Waiting....

There is much anticipation around the club these days.  Opening day seems to be stretching further away and the renovation work and pending vote seems to have "stirred the masses" quite a bit.  Between these things, the air is thick with a palpable combination of excitement, confusion and hope.  The vote will be sorted out Monday, but I don't have any good news at this point about opening day.

Taking advantage of the warm morning, I took a walk around.  Overall, the course is coming out in decent shape but we are still at least a week or more away from opening.  Right now, I am hoping for Master's weekend (April 12th-13th).

Unfortunately, it's not a matter of work needing to take place.  The course is fairly clean and there was very little tree damage or limb debris to worry about.  The worst winter damage is on north-facing slopes and low areas in the rough that are suffering from snow mold.  We just need things to dry up and firm up before we open the floodgates of spring play at The Meadows.  There is still a good deal of snow, standing water, and in our shady areas the frost line is still just an inch or two from the surface.  Also, there hasn't been any growth yet anywhere on the golf course.  Until we get some favorable temperatures and a few days of above-freezing nights, it will be difficult to get the course ready.  I will be keeping you posted as conditions change.

The rough in front of #6 tee is peppered with large areas of snow mold.  Also, look at #18 hill from Erie St. and you can see the large pockets of diseased turf.  

#4 green still snow around the banks and frozen ground in the shade.

A great example of why new sod on the green banks is a great idea.  Look at the stripe of fresh bluegrass we installed around #2 last year.  It is handling the winter much better than the contaminated bent/blue/poa/rye mix to the left.

Even some of our tees are still struggling to thaw out.  This is #3

I could only get the probe about 2 inches in the ground before I hit frost on #15.

I would like to thank all the members that took the time to come to the informational meetings on the 24th and 25th.  It was great to speak to you all and answer your questions about the water project.  If you haven't returned your ballot, please get it in by Monday morning.  Even if it's a "no" we need your vote and your voice!

Have a great weekend.

-Dan

Trees causing problems for greens in winter too???

With just a few more greens to go, we are very nearly done with removing excess snow cover from our greens.  So far, things are looking good.  The temps have been just warm enough to melt most of the ice off of several greens.  With partly sunny and 50 degrees today and another 40 degree day tomorrow I am confident the greens should get a good breath of air (at least before they go under another 6" of snow Wednesday).  However, during my survey of the golf course, one interesting thing has been well illustrated.

I have whined at length year after year about the overabundance of misplaced trees especially around our greens.  Trees inhibit sunlight, air movement, traffic patterns, and steal water from surrounding turf making it difficult to grow healthy turf in shady areas.  What I have never been able to illustrate is the effect trees are having on our ice accumulation and our ability to remove it.  We have had normal to mild winters my entire tenure here and snow and ice has never been a problem worth banging my gums about.    Enter the winter of 2014.

Ice layers on each of our greens have been in the range of a quarter-inch to 1.5 inches.  I will give you one guess where the 1.5-inch ice layers have been - our shaded/ low air movement greens.  Numbers 8, 2, 4, 5, 15 all have distinctly thicker layers of ice and have not melted nearly as quickly as the remainder of the greens that have been uncovered.  Number 1 and 11 had the thickest layers of ice on the entire golf course due to their low-lying location on the property.  However, once we got the snow off of 1 and 11, the thick ice melted almost immediately due to the increased amount of sunshine.  Number 8 was THE FIRST green we blew off and has yet to thaw even a little.  We have tossed some sand on it today in the hopes of accelerating melt today.  That, of course, will only work if the sun decides to come out.

 #8 was blown off THURSDAY MORNING and has thawed not at all

Tossed a little topdressing sand on #8 today in hopes of attracting some rays of sunshine.

#7 Green was blown off Friday and melted quickly.  Should be clear by this afternoon.

#15 was blown off THURSDAY as well but the lack of air movement and shade have inhibited thaw quite a bit.

#3 used to be one of our shadiest greens until we removed several trees to the south last year.  Nice quick thaw.

#17 was blown off Friday afternoon and looked like this by Friday at 4pm.  Thank you full sun.

We are pushing snow off of the last few greens today in the hopes of exposing as much green surface as possible before they get covered up again by the coming storm.  Local forecasts are anywhere from 1-8" of snow Wednesday followed by another cold snap.  I know what you are thinking, and it's actually not as bad a thing as you think.  Yes, we just spent a lot of time and effort blowing the snow off and now we are getting another blast.  But remember, our objective was to get the ice layer off in order to get some air to the greens.  By wednesday, we should have accomplished that.  While it is frustrating to add yet more snow to the golf course, the coming blanket of snow will actually protect the grass through our last few freeze-thaw cycles of winter, which can also be quite damaging.  Right now

Too much gray hair.

This winter has added at least 10% gray to my hair.  With the unseasonably cold temperatures persisting well into March, superintendents throughout the Great Lakes/Upper midwest region have been worrying, pulling hair out, drinking, and debating about what to do with the growing layer of ice on our Poa annua greens.  With the rain, thaw, and snow cycle we had two weeks ago (which we all hoped would thaw things out much more than it did), our ice layer has grown.  We are now approaching nearly two months with between a 0.5 and 2-inch solid ice layer on our greens, which is very near the threshold that Poa annua can handle. As I've mentioned before, solid ice seals up and traps toxic gases that plants can only tolerate for a certain amount of time depending on the species.  After much consideration, research, and collaboration with other superintendents and scientists, we have decided to go out and remove the snow cover from our greens.

The picture isn't the best illustration, but this is solid ice about 1" thick on 8 green.

The decision to exert this effort was not taken lightly.  We aren't particularly well equipped or staffed for this task as this level of snow management is scarce in our part of the country.  With a little help from a couple of dedicated employees, some snow shovels and the snow blower from the clubhouse, we have set out to get as much snow off as possible.  We begin by using our skid steer loader to make a "cart path" to access each green.  After that we use our skid steer loader and snow blower to remove as much snow as possible.   Sand pro blades will push the last of the "crusty snow" off down to the solid ice.  While driving such aggressive equipment onto greens may seem potentially damaging, keep in mind we are on over an inch of solid ice over frozen ground.  I don't think we could damage the greens if we wanted to. We will experiment with some sand applications or other things to add color and create heat to help melting further.

Winter "cart path"

Blowing snow off of #5 green.  

Blowing, pushing, and shoveling off 15 green.

Our goal is not to completely remove the ice layer ourselves, but merely remove the insulating snow atop it.  We took a careful look at the upcoming forecast and it looks like we will finally see daytime highs at or above freezing for a few days along with some sunshine.   This will hopefully help the ice melt more quickly and allow the greens a fresh breath of air sooner than later.

By no means will this guarantee we have no winter ice damage on our putting surfaces.  I am only trying to help the greens see the light of day just as soon as Mother Nature will allow.   For a great article from Michigan State University Extension about this issue, please follow the link below.

http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/what_lies_beneath_ice