COURSE UPDATE

          The warm temperatures today is allowing us to get some much needed work done to prepare the course for Winter. We sprayed greens this morning and completed our Winter Topdressing Application this afternoon.  We are cutting some sod around the greens to try and divert water from running onto the putting surfaces during the Winter months.  We are installing 8" Sumps over the XGD Drainage pipe on the greens where water collects with hopes of being able to pump the water off the greens during a thaw.  This should keep water from sitting on the greens for any length of time.

        Our final mowing of the season took place over a month ago at 50% higher than our normal height of cut.  We increased the frequency and rate of a wetting agent that encourages water infiltration to aide in moving water through the green.  Please be assured we are doing everything that can possibly be done to promote good health of our putting surfaces for the Winter months.

       The forecast for later in the week is calling for a chance of significant snow.  Because of the potential storm we will be applying the covers on the Old Course greens tomorrow.  This will close the Old Course for the season but the Falls will be available, weather permitting.  I know there was a lot of discussion last Spring about the covers causing the damage to the greens.  Rest assured the covers played no role in the damage that we sustained on our greens.

Sumps were installed in the greens to help remove
water during the winter once the greens freeze.  We
will use electric pumps to remove water from greens.

Sod was stripped to help divert water from running onto the greens on #6, #10, and #18.

       The heavy sand topdressing helps to protect the crown of the plant and insulates the delicate Poa-Annua plants during the Winter Months.  Even with all these efforts we are putting into place we are still in the mercy of Mother Nature.  The best case scenario would for us to not to have to hear the words Polar Vortex the entire Winter.  We will be keeping a very close eye on the greens this Winter.  During periods of snow cover we will be monitoring the greens for any ice accumulation.  If the greens are snow covered and a thaw is expected we will begin removing snow off the greens.  This will keep the snow from melting on the greens and refreezing.

We will keep you posted of our precautionary maintenance practices throughout the Winter months.

Thank you and have a nice holiday,

Gregory Boring,
Golf Course Superintendent

Tee Project

The tees will be sodded over the next two days. The contractor who is leveling the tees will be finished this morning. 20 pallets of sod arrived this morning and we expect another 20 tomorrow.

TEE WORK

          Today the Green Department began a Tee Leveling Project that we hope to complete by the end of next week.  We have identified several tee boxes throughout the property in need of leveling and we began the process of stripping the sod today.  A contractor will be in here next Tuesday for a few days to perform the actually leveling process but the Green Department will be performing most of the prep and sod work. These tees will be sodded with new sod and will be closed for a few weeks next Spring.

       We will also begin replacing the cart paths on holes 2 and 15 next week.  These paths have deteriorated in recent years and are in dire need of replacement.  We expect this work to begin on Monday.


Thank you,

Gregory Boring,
Golf Course Superintendent

COURSE UPDATE

           With temperatures in the upper 70's earlier this week it has been a great opportunity for some Fall golf at The Country Club of Scranton.  It has also been a good opportunity for the Green Department to get some work completed on the property.  We are continuing to Verti-cut and Topdress fairways.  We have also been able to aerify and topdress approaches and tees.  On Monday, November 3rd we will begin aerifying and verticutting the Old Course Greens.  This will be an aggressive process and will also be very time consuming.  The Fall's Greens, which were aerated a few weeks ago are being mowed today and have healed well, considering they were aerified in early October, will be available.   We are going to make a push to complete everything next week due to the impending lay-off of 90% of the Green Department staff.  The Old Course will remain open next week but it may be necessary to close a hole temporarily to complete the required maintenance.

         Next week you may also see a paving contractor on property doing some much needed improvements to our cart paths.  We will be concentrating our work on #2 and #15.  We will also begin stripping some tees throughout the property so they can be leveled and planted with new sod.  This process will take about a week to complete.  We will be using the sod that we remove from the tees to sod several damaged areas on the Old Course Fairways.

       As you can see there is still a great deal of work to be completed before the onset of Winter.  We have raised the height of cut on our greens to its highest height in the past seven years to prepare the greens for Winter.  We have also increased our fertilizer applications to prepare the plant for the Winter months.  We are doing everything possible to prepare our putting surfaces for what could be another Winter with below average temperatures.

