TIPS ON COURSE CARE

After only four days of play, the golf course is certainly showing signs of wear and tear from a number of things, most of which are completely preventable.  As a private members club you would believe every round played would also entail every ball mark being fixed and every divot replaced or filled.  I’d like to offer some tips on how each and every member can help protect their investment and take care of their course on a number of levels improving the quality and playability for all who come out.

The average number of ball marks made per round is 8 per golfer. Not so bad right? Assuming only 130 rounds are played a day, (and last Friday we had over 200) that means over 1,000 impressions daily, over 30,000 a month and incredibly over 200,000 ball marks on our greens in a season. Are you wondering how to make a putt under these conditions?  If you have not yet received a free ball mark repair tool, please ask in the pro shop. We have brought in new slimmer repair tools which prevents twisting when repairing these pitch marks.  Although the tool I am using in the following pictures is different than what you have, the method will be identical, using a two pronged tool to stretch the grass over top of the mark to repair it.

  

Insert your repair tool in the grass outside of the actual ball mark at a 45 degree angle 

Now raise the handle to a vertical plane.

Now the exact same procedure on the opposite side.

 

Sometimes gently pushing any soil down with the repair tool held on its side

will remove any soil at the surface. 

 

 I always suggest using your thumb to gently push the grass on an angle in towards the

middle of the mark, both the left and right side.

 

 And finally a gentle tapping down with your putter. Under no circumstance should the ball mark be lifted up in the center. This will bring soil to the surface and damage roots. A properly repaired ball mark will fully heal in a few days.

 

An incorrectly repaired ball mark like the one above will take many weeks to heal. This is an example of a mark that someone lifted the center of the ball mark up. If your repair jobs look like this when you are done, best not to fix them and let the turf department take care of the repair the next morning.

 

I have to admit I get frustrated when I see (all too often) divots like the one pictured below.

There is no reason why any of us should ever see a divot this size on the fairway.

 If you take a divot this big..............................

................it should be replace immediately. Step it down with your foot, and it has a great chance of rooting and healing. In a normal summer with the heat and drought a certain percentage of them will dry out and die, but they are still worth replacing as many will survive. If you are carrying a divot bottle and see a brown, dead divot, by all means pull it out and fill it with the seed soil mix provided. Divots should be replaced on tees and fairways unless they disintegrate into many tiny pieces.  Divot bottles contain a mix of soil and bent seed. These should only be used to fill divots in the fairway or on tee decks, never in the rough as we desire Kentucky bluegrass only in the rough. As for divots taken out of the rough, please replace them. Please never use divot mix in the rough.
We have been short on divot bottles probably because some were accidentally packed away last year, but new bottles have been ordered and should be available by the weekend.

We have asked for all golfers to remove the soft (or alternative) spikes from the bottom of their shoes to eliminate the damage these aggressive spikes do to the putting surface. Not only do they destroy the smoothness of the green for all members playing behind someone wearing spikes, but they do direct damage to the plants causing unnecessary stress making it much more susceptible to disease infection. I can tell you the vast majority of members have complied with this request, but its clear to me when we are on the greens first thing every morning there's one or two who are still wearing them.  These spikes are all removable with a special tool, no need to buy brand new shoes, unless you’re looking for an excuse to do so. The pro shop can help you remove these spikes.

Power carts should be driven on the greenest, healthiest, best looking grass as this is the strongest area to support traffic. Please do not drive along the edge of the rough right beside the fairway, this habit will cause great deteriorating of turf quality along the first cut of rough. Always keep both tires completely on the path at all times, and when a path is provided please use it. 

 This damage could be avoided by keeping all tires completely on the path at all times. 

 

Under wet conditions the damage is severe. This does not have to happen.

 

Pull carts or electric cart caddies should not be taken between the bunker and putting surface. Once again we see deteriorating turf conditions which negatively affects playability around the greens. Take these carts down the cart path or around the outside of the bunker once again staying on the best looking turf. (Thanks Craig for the "staged" photo)

These tight areas are designed for playability, not traffic. All would be in better condition if we could keep traffic off of them. Putting up ropes to stop people from going through these areas only clutters the golf course and gets in the way of swinging a golf club.

