The hot button question everyone has been asking is when 1 and 4 greens are going to open. For those of you have been out there lately you have noticed my staff working hard plugging out the rest of the winterkill areas on 4 green this past week. They worked four straight, 9 hour days trying to get the work completed and I have to say they knocked it out of the park! Like the sod, plugging is a slow tedious process to get it right. I think it has turned out perfect and with time the plugs, like the sod, will blend in and disappear. They also started pluging on 1 green and should finish by the end of the day Tuesday. My plan is to open the greens for play this coming Wednesday. That being said there is still a lot of healing and recovery to go. The sod has rooted extremely well. It is still in some what of a fragile state, so the hole locations will be kept away from them for the near future. This surely will make for some interesting hole locations! I have been putting over the sod the last couple of days and it's extremely playable. It will be bumpier than a "normal" green, but nothing you can't handle. Moving forward we will continue topdressings to increase smoothness and hope to aerify them in a couple weeks. Again, I appericate everyone's kind words and support over the last few months. They go along way towards boosting morale. It has been a challenge this spring to say the least. We have been hit with a flood, a straight line wind storm, winterkill and not to mention all of our normal maintenance work to complete. A big hats off to my staff for working some long days. They have done everything asked and then some!
We will continue plugging out some select areas on 6,7 and 17 greens to help speed recovery. These greens have come along way on their own and these plugs will help finish the recovery. The two spots on 5 green are coming along slow and steadily. We have seen great germination from two rounds of seeding. We will continue aerating, topdressing and seeding until the areas fill in completely.
This past week was very productive on other areas of the course. The drainage at the putting green was completed. We also got all the stumpholes leveled, seeded and covered. This coming week we are planning to clean up the drainage on 1 and repairing drainage near 18 green and 2 tee. Beyond that the main project focus will be draining the rough between 14 and 15 faiways. By adding drainage and removing some select trees we can dry the area up and actually establish some grass. I will keep you updated in future posts on our progress.
It looks like summer weather is finally taking hold. I hope to see you out there in the near future!