Thank you,

Gregory Boring,
Golf Course Superintendent

Fairway Cultivation

 We are performing an aggressive verticut-cut process to the fairways.  Once they are cleaned up we will be applying approximately 300 ton of sand to the Old Course fairways.  

Naturalized Area Expanded around #8 Pines Tee

The area surrounding the tee complex on #8 Pines has been converted to Fescue Grasses.  This area has limited irrigation and the large area is very labor intensive to mow and maintain on a weekly basis.  The newly planted Fescue Grasses is the perfect grass due to the limited irrigation and will not require the weekly mowing that the area requires now.  This should have no impact on the playability of the hole.

COURSE UPDATE

COURSE UPDATE

            Aerification has been completed and the Golf Course is in recovery mode from the August Aerifiction.  Greens are on schedule with healing and we are going to being cutting them on a daily basis.  Following aerification we have to discontinue our normal mowing practices due to the amount of sand on the greens.  The sand topdressing will dull the mower blades therefore we decrease the frequency in which we cut them to try and salvage the mowers.   We also have to wait until the greens are dry to mow them because the wet sand will stick to the mowers and reels and will expedite the dulling of the mowers. 

            We realize that aerification is never a popular maintenance practice but it is a necessary one and there is never a good time to complete this task.  We currently aerify three times a year.  We punch very small holes in early June with bigger holes being utilized in August and November.  These practices are essential to the health and playability to our putting surfaces.  The August aerifiction is our most aggressive aerifiction due to the fact that everything is actively growing and will recover quickly.  We also have the full force of all of our summer staff to help with the process, which allows us to perform this process quickly and effectively. 

            Our plan the remainder of the week is to mow and roll the greens everyday through Sunday.   This should result in a significant improvement to greens over the next few days.   The process and mowing schedule used this year following aerification is the same that we have used in previous years.  Recovery for this process is essentially two weeks.  Now that we are beginning to get a better quality of cut on the greens we will see rapid improvement over the next few days.   

            Thank you for your patience and understanding during this time,

Gregory Boring,

Golf Course Superintendent

COURSE UPDATE

         The Green Department has been busy this week with the Memorial Tournament  behind us.  We have been constructing a 5000ft2 (approx size of #1 Green) Green's Nursery behind #8 Green that will be grassed early next week.  We will be utilizing the plugs we pull off the greens from the aerification process, so this nursery will be made up of the same grass we currently have on our greens.  We have also been repairing a few small irrigation leaks throughout the property.  We should have these repaired by the end of today.

         We will begin our Summer Aerification process on Sunday evening.  We will begin punching the Willow's Greens late Sunday afternoon.  For this reason the afternoon rotation for Sunday afternoon will remain the North Course from 11:00 through the remainder of the day.  Eighteen holes will be available all day.  We will begin aerifying and topdressing fairways on Monday.  This is our aggressive aerification of the year, when we punch the bigger holes.  The reason we do it in August is because the grass is actively growing and will recover much quicker than if we performed this in the Spring or Fall.

          It will take us approximately three to four days to complete the process.  During this time some holes may be closed to allow us to complete this process as quickly as possible so we can begin the recovery process.  We should also expect much slower green speeds during the next ten days due to the reduction in the frequency of mowing and the amount of sand that will be applied to the greens.  This will be our last aerifiction to the greens until early November.

We realize that aerification is never a popular procedure but it is a necessary one to promote strong healthy turf.  We thank you for your cooperation next week and hope to return the golf course to normal conditions as quickly as possible.

Thank you,
Greg Boring,
Golf Course Superintendent

COURSE UPDATE

          The Greens continue to get better by the day.  We have been very conservative with all the greens this week due to the heat we are currently experiencing.  We will drop the height slightly on the last four greens to open this Friday.  This process will continue based on the weather until all the greens are the same height.  Dropping these greens too quickly could delay the complete recovery of the greens or worse cause them to decline.  This has already happen to several courses in the Northeast that pushed their greens to quickly.
       
