Course Open This Weekend

Still some snow and ice on the course. Here's what #6 cart path looks like today.

#13 cart path is ice.

We have applied ice melt and will try and physically remove the snow and ice before opening on Saturday. Expected opening time is 9 am with range open at 8:30 am.

#7 will be played from the forward tee as the tee complex is snow and ice covered.

The greens and tees have been blown off and work on cleaning of the cart paths is currently underway. Expect to see plenty of sticks and branches throughout the course. As mentioned in my previous blog post it will take us at least several weeks to clean the course up.

In terms of turf damage there is some disease on the fairways. Most notably on #5, #12 and #14. These areas should recover during spring green-up. The back of #9 green looks like it has some desiccation damage that we will address.

Finally, our seasonal staff is scheduled to start Monday, March 24th. This is also when we will aerify greens, tees and approaches.

Still Snow

Photo of #4 green taken on Monday, March 10, 2014:

Photo of #18 fairway taken on Monday, March 10, 2014:

As you can see there is still some snow on the course. Not to mention plenty of sticks and other debris. After touring parts of the course we noticed a lot of mud everywhere due to the melting snow.
It will take us weeks to completely clean the course of all debris, limbs, sticks, etc but our goal (weather permitting) is to open this weekend for play.

Almost Spring

The Golf Course Agronomy team is ready for the upcoming Spring golf season! We've been doing plenty of sanding, staining and painting this Winter to get all the golf course accessories ready.

Here are the newly refurbished tee markers with the right side being the old and the left newly painted:

Here is a comparison of our driving range clock and yardage signs. The yardage sign on the right has been stained while the clock on the left has not:

As the snow melts look for more blog posts to come!

Snow Melt?

Here's a picture taken from behind #7 green just a few moments ago.

Another photo of what #2 green currently looks like:

Hoping for a big snow melt today. Please look for additional information from Jim Larkin and our golf shop staff regarding the possibility of play for tomorrow.

Crossing the Finish Line for Fall 2013

With a rainy Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday expected we are really doing our best to complete the mowing, clean-up and spraying of native areas by the morning. Starting next week through Mid-March there will be 4 of us working to remove leaves from the golf course and do the needed work over the Winter months. Irrigation system blow-out will take place Monday and Tuesday (December 2-3). This involves using an air compressor to move water out of all the pipes to prevent the freezing and cracking of these pipes. During January's shutdown, weather permitting, some minor cart path repairs will take place between #2 green and #3 tee (next to #11 tees), #8 and #18. Our main priority after leaf clean-up will be the improvement of growing conditions of greens and green surrounds.

The Finish Line is in Sight

With our seasonal staff set to depart at the end of next week we are pushing hard to finish our #1 priority for the Fall. That is the mowing, clean-up and spraying of the native areas. We started the process on August 29th and have so far put in almost 900 man hours of work. My prediction is that close to 1,000 man hours will be needed. Spread out over a year this equates to one part time associate. However, in an ideal situation this work would be completed in a 2-3 week period in September. This is difficult to do while also having the staff to maintain the golf course during those 2-3 weeks.

Once natives are completed we will move on to leaf clean-up. There is still lots of work to do and hopefully the weather will cooperate to allow us to reach the finish line.

End of Season Work

The last day for the majority of our seasonal staff was Friday, October 31st. We will have another 5 seasonal staff members stay with us through the end of November.

Our priority remains mowing and spraying native areas. Due to the difficult terrain much of this work needs to be done by hand and thus takes much longer then if we could use equipment on the steep slopes here at Fieldstone.

We are probably at the height of trees dropping their leaves right now and with the amount of trees here at Fieldstone it is difficult to keep up.