Spring

On April 11th I was going to post a comment declaring Spring has officially arrived at Whitevale Golf Club but then I looked at the long range forecast. It seems like Old Man Winter still has some fight in him as we are expecting the temperature to plunge tonight.

If you have taken the time to read this blog and the newsletter you would be well aware of the damage the ice storm left on the property. Clean up has been slow, as the ice melts and frost starts to come out of the ground. Some of the damage will alter your views when playing the course this year.

The willow on #4 sustained some damage but should recover over time.

 Almost every tree between hole #6 and #7 have sustained damage. Once the tree blooms this will not be as noticeable but the area will be thinner than previous years.

 The Turf crew continues to work on clean up, it is a slow process with the wet grounds and the amount of debris is substantial.

 Crossing the bridge on #13 we now have some "leaning" trees.

This leaning tree shouldn't impact tee shots on #13 - if it does we will need to prune it back.

Not all the tree removal was done by Mother Nature, last fall we did an extensive survey of our trees. We determined that the trees with substantial decayed posed a safety concern and had to be removed. No one likes to voluntarily remove trees but we couldn't take the risk of these trees causing injury or damage to the course. The above picture shows the extent of decay on two of these trees. We are committed to our tree replanting program and have spoken with Tom McBroom about developing a full tree replacement plan for the property. Once we have this plan, we can continue with the process of replacing damage or non-desirable trees with the proper species and most importantly in the proper locations.

 More damage behind #13 Green.

But we will fix all this damage and be better than ever soon enough!