         We are currently working on a regressing project around #17 tee complex.  This are will be completed tomorrow afternoon.  Many of you may have noticed some miscellaneous seeding around the cart paths.  This is damage due to carts pulling off the paths around greens and tees.  We ask that we keep all four wheels on the paths around the greens and tee boxes.  This will help many of these areas to grow in and look more aesthetically pleasing.  We are continue to make improvements to the golf course by sodding some areas in the fairways and should have most of that completed by the end of the week.

Thank you,

Greg Boring,
Golf Course Superintendent

USGA Article on Soft Spikes

USGA: Northeast

Getting Better Every Day

After one of the worst winters many of us have ever seen the greens are nearly recovered from the unprecedented winter injury that occurred this year.  Even though a few greens have a few thin areas and four greens are a little slower than the rest of them, the golf course is starting to take shape.  Here is a look back at the strides we have taken in the past 3 months.

10 Green April 15

10 Green May 10

10 Green June 26

18 Green April 15

18 Green May 15

18 Green June 26

COURSE UPDATE

          The hard work that has been done the last couple of months has finally begun to pay off.  This week with the help of some rain from Mother Nature we have seen a drastic improvement in the damaged greens.  

          It is my pleasure to report that we will be opening the remaining four greens next Friday, June 20th.  We will begin mowing them with more frequency next week but they will be noticeably slower than the greens that have been open and we've been utilizing in the daily rotation.  We will have to be cautious with all the young seedlings on these greens but things should begin to get back to normal very soon.  

        Once again, we appreciate and thank you for your patience during much of this Spring with the many inconveniences.  The Green Department has been extremely busy to try and expedite the recovery process.  I would also like to thank my staff for their dedication, hard work, and tireless hours to help with the recovery process.  

Thank you, 

Gregory Boring

#8 Pines

Hydroseeding the lake bank along #8 tee.  

COURSE UPDATE

         A lot has been done on the golf course since the last update.  As mentioned a few weeks ago we elected to aerify the Old Course Greens several weeks ago and skipped the scheduled aerification on the Old Course yesterday.  We did aerify the Falls Greens as well as the putting green.  We also performed a procedure on the Old Course Greens that injected compressed air into the soil of the Old Course Greens and will help water to move laterally in the soil and help find the existing drainage in the greens.  This is intended to allow our greens to drain more effectively during the summer months.  This will not aid in drainage while the soil is frozen during the Winter.  .

        We have continued the seeding process on many of the greens.  We are continuing  to seed greens weekly and fertilized twice per week.  Greens on holes #9,#10,#14, and #18 are being aerated and topdressed today to prepare them for opening.  We don't have a date at this time of when they will be open for play but it should be soon.  The sod is rooting well on #14 and #10 and we have continued to roll the areas to allow for a smooth playing surface.  A little rain this week should only expedite the recovery process.

        We will be fertilizing fairways, tees, and approaches next week.  This is about two weeks behind schedule due to our cooler than average spring.  We have also been replacing a substantial amount of plant material around the clubhouse grounds that did not make it through the rough winter.

         The twenty-three greens that are open continue to get better every day.  The frequent mowing is resulting in increased smoothness and increased ball roll.  We have continue to mow the greens much higher than we normally do to continue to allow the thin areas to fill in.  We verticut and top dressed the greens yesterday that will aide in providing a smoother, more consistent putting surface.  The Poa-Annua  seedheads continue to flower on the greens.  This is also causing some bumpiness that we typically have to manage every years in late May and early June.  Poa-Annua usually produces a seedhead for about two weeks that causes the greens to have a white haze look to them and causes the greens to become bumpy during this time period.

       With any luck this week we will get a couple timely rain events that will help speed up the recovery process.  The new seed has really started to germinate in the last two weeks and some natural rainfall will only help this process.  We will continue to keep you posted.

Thank you,

Gregory Boring

Improvement Continues

APRIL 21, 2014

MAY 19, 2014

COURSE UPDATE

          The Green Department has been diligently working to expedite the recovery process of the greens.  We continue to see progress with the greens even with the recent colder nighttime temperatures.  The greens have been covered the last three nights due to these colder temperatures.  

