could still be dormant, waiting for warmer so