HIGHLAND CC GROUNDS

At this time of year the question always arises “When are we going to open the golf course?” Each and every year the opening date is based upon a number of factors. Moisture: We at HCC immediately think of moisture. Being a heavy clay based property, we tend to hold onto the moisture from the winter snow, rains etc. The club has invested a large amount of capital funding into a drainage project that has mitigated a lot of previously experienced issues, but there is still a lot of property not completely drained. In the spring there is a large amount of water at or just below the surface of the turf due to the fact that it hasn’t dried out in over 6 months. Traffic on this turf can result in heavy, more permanent damage like root shear and rutting. To open the golf course we feel that waiting for at least one drying event prior to opening protects us from this type of damage. Growth and recovery: In the early spring the soil temperatures are obviously very low. Turf growth ...

It is always an exciting time when our team removes our greens covers. After an up and down winter in 2018, we are happy to report that all of our greens have come out of the winter in nice condition. This is always a nice step into starting the season off right, hopefully a sign of more positive things to come!

Heading into our 2018 golf season the HCC Grounds Department will be utilizing our blog again to increase our communication efforts with our membership. As time went on we found that a lot of our posts were repetitive and redundant. Now that we have had a hiatus, we will be posting updates and notices via this blog as well as on Twitter and our communication board at the pro shop/1st Tee. The majority of the posts on this blog will be detailed plans of cultural practices and efforts. We will provide information on when, why and how we perform these all important tasks throughout the golf season. The communication board will be utilized for day to day information pertaining to play. We hope that you bookmark this page and visit regularly. For up to date short postings about the golf course and our department follow us on Twitter at @HCCGrounds. Let’s hope this snow melts and we can get those covers off soon!

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.

Our spring aeration of greens is just around the corner. We begin this Sunday evening at 4pm. We will work through the golf course in order, while utilizing temporary greens during the process. The process will continue on Monday. Our goal is to complete the full core aeration, core removal, rolling, over seeding, topdressing and brushing in of the sand before Monday night. Once the greens are finished we will be reopening them accordingly... Check out this short video produced by the USGA on the effect of aeration of putting surface quality.

Spring is here!! We opened the golf course just over a week ago and things are starting to shape up. We were fortunate to come out of the winter without damage to any of the surfaces on the property. This has allowed us to work away at typical spring tasks, as opposed to the last two seasons where we were pouring our time and labour into repairs, etc. Our staff have cleaned up the stump remains from our fall 2015 tree work and we are now in the process of sod prepping the areas. Our replacement trees will be delivered the week of April 25th, to be planted shortly thereafter. As we move forward our focus will move to our bunkers. Sand will be added and shifted where necessary. Other items on the list of "to do's" is to add irrigation to a few gardens, implementing regular mowing and cultural practices.  For the first week of opening we limited practicing to our range mats as the turf on the tee would not recover quickly enough. As of Monday, April 25th we are now onto th...

Spring has arrived and our greens covers have been removed. We are very happy to report that our greens (and the golf course in general) have come out of the winter in great shape! Shortly after Easter weekend our team will begin to clean up debris from all areas of play. Once the entire golf course is cleaned, mowing practices will begin. The first mowing of the season cleans a lot of the discoloured, desiccated leaf tissue off of the turf. This initial mowing increases the aesthetic appeal of the golf course greatly. Following mowing, we will begin to prepare our bunkers for play.  At this point we are not able to predict an opening date for the golf course. The forecast is integral to our pre-opening process. Rain, cold temperatures and frost can hamper progress when performing these all important tasks. Here is to a warm and dry spring!!!