Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Course Update

With the onset of another cold arctic blast this week, I have decided to close the golf course starting Thursday afternoon through mid-day on Saturday.  We will cover the greens Thursday following the last round and leave them on for a couple of days.  Temperatures both Thursday and Friday night are expected to reach 20 degrees or just below.  My rule of thumb for covering greens is to have 2 consecutive nights of below 25 degrees with the daytime high in between not getting out of the low to mid 30's.  This will be our second covering in January, and I am anticipating it will go a bit quicker than the first.  We will remove them once the sun comes up and temperatures begin to warm on Saturday morning.  I am anticipating the course will be open for play by mid-day on Saturday.  Please check back for more updates.   

Sunday, January 19, 2014

What's Happening Here?

# 3 Green
I thought this was an interesting find the other day.  Can anyone explain the difference between the two color variations in the photo above?  Do you notice the lighter green on the right and the darker green of the left?  I'll give you a hint, the condition showed up a few days following the cold spell we received just after the first of the year.  Ok, here's what's going on.  The area on the right was exposed to the cold air temperatures while the rest of the green of the left was not.  When we came into work that morning we had to pull the cover back over that portion of the green on the right.  Sometime during the night the wind lifted the stakes out of the ground and the cover folded back, exposing the right corner of the green.  That exposed area was frozen solid.  A few days later the color difference showed up.  The area hit by the cold air temperatures and frozen ground is just showing more signs of dormancy than the other portion of the green that did not freeze.  No damage has occurred, but it does make for interesting conversation.         

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The use of turf covers




#2 Approach
#5 Approach



 
Last week, with temperatures dipping into the upper teens, the entire golf course staff got to work Monday afternoon with the covering of all putting surfaces.  We did a trial run the Friday before just to see how the process would go.  It took about 3 1/2 hours to cover all the greens.  The challenge about covering, as is the case with many things we do on the golf course, is dealing with Mother Nature.  Usually the need to cover is triggered with a change in weather patterns bringing a blast of cold air to the south.  That blast is accompanied by wind, and that is typically the time when the covers need to be put out.  To say the least it was a challenge, but my staff performed as I knew they would, flawlessly.  During that cold spell, the soil temperatures under the covers remained 15 degrees or more warmer then the air temperature.  That is a significant difference, and one that is visually noticeable in the pictures above.  Can you tell where the cover over lapped onto the approaches?  The heat from the covers insulated the turf and showed little effects from the cold temperatures we experienced.  Fortunately for our area these covers will not be a common occurrence, but we do have them for times just like this one.