          We have completed plugging the putting green and are allowing those plugs to root properly before opening up the putting green.  We anticipate having the putting green open for the weekend.  The sod on #10 and #14 has begun to root and we have started the mowing and toprdressing procedure on these greens to help smooth the sod and prepare it for putting quality.  Friday we will be changing the rotation to the Old Course but will keep four greens closed.  The rotation will consist of playing holes 1-8, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17 then 1, 2, 8, and 9 on the Falls.  We will keep you posted on when the final four greens will open.  Greens on holes 9, 10, 14, and 18 continue to lag behind the others.   

          Even with opening more greens we will continue to treat several greens a little different.  Several of the greens that have opened still have a few thin areas that need to be grown-in.  We are treating these greens a little different than the Falls Greens.  They are fertilized more and are mowed with a different mower at a different height of cut.  This results in the green being considerably slower than the Falls.  We have kept the heights up on the Falls greens to try and match the speed but the heavy amounts of fertilizer given to Old Course greens are causing them to grow at a much faster rate.  Mowing the Old Course greens lower and reducing the amount of fertilizer that is being applied to them will only slow down the recovery process.  Our goal is to get them healthy and 100% covered with grass.   We will continue to need warmer air temperatures to help increase our soil temperatures for this to happen.   

        I will be addressing the Membership tomorrow at the May Membership Meeting.  I hope to answer many of the question that you may have.  

Thank you, 

Gregory Boring

Very Wet Conditions

The standing water on #18 Green yesterday is in the exact
area where ice damage was sustained.   

The Golf Course received over 2.25" of rain yesterday.  We will be able to mow greens today but expect soft and very slow conditions.

Course Update

         The recent warm up has been a welcomed change for the Green Department.  We have continued to seed the damaged greens once a week and continue to see steady progress.  We are going to open up three more holes this Friday that will give us an18 hole rotation.  We will be opening #6, #7, and #12.  Terry will be sending out an email about the order in which the holes will be played.  There are still a few thin areas on these greens so please avoid these areas while you are walking on and off these greens.

         Most of the greens are making steady progress.  Greens on holes 9, 10, 14,18 and the putting green have continued to lag behind the others and will take some more time until they are ready to be opened.  We will continue to keep you updated with their status.  Due to the fact that #14 green was lagging behind we made a decision to sod the two severe areas on #14 and had some additional sod we used on #10.  This is very unique sod that is made of Poa Annua which is the same grass we have on our greens.  This sod was in very high demand this Spring due to the widespread damage and we were able to get 2000 square feet to use on our most damaged areas.  This was the last of the sod this farm had available.  This sod was laid last night and it will take time to smooth the sod and develop roots to allow foot traffic on the green.

        We continue to remove plugs from #4 Falls green and they are currently being used to repair damage on the putting green.  Once the putting green is completed we will be sodding the right side of #4 Falls with sod from #2 Falls fairway.  The driving range tee is finally beginning to grow and we will be opening up the grass part of the tee on Friday of this week.

       The Green Department and I would like to thank the membership for their patience during this difficult situation.  Things are moving in the right direction and more holes will be opening up soon.  One of my main goals was to have at least 18 holes open and we will accomplish this on Friday.  We continue to seed and nurse the remaining greens back to health and will only be a matter of time before we have all 27 holes open.

Thank you,

Gregory Boring

HAVE WE MADE ANY PROGRESS?

Todays Update

          The expected warm up coming over the next few days has allowed us to pull the covers and we plan on keeping them off due to the expected warmer nighttime temperatures.  The weather over the past three weeks has been anything but ideal to promote recovery.  Even with the below average temperatures we were able to utilize the covers to promote some new growth and seed germination.  Without the use of the covers we would not have recovered as much as we have.  The soil temperatures under the cover is approximately six degrees higher than an area that is uncovered.  Even though installing and removing covers are labor intensive it has helped us promote recovery of the greens.

