September Informer

I want to start off with a huge thanks to my staff for setting up a great golf course for Club Championship. A little rain on Sunday was more annoying then anything else, but other then that the weather was terrific and the course played great. From the comments I heard it sounded as though everyone had a great weekend, even though some golf games were not that “fun”. So with the Championship behind us we are now prepping for aerification. The greens will be aerified on the 6^th and 7^th, the Tuesday and Wednesday right after Labor Day. Tees and fairways will follow, and like in the past, that should not disrupt play much at all. With such a slow start to the season it feels like the last 2 months just flew by and it’s hard to think about fall and getting the course ready for winter. I am sure we still have 2 good months of golf ahead, and perhaps even a decent part of November if the weather holds.

Unlike last October when we were renovating 4,7, & 18, there will be no major projects going on this fall. We have some drainage work and some curb projects to tackle, and we will definitely be continuing the tree trimming. As I mentioned last month, we will be doing some major tree work on #16 in order to create a much better environment for the green and hole in general. It will start with the removal of the Oak tree closest to the green on the front right corner. The large Oak behind the green will be drastically trimmed up this fall, as well as some major trimming along the left side with some potential tree removal there also.

With the season winding down the Greens Committee will be looking for a new member very soon, so if you are interested please let them know. There are five members on the committee with 2-3 board members also sitting in. The commitment is 5 years, we meet once a month for most of the year, and tackle issues regarding all aspects of the golf course.

Enjoy the rest of the summer,

Kurt

Early Morning Fog

I snapped this photo of Ron mowing the 3rd fairway on Saturday morning of the club championship. The brightness of the picture actually doesn't really relay the reality of the moment. The staff showed up at 5:15am on Saturday and Sunday so we could mow fairways, approaches, greens, and intermediate ahead of the golfers. This was a little different practice then routines in the past. Normally we mowed everything Friday and then came back and mowed everything on Saturday evening. Of course the greens were mowed each day, actually twice every morning, but the rest was just once over the weekend. I am very happy with the results of the new mowing routine. The dew was removed on all major playing areas, although it did settle back in for some of the early tee times, and the course looked great. The only thing that made this all possible was my staff. Everyone showed up on time and got straight to work, it was a terrific effort on their part to get the course in shape for everyone to play. I have to give them a huge thanks on a job well done. And for that matter, a big thanks on a great summer with little to no issues.

As the summer winds down we start to lose staff to school. As a result we start changing some of our mowing routines and we tend to tri-plex greens more then we walk mow. For the most part it probably won't be noticed, but just a reminder to you all. The main mowing stays on top of the priority list, but things like weed-whipping and raking bunkers 6-7 days a week starts to move down that list. Other odd jobs also get less frequent, but we do everything we can to make sure the course still plays in great shape. There is still a lot of golf to played in 2009...