Contrary to popular belief, your maintenance crew actually "takes advantage" of the crappy weather we are having. With golfers huddled around the gin tables or on a plane to Florida, we are taking this chance to catch up on some course projects, most notably work related to trees.
Whether it be cutting dead ones down, pruning live ones, or picking up the damn leaves that fall off of them, we are still hard at work getting the place cleaned up for the winter hibernation. All-in-all there is still a few weeks of work to be done before we can put this place to bed and I strongly doubt we will get everything on my list finished.
A lot of dead or dying trees have been removed with several yet to be cut down. With committee approval, there are just a couple of live trees coming down that were either an aesthetic eyesore or a safety concern. Mostly, however, 2013 was a bad summer to be a tree. Lots of saturated conditions and continued insect pressure are taking out our weak and misplaced species. Sadly, a couple of perfectly fine trees such as the mulberry by #6 cart path (disease) and the maple formerly on the corner of 14 (lightning) have had to come down.
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| The Large Mulberry By 6 Cart Path. Not happy we had to get rid of it but honestly won't miss the mulberry mess on the cart path every year. |
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| The leaves seem to be falling at a slower pace this season for some reason. Still a couple good weeks of cleanup left. |
Also, I did have a couple of complaints about the course not being open this afternoon. Unfortunately, since this is the first afternoon all week with some decently above-freezing temperatures, there remains some frost in the ground here and there on the greens. Some greens still have snow on them as of 10 am today. Letting golfers walk on frozen to part-frozen greens could result in some damage and bruising. If temperatures tick up as they are forecast, then we hope to have the course open by tomorrow afternoon. I apologize for any inconvenience.
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| #4 Green at around 10:30 this morning. Still frozen underneath as well. Perhaps we should cut some trees down and let a little more sun get in there hint hint....... |