          The removal of the covers this morning has allowed us to properly evaluate the greens.  Even though we have seen some progress we have decided at this time to continue utilizing the currently 15 hole course through the weekend and reevaluate early next week.  We were hoping to open a few more holes for the weekend but with multiple areas in the green still damaged and very tender delicate seedlings we feel it is best to keep the greens closed at this time.  Opening these greens too early would only delay the full recovery of these greens.

          The expected warmer temperatures in combination with our aggressive fertilization program should result in significant growth over the next 5-7 days.  The covers will remain off as long as nighttime temperatures stay mild.  This should allow the turf to respond from the air and sun exposure.  We will continue to monitor the progress over the weekend and update the membership of the progress early next week.

Thank you,

Gregory Boring

COURSE UPDATE

          The last couple of nights have been in the mid 30's which has forced us to keep the greens covered for most of this week.  We plan on pulling the covers tomorrow to allow us to make a more thorough evaluation of the progress this week.  We also may be leaving the covers off for a few days due to the more mild weather during the day as well as our nighttime temperatures.  We will be posting more pictures on Friday to better illustrate the progress that has been made.

          We have continued to remove plugs from #4 Falls green and utilize them on the Old Course Greens.  We will begin sodding the right side of #4 Falls early next week.  Once we have had a chance tomorrow to evaluate the greens we will be sending out a more detailed update of our progress and the potential of more holes opening.

Continue to visit www.ccscrantongreen.blogspot.com for updated pictures.


Thank you,

Gregory Boring

COURSE UPDATE

          We've received plenty of rain and wind the last couple of days which has kept us busy trying to keep the greens covered.  The good news is that we have seed germination this morning for the first time since we seeded exactly two weeks ago.  We are leaving the covers on today to help with the germination process.  The covers will be removed tomorrow to allow us to fertilize the greens and better evaluate.

          We have decided at this point to open more holes on the Pines.  Holes 1-5 and #8 will open for play Saturday morning.  Terry will be posting the order in which we will be playing the holes.  We also made the decision early this week to go ahead and pull small aerification plugs while we were closed so we don't have to inconvenience the membership again by aerifying the Old Course on June 2nd, when we were originally scheduled to do so.  We will go ahead and aerify only the Falls greens on June 2nd.

          The Green Committee has decided to move in the right side of #4 Falls green about 10 feet to help keep balls from rolling off the right side of the green.  Rather than just letting the grass grow up we have decided to utilize the section of the green to make repairs to the Old Course Greens and will be sodding the right side of #4 Falls with fairway sod from #2 Falls fairway.  Once we have utilized the sod we need from #2 Falls fairway we will move in the step cut and seed the rough that has been harvested to make repairs to other areas of the course.  This is a process we used during the renovation project.

          Please check the Green Department Blog tomorrow for updated pictures and further updates at:
www.ccscrantongreen.blogspot.com


Thank you,
Gregory Boring

Golf Course Update

            The covers were pulled this morning to allow us to evaluate the progress and apply a fertilizer application.   The weather this week was not what we had hoped for.  The average high this week was 57 degrees while the average low was 36 degrees.  These temperatures do not promote rapid growth or seed germination.

            After removing the covers the results were very consistent with our expectation given the below average temperatures.  We are starting to see recovery on damaged areas especially on greens such as #1, #7, #8, #11, #13, and #15.  The more severe greens such as #9, #10, #14, #18 and the putting green are slowly filling in, but we need to start getting new seed germination to see drastic improvement to these greens.   The low temperatures are not conducive to seed germination but the covers have been left on the majority of the time to aide in increasing our soil temperatures. 

            The positive news is that even with our cooler temperatures we have seen some improvement to all the greens.  Pictures taken last week as compared to this week show a dramatic increase in color and growth.   Damaged areas are beginning to fill in from the extreme edges and pushing towards the center of the damage.   This progress should allow us to begin opening more holes of golf in the very near future, but we need to continue to be patient.  Opening these greens too early could result in greens that struggle and potentially fail during the stressful summer temperatures.   We will continue to evaluate greens frequently to determine when we can open more holes for play. 

