Monday, February 21

The President's Day Ice Storm

After enjoying a couple of warm, lovely days with the snow melting and the birds chirping, Mother Nature decided to remind us that it's February.  The President's Day ice storm didn't seem bad, until the wind whipped up and decided to level trees, power lines, and just generally wreak havoc across our region.

I did manage to skate around the course to assess the damage, and didn't much like what I found.  Many limbs succumbed to the weight of the ice and left piles of debris around the bottom of the trees as if to disrobe in a rather hasty fashion.  Pine trees were most affected, due to the weight of all the frozen needles, but deciduous trees were also affected (elms and willows were the worst).  Unfortunately, many larger trees are going to be dramatically scarred from this storm at best, and perhaps killed at worst.

We will be forced to perform some major pruning and cleanup, that will start as soon as we can safely get on the course without doing major damage to the turf.

On the bright side, I have yet to see any trees completely lost, and no greens or tees have been hit with any large trees or limbs.  The storm is continuing to blast away as this is being written, so let's all cross our fingers and hope the worst is behind us. 
The white pines near #15 tee shed quite a few limbs.

About a half-inch of ice covered just about every surface.

You can see the pines especially weighted down.


That isn't snow folks.  Pure, crunchy layer of ice encasing the golf course wall-to-wall.  Wish I had a Zamboni, we could have an open skate to start the season. 

Pines between 13 and 14 lost a lot of limbs.

It's probably hard to see in this picture, but one entire side of that pine tree has almost no limbs.

I just thought this was kind of cool.  Pin on #8 encased in ice.

This may be the saddest of all the trees affected.  The beautiful white pine adjacent to #6 fairway bunker took a lot of damage.

A farther back picture of the tree on #6.  The frozen 'pond' in the foreground is the fairway bunker.

The Elm trees, with lots of fine, brittle branches also took a great deal of damage.  Here's the large elms on #9.


You can see how the overall silhouette of this elm will be affected by the loss of limbs. 

The big melt down, for now.

With the unseasonably warm temperatures last thursday and friday, a great deal of snow had melted off the course.  The course looked as though it had weathered the winter just fine.  There was no major damage to report, but some interesting pictures and observations to note.  Of course, having said this, two days later we were smacked with snow, ice, and wind.

See the brown 'U-shaped' marks right of the blackberry case?  That's what happens when deer ignore the 'course closed' sign and run across a frosty green.

This is behind #14 green.  The green is free of snow mold, but behind the green, in the shade is a multitude of infection centers.  Goes to show what a big impact shade has on disease development.  On the sunny areas of the rough, there wasn't nearly as much snow mold as this moist, shady area.

A close up look at snow mold in the rough.  Not really a problem at rough height turf, but can be a problem on greens and fairways.


Some random mycelia about.

This is a favorite of mine.  Here's 12 fairway on Friday.  Full sun, clean of disease, the snow entirely melted.  Look at the picture below to compare.




Here's #2 fairway, right next to #12, taken at the exact same time as the above photo of #12.  Full sun, but the presence of the large trees and houses to the side of the prevailing wind disrupt air flow and sun enough to keep this fairway wetter and cooler longer.  It's no wonder this fairway can struggle when the weather gets bad.  Holes 2-5, and 8 struggle because of this same issue.

Friday, February 18

Winter Woes

When I meet new people and they find out what I do for a living, they often like to remark that the winter "must be like a vacation". I will admit that it is less stressful than the day to day golf schedule, high summer temperatures, and the usual daily HR woes, but there are still a lot of potential issues that can pop up over the winter and bite a superintendent in the butt. Namely, winter kill, ice damage, snow mold, varmint damage, and a few other things are always in the back of our minds.

As usual, the USGA Green Section has a few updates from around the country as superintendents start to deal with the woes of winter and get ready to put their courses back together.

Click below:
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/USGA-Green-Section-Record--February-18--2011.html?soid=1103157499740&aid=vUhEFLp7Odw

Tuesday, February 15

A fresh coat of paint for the ball washers

Hopefully, spring will be here sooner than later, and we can get back to the golf course.  Until then, there is still no shortage of tasks that need finishing.  Just this week, the staff installed new plumbing for the shop's compressed air.  We have had several blowouts of our aging cpvc pipe, and we replaced it ourselves with modern, proper air lines.  Also, Dave and Gary have been hard at work putting the finishing touches on the ball washers.  Here's hoping the snow melts and the ground thaws soon, and we can get y'all back on the course!

Dave, AKA 'Earl Scheib Jr.' with his trusty spray gun.

12 down, a few more to go.  We will wait a couple days and then put them back together for the season.

Friday, February 11

Over 1,000 hits to this blog!

I just checked the stats on this blog, and there have been over 1000 member views as of today!  There's a noticable spike every wednesday generally after the blast emails, telling me that the majority of the traffic is member-based. 

I'm really glad to see members engaged with what we do down in the maintenance building, and I will continue to make every effort to keep interesting and informative content related to our operation.

Also, please feel free to comment on the posts.  I love to get feedback, and have so far responded to every comment.  The point of this blog is to inform through content and answering questions, so feel free to comment as you please.

I will be back from Orlando this week, and will get caught up with my winter work pictures soon.  Hope you are all staying warm.

PGA Show attendance and participation shows positive signs for 2011

 Below is a link to a golf trade magazine report from the PGA Merchandise Show this past January in Orlando.  For once, a little positive press on the golf industry.  Hopefully it's a sign of better things to come in a depressed industry, and the economy in general.  Emphasis on the word 'hopefully'.

http://www.worldgolf.com/newswire/browse/66139-PGA-Merchandise-Show-suggests-wave-positive-momentum-golf

Wednesday, February 9

Orlando for the GIS

This week I am in Orlando at the Golf Industry Show and GCSAA Education Conference. I am headed to day one of the trade show, and was reading a few emails and happened upon this little release. Today, Toro will introduce the first Lithium Ion battery powered greensmowers! An exciting step towards 'green' grass growing. (I bet they are NOT cheap) I will see if I can get a look at this thing today.


Check them out.
Golf Course Industry : Toro reveals four new greensmowers at GIS

Friday, February 4

Leadership

I was given this link through one of my professional networks, and it was a brisk, interesting, and mildly inspiring article about leadership as extracted from the principles of Colin Powell.  I just thought I would share it.

Click below:
Some Leadership advice from Colin Powell

Tuesday, February 1

Golf Course Industry : Trees on the golf course

Here's a USGA video with a very simple explanation of how most superintendents view trees on the golf course. Few things we do create more of a stir than removing trees. Even the removal of dead trees creates a degree of anxiety among some of the more 'tree hugging' members.

As this video explains, we try to balance the beauty of the course with the playability. Over the years, many trees 'out-grow' where they were planted, and begin to have detrimental effect on our greens. During the past year, when weather was horrible for growing grass, the greens with the most trees around them struggled the most (2-5, 15, 8). This is what drove our 'thinning' and pruning operations this past fall.

Click below to look at the video:
Golf Course Industry : Trees on the golf course

Not our Highland Meadows

Ran across this headline in a trade publication email this morning. In case any of you see this headline, I promise it's not us! It did make me laugh a little.

Here's the link:
Golf Course Industry : Fire destroys Highland Meadows G.C. maintenance bu