Spring Course Prep & More

Course activities at this time of the year are always very busy. Spring start up tasks such as: mowing of all turf areas with increasing frequency; bunker grooming (cleaning, leveling, smoothing); fall and winter debris remnant removal; winter tree management completion (pruning and approved removals); prairie burning; placing course furnishings; early season nutrient and plant protectant treatments; overseeding rough areas; sod patching of winter damaged areas throughout course; filling and pressurizing the irrigation system; and more, are all keeping us hopping! Additionally, we always manage to have a project or two going.

The following photo's show a few of the above tasks and projects in progress:

Fairway mowers clipping off the winter coat

 Bunker Prep - Clean-up, leveling, raking

Irrigation System Pressurization - A full day process to gradually refill, purge air, and pressurize to standard operating pressure. Out of nearly 2000 sprinkler heads less than a half dozen needed repair. It's "all systems go"!

Repair of a blemish (likely from an inconsiderate deer) using hex plugs from our homegrown turf nursery. Can you tell where the plugs have been placed? I think you would agree that they match quite well.

Plug on left showing one of the benefits of deep tine aeration...enhanced root growth. Plug on right is from the damaged area with no visible roots.

 

The aforementioned turf nursery. Planted last fall. Most of this nursery was used last year to patch winter damaged areas in spring and flood damaged areas in late summer. Hope I don't need to use much of it at all this year!

 General debris clean-up proceeding well.

One of a couple current projects: Our sod squad installing sod in various areas including tree removal and winter damaged locations

 Project 2: Replacing Half Way House Roof. Here Javier and Miguel are stripping old shingles. Felt paper has been installed and we will follow with cedar shakes in lieu of asphalt shingles. 

So that's a quick glimpse of our current course work. I'll keep you posted on our projects and other course activities as they progress. Let's hope for some consistently mild weather anytime now!