All bunkers have rakes which we ask member to utilize after they have hit out of a bunker as a courtesy to all members playing behind you. We have chosen to leave rakes outside the bunker on the turf when you have completed raking.

One of our biggest challenges is all the duck weed growing in the 17^th pond. The two control methods available are illegal for us to use so we have no choice at this point but to manually remove it. We are currently testing different tools and methods to find the most productive options to do a much better job of keeping this pond clean in the near future. Although fountains help reduce algae growth, it will not help with the duck weed.

With a little help from all members we can make this property blemish free to all eyes.

Answers to Questions you didn't know you had........

Or you did and just didn't ask.

Q) What are those runway strips of missing sod at the beginning of some the fairways?

A) We are stripping some of these areas and using the sod to repair spots on the range that suffered some significant water run off damage.

The picture above shows some smaller repair work. 

It's a little harder to see in the picture below but this area had some rather large repair work done to it. 

These areas are re-seeded as we go and most already have some significant germination. They will be marked as G.U.R until they are back in play.

Q) When will the range open?

 A) The picture above shows some good growth on the tee deck but the process is very slow. Under McBroom's recommendation we seeded the range with a Dwarf Blue Grass for a number reasons. The fact that this is more tolerate to disease and will stand up to the harsh winter better than other types of seed was a factor but Dwarf Blue Grass will also allow us the opportunity to alter the look of the range with our mowing patterns.  The one big draw back of this seed, it's slow to establish. Our goal is to have the range open for Club Championships, even if it's just for the weekend. However, if the turf can handle the traffic we will keep it open for the rest of the season (albeit maybe off mats).

The range tee is now being mowed regularly, and this photo taken the first time we cut it 3 weeks ago shows sporadic weak areas, when you drive by now you will notice a significant improvement to the colour and density. Today we put the first cut inside the range which is a significant step forward towards having this area open to members.

Q) What are we doing with the huge mound of fill east of #1 tee deck?

 A) It's a rather large amount of fill but the short term goal is to mound and berm this fill to create a natural looking screen. The picture above was taken from #2 fairway, you can see how this fill screens the parking lot and eventually the cart barn.

When completed in the early stage we anticipate the area to look like this picture above. As we look longer term we will be planting smaller trees on this berm to highlight the natural feel of the area.


Stay tuned next week for Answers to Questions you didn't know you had.......Clubhouse edition.


Wait, we do have a question that many have asked.........................................................



Q) Will our greens open on August 1st?

A) The Greens Committee has a meeting scheduled Monday July 28th to confirm the opening but the greens have made significant improvements and we feel very confident that we will be able to put the pins in for August 1st.

Scarborough District Finals

Women of Whitevale Golf Club,

Whitevale Golf Club will be hosting the Scarborough District Finals on August 19, 2014. 

The next scheduled Scarborough District tournament  will be Aug 5, 2015 at King's Riding. Anyone interested in being considered for the Whitevale Team needs to submit a scorecard to the pro shop by July 27, 2014. 

Please ensure that you don't just leave your card on the counter, make sure it is given to one of the pro shop staff, and put into the envelope and marked as the King's Riding entry.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact Margaret Chew at: 

mchewmars@gmail.com

We have a wall.

Oh that's what a building permit looks like.

Holy Cow

Last night we receive an email from WGC member Ed Griffin with a subject heading "Two golfers miss tee time". I read the email and thought it was a really bad joke.

Here is the email:

On our way to Whitevale Golf Club this morning we saw what we thought were two deer walking down the middle of North Road. As we slowed down as not to spook them we realize it was two Jersey bull calves. We stopped the car and corralled the two protecting them from any traffic travelling by. Ann called 911 and they dispatched a couple of Durham region squad cars. I used a tow rope from my vehicle and tied them to a guard rail while the two police vehicles canvassed the area farms to find the owner. After about an hour and a half the owner was located and came to retrieve the two fugitives.
Finally on our arrival at Whitevale Golf Club we were asked if we wanted to play the back nine, I replayed no, I wasn't in the Moooood!

Then we get a second email today, with pictures. This was no joke, this is one bizarre year.

What else will be in store for Whitevale members in 2014. 