            During the last few weeks I have been asked many questions and I wanted to address some of the more frequent questions. 

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

1.  Why didn’t the Falls Greens sustain the same damage as the Old Course Greens?

            The Falls Greens have more surface drainage than the Old Course Greens.  What this actually means is water will run off the green surface due to the slope of the green before it has an opportunity to freeze and cause an ice situation. 

2.  Why didn’t the covers protect us from the damage?

            The covers are made of a permeable material and allow water and air to flow through it.  The covers are designed to protect us from extreme cold temperature damage as well as wind burn to the grass during years with little or no snow cover to the property. 

3.  Why didn’t some of the other area clubs experience the same damage we did?

            Our original Walter Travis greens are some of the most unique putting surfaces anywhere the game of golf is played.  The contours and undulations are bold, challenging, while also being so much fun to putt.  Unfortunately, the low-lying areas in the greens hold water.  As compared to the Falls Greens, they do not allow water to flow off the green before it has a chance to freeze.  Water on many of the Old Course Greens becomes trapped and the frozen soil does not allow the drainage under the greens to effectively remove the water from the greens.  This water freezes and thaws and refreezes which is the perfect recipe for ice damage.

4.  When will we have all 27 holes open?

            Honestly, we don’t know the answer to this question.  There are a lot of different variable that weigh in on this.  Most importantly is the weather.  We will be able to open up more holes soon, but some of the majority of the severely damaged areas, are going to take some time. 

            I appreciate the continued support and patience that our membership has shown.  Please rest assured we are doing everything possible to expedite the recovery process.  We will continue to keep you posted on the recovery process and will be opening more greens when we are assured they are healthy enough to open.  

Green Status Update

Monday's warmer weather allowed us to remove the covers and spray the greens with some fertilizer and fungicide.  We saw some recovery on many of the green.  Several of the green that weren't completely damaged have started to green up.  Unfortunately, with the cold nighttime temperatures we haven't seen any seed germination from the seed that was planted last week.  Looking at the forecast we will keep the covers on the greens until at least Friday.  We will remove the covers on Friday and apply more fertilizer and reevaluate.  As for when we will reopen some greens on the Old Course, I will have a better answer for you on Friday after we get a chance to reevaluate.

#1 Green has bounced back quite well.  We are looking forward to
seeing what it looks like on Friday.

#10 Continue to be one of our most severe green.  We are going to need seed
germination for this green to recover.

The Putting Green is showing sign of recovery but also feel
we are going to need seed germination

# 7 Green is recovering well also.  This green has been seeded but we are
getting recovery from the existing damaged Poa Annua. 

Earth Day Visitors

We had a couple of visitors today on the golf course.  Two Bald Eagles were spotted on #8 Pines near Summit Lake.

Winter Injury Update

2" of Rain fell on the golf course during the day on
Tuesday.  All the areas where water pooling is
occurring are the same ares that sustained winter damage.

Tuesday's rain ended as ice and snow for Wednesday morning.

There is no question how tough of a week this was for not only the Grounds Department but also the membership of The Country Club of Scranton.  This week saw a little of everything.  We started out Monday with 30 mph sustained winds.  Then Tuesday we awoke to torrential downpours which brought over 2" of rain to the property.  Wednesday morning we had to shovel an inch of snow and ice off the greens to allow our USGA Agronomist to look at our greens.  Thursday allowed us to get to work on the recovery and seeding process.  Fifteen of the nineteen Old Course Greens were aerified, slit-seeded, topdressed, lightly brushed, fertilized, watered, and the covers we put back on.  We have been applying light but frequent amounts of water to the greens since they were seeded on Thursday.  The freezing nighttime temperatures are not helping our seed germination efforts however.  We have continued to cover the greens each night as well as during the day based on air temperatures.

We borrowed this machine from another club to aide us
in the seeding process. 

The plan for tomorrow is to remove the covers and apply some liquid fertilizer, and fungicide to the greens.  This will also allow us to evaluate any progress we have made.  We will also be taking pictures of all the greens so we can effectively be able to compare the greens from week to week.  As soon as we feel it is safe to open more greens we will certainly do so.  We thank you for your patience and hope to give your golf course back to you quickly as we can.

