March Madness 2010

( 2010_03_27 - Opening Day 2010 )

How cool is this?!?! The weather has been above average, the course wintered great, and the golf clubs are getting dirty. With about 200 rounds in on opening weekend, IVGC is getting off to a great beginning in 2010. We have plenty of maintenance staff on hand that we are getting a lot done to get things in shape right off the bat. As you make your way around the course in the next few weeks you will see some vole damage around greens, tees, and a fairway or two. Those spots will quickly recover as we rake up the dead turf and the temperature warms a bit. Like I mentioned before, there is some gray snow mold spots around which will also get a good treatment of raking. Aside from the superficial issues, the turf appears to have come through winter in good shape.

What is amazing over the last couple of weeks is how dry it has become. We went from 2 feet of snow, a couple weeks of rain, flooding in certain parts of the state currently going on, and Island View is getting very dry. Hence, we pressurized the irrigation system today and plan on watering things over the next couple of days like it was a summer day in June. And if the temps climb into the 70's this week, despite the brown grass, we are going to think it is June. The irrigation start-up has gone very smooth, almost too smooth and we are waiting for something to blow out of the ground. So far, dare I say it, we have had no issues with leaks or broken parts. I think the fact that we did not have a lot of frost movement this spring, because it went out so quick, helped a lot by not moving the underground pipe and sprinklers around. And with the prolonged snow cover I think we had a lot less frost then winters of recent past, which was averaging a busted length of pipe every spring. So, so far so good it would appear. I wouldn't count out a change in the weather to more "normal" conditions any time soon however.

Get out and take advantage of this unusually early start to the golf season.