THE FALL IS A QUIET TIME..............UNLESS YOU WORK IN THE TURF DEPARTMENT!

You might think after the course closes, that all of us in the turf department have it easy, just hanging around until there’s snow to plow off the driveway. Well, after a long season where we feel like we have been running a marathon since the spring, we now have a full out sprint to the finish line ahead of us. True, we do finally get to take weekends off, but the objectives we are racing to complete before the winter shuts us down are a significant challenge to complete on time, on budget, and with the highest of quality. The course furniture has already been brought in from the golf course, inventoried and stored away waiting for a snowy day when we begin our refurbishment process. We have applied our fungicide to all greens, tees and fairways to protect the turf from the potential ravage of disease which can kill turf. The irrigation system, bathrooms and pump houses have been drained, blown out and winterized, as have our sprayers and all equipment.


Dormant fertilizer has been applied to all grass areas. Most of the leaf clean up is behind us with only some “pockets” of leaves still requiring our attention.

A new set of stairs are now installed to the white and yellow tee on the 4th hole. This area still requires some interlock to be installed and surrounds to shape, but the majority of the project is complete. Interlock and curb installation around the black tee at 13 is finished, and we have made good progress installing the same at the 12th green.

Bob and Murray (in fore ground) are our interlock specialists!

We have finished installing about 2000 feet of new drainage with only some clean up and resodding to be finished up. The erosion issue left of the cart path near 3 green has been back filled, and is waiting for the new pipe to be installed.

Back filling at 2 after drainage has gone in.

Repairs have also been done to the problem we had behind 14 green all season due to a crushed and separated drain line.

The surrounds of the front right bunker at both the 2nd and the 9th greens have been stripped, reshaped, and resoded. The roof of the rain shelter by 6 tee has been shored up and awaits its turn in the capital repair process to be completely rebuilt. Tree work has commenced, and some cart path ends have been stripped of sod, levelled out and resodded. The two bridges also wait patiently for their turn at refurbishment.

We have also stripped sod off a high spot on the left side of the 14th green which has trapped water and caused ice damage in past winters. This area will be regraded to allow surface flow off the green drastically reducing standing water in the future. If the weather holds there are other greens which will benefit from the same regrading to get positive surface flow.

And, along with all these items, I have already begun planning for both the operational side and capital plan for the 2012 season.
So, when will I be able to finally slow down, relax and put my feet up?
When we get the first snow fall of course, which will stop any unfinished project in its tracks…………………. Actually, now I think about it, I’ll be here, plowing snow from the driveway and parking lot so our year round staff has safe access to the club house.
I guess I’ll just have to wait for Christmas Morning………when the kids will be at my bedroom door at 5am!