Scarborough District

Calling all Ladies!


The next SDF event is fast approaching. In order to qualify for the July 9th Westview event, you must have your scorecard in to the pro-shop by July 2nd. It's easy to qualify, just register your round with the pro-shop prior to your round, and then hand it in when you are done. The quota points will be calculated for you if you don't want to do it yourself. Just make sure your handicap is marked on the card and your gross score is recorded.

The top four cards will qualify for the next round.

Also remember, our own hosted SDF event is July 21st with the cut off being July 16th to qualify.

Lets see lots of entries, we want to make sure we field our strongest team!

No Practice Yet

Last September there was nothing but dirt and dust in our former driving range. Slowly over approximately two months, the area transformed into what will become our new Practice Facility. 

A large amount of earthworks happened last fall making significant improvements for our future.



This photo was taken on the Thursday before the Thanksgiving weekend, sod had been installed ringing the new practice greens and bunkers. By the Sunday the entire new Practice Facility had been seeded and the new greens had been tarped. We had perfect weather heading into winter and witnessed light germination to all areas before snow cover. Of course we all know what happened over the following four and a half months.

When we removed tarps from the greens in April we had respectable catch to the putting greens. The rest of the practice facility was another story, for weeks we could not find any living grass on the tee deck, and we felt we had lost any where from 70-90% of the seed everywhere else due to the extreme winter weather. We prioritized the greens and course clean-up from the ice storm as the area to receive most of our attention, the practice area had to wait. However, even if we had time to spend on the practice facility growing conditions were so poor we would not have seen any improvements early on and the range is so big we couldn't feasibly tarp it like we did the greens.

Then came the day we finally had enough growth on the practice greens we put the first roll on them to help smooth and firm in preparation for the first mow.

Meanwhile inside the practice area we had four separate and somewhat significant washouts. We have Vergeer Golf on stand by to return to repair these washouts when weather co-operates. We have had to cancel them a couple times because weather was not conducive to repairing the washouts. We currently have them scheduled to return this Friday to complete this work. This restoration will not cost the club any additional money as it was part of the original contract.

This is the seeder that originally was used last October to seed all but the greens, and we will be bringing this unit back in to over seed all bluegrass areas in order to fill in the range. We have seen more germination in all areas than we originally found as little as 4 weeks ago, but in order to get this practice area grown in and open we must introduce more seed to replace seed that died off during our winter.

Weeks after the photos above were taken we are mowing all new greens daily, and this photo shows significant growth compared to the 3rd picture above.

This is the tee deck which has a good overall haze of green growth, but as you can see below...

...this is not at all dense enough. Over seeding will take place soon and with the perfect weather finally with us we will see a significant jump to the growth. Weeds beginning to grow along with the grass is of no concern at all. Most will not survive the first time we mow the area, and an application of weed killer after the grass is mature enough to handle the application will complete the control measures. Although we are behind where we had planned to be only because of the long winter and cold spring, we are picking up speed and will get this practice area open in the not too distance future.

Greens update

 

We have reached a significant mile stone this week. Some greens are now both mature and dense enough we have begun to lower the height of cut and begin grooming. Until the turf stand makes it to a level of maturity that can stand up to this process, there is just no reason to begin even talking about when we might be able to open them for play. Each week the recover is gaining speed, so improvement seen this week happened faster than the week before, and will be better and fast next week . Who was it that said "A photo is worth a thousand words"?

 

Here is the 1st green at the end of April when only the faintest sign of any germination was found by crawling on you belly

And here is number one at four O'clock this afternoon, after it had been brushed and mowed.
Not all greens have bounced as well as the 1st green, but all are healing with significant seedlings at different stages of development. The slit seeder and mini tine aerators have been seeding and           re-seeding. Thin areas have been hit over and over again.

We are relying more on hand watering so we can make sure moisture is high on the young seedlings, and we can skip over watering the more mature areas which will help promote deeper rooting, something that is imperative before the real summer stress arrives.

Just like an Olympic athlete, you can't tell a couple years ahead when they will be ready to compete, it's not possible to tell you how many weeks away from opening these greens we are. I am every bit as anxious to get this golf course back in play as you are. Thanks for you continued support and patience.