Between the Trees Blog

January 2017

I know that most of you will be shocked to know that we can get some pretty cold temperatures in the winter months. 2017 has been no exception to this rule in that the first week of this year has seen below freezing bone chilling cold. From a golf course maintenance standpoint, I welcome the sustained cold weather-particularly since we have over a foot of snow cover everywhere to offer insulating protection to the turf. What we do not want is a huge thaw followed by a hard freeze. This creates a layer of gas exchange preventing ice that can be deadly to turf. I feel very good about the design and turf health on the golf course going into the winter having both built and managed it over the past 15 years. Regardless of the conditions, I feel confident that we will be fine coming out of winter and if any areas do not survive, we will promptly repair them. I have learned over the years that worrying over that which one has no control over is a fool’s game. Save your energy for tasks that make a positive difference for your workplace, home, and community.

Continue Reading

December 2016

As I write this article it is the temperature outside is -6 degrees F with drifting snow. Winter is finally here and with it comes the same question that I get year after year: “What do you do in the winter?”

Continue Reading

November 2016

Fantastic weather in October and into the month of November has made this one of the most productive off-seasons of golf course work in recent memory. In addition to cleaning up most of the remaining tree damage from the blow down we had this past summer, we were also able to install over 1300 linear feet of drainage line on holes 1, 2, 5, 9, 16, and 18.

Continue Reading

August 2016

This year gets better and better. We start with an extremely dry April and early May followed by an extremely wet late May and June. This pattern has continued going into July with consistently high humidity resulting in violent storms that have rocked the golf course in a variety of ways. Some of these storms have dropped excessive amounts of rain on the golf course in a very short amount of time, resulting in washouts on bunkers and in some cases creating springs underground that cause persistent wet areas that take weeks to go away-if the rain stops. Some storms bring the added benefit of lightning which has, on two separate occasions, caused damage to irrigation satellites and computer components. These two items take labor and money to repair but are things that we are accustomed to dealing with and really not a huge deal. The latest gift, however, is not something that happens every year.

Continue Reading

July 2016

The relentless rainfall that we have received during the latter part of May and into the middle of June created numerous challenges for the golf course and crew. We received close to the entire monthly rainfall amount for June in the first half of the month and the place showed it. Numerous cart path only rulings and difficulty in accomplishing routine maintenance. Fortunately that appears behind us for now and the course in moving into summer form.

Continue Reading

Ready to Reserve your Tee Time?

Close