The seed and topdressing was then lightly brushed in and
fertilized.  We then watered the green and applied the
covers back onto the putting surfaces because of our
low nighttime temperatures.  

Millions of Bentgrass seeds were cut into these
grooves and aerification holes.

Course Update

The damage that has occurred on #10 this years is as severe as I
have seen in my 20 years in the business.  We have started the
recovery process with seeding and frequent fertilizer
applications.  As bad as this looks we have been here before
most recently in 2011.  It will recover.  It's just going to take a lot
of hard work and patience.

This is a picture of the damage that occurred in 2011.
The damage this year is in a similar location and
pattern.  Water continue to be our nemesis
during the winter.

The Green Committee had an opportunity to join me, my first assistant Jeff, and Darin Bevard of the USGA today to assess firsthand the winter damage to the Old Course greens. The damage is the worst I have seen in my 20 years in the business. Although the greens were covered, the freezing, thawing and refreezing created the perfect storm of bad conditions for these greens.  Darin reported many other fine clubs in the Northeast have experience similar damage.

The Falls greens fared much better because they have better water run-off and have a sand composition different from the design of the Old Course greens. We are reseeding the damaged greens, which also suffered from the 80 degree highs over the weekend followed by freezing temperatures today. This seeding process and the healing of these greens will require minimal traffic. Accordingly, we anticipate the Old Course will be closed for at least the next three weeks if we get some warm weather to assist us. The Falls nine will be open for play every day. If we can re-open the Old Course earlier we will certainly try to do that.

Please be assured we are working very hard each day to restore our course to the condition the membership deserves, and we will be communicating with you each week to apprise you of our progress.

Thank you in advance for your understanding and support.

Gregory Boring, 
Golf Course Superintendent

Green's Status Update

          The warm weather over the weekend resulted in a green up of the property.  It also allowed us to further evaluate the condition of the greens that were damaged over the winter.  Unfortunately, the results were not what we were hoping for.  Many of you had the opportunity to see the damage for the first time this weekend.  I fielded many of questions about the condition of the greens.

           The warm temperatures have also allowed us to begin the recovery process.  All the damaged areas are being seeded and fertilized today.  The irrigation system is being pressurized today to allow us to keep the seed moist for proper germination.  We will continue to utilize the covers during cold nights and cooler days.  This will assist us in keeping soil temperatures up to allow for seed germination.  Once seed begins to emerge it is imperative that we keep traffic to a minimum to allow the areas to fill in...This is why certain holes need to be closed for a few more weeks so we can be in top shape for the season.

           Many of the questions that I answered this weekend had to do with the covers.  Our covers are made of a permeable material.  The permeable material allows the greens to breath during the winter months.  The covers are intended to protect the greens from extreme wind and extreme cold temperatures.  Covers do not protect greens from ice damage.  Which is what happened this season.  Our Poa Annua greens are very susceptible to ice damage.  The contours in our greens are an architectural masterpiece.  They do have their issues when it comes to the agronomics of growing grass.  During the summer months many of the low-lying areas in our greens held water.  This is why we installed drainage in all the greens during the Fall of 2009.  The drainage has worked effectively in removing water from our green during the season.  However, once the ground freezes during the winter this water sits in the low lying areas of our greens and freezes.  Around the 20th of February this winter we experienced a couple of warm days followed by a significant amount of rain.  This moisture went to the bottom of the snow pack and froze.  We started removing snow and ice from the greens the second week of March.  Several low areas had up to 6" of ice accumulation.

           We realize that this is a major inconvenience to the start of the 2014 season.  This is not the first time this has occurred and we always seem to weather the storm and manage to get through it.  Darin Bevard our USGA Agronomist will be on property later in the week to provide us some insight on what he is seeing during his visits this Spring.  I will forward the membership Darin's comments about the visit and report on our progress consistently until our greens have completely healed.

Gregory Boring,
Golf Course Superintendent