By now many of you have heard about, and possibly seen the
damage to the golf course caused by the extreme winter weather. Over the last few weeks we have been
cautiously promoting recovery through seeding and fertilizing affected
areas. These efforts combined with some
favorable weather conditions have helped some areas recover, and have revealed
the areas that suffered complete loss of turf.
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| April 14, 2015 |
Now that we have identified the areas that will require
additional attention we are taking a more aggressive approach. In the fairways we have begun seeding a
modern variety of bentgrass into the dead areas. This will result in a more durable, reliable
stand of turf that will be able to tolerate extreme weather in all four
seasons. The areas that showed the most
severe damage on greens are found on holes 4, 5, 7, and 9. Yesterday we aerified, seeded, and fertilized
the damaged areas (including the entire 5th green). The idea is that the seed/fertilizer
combination will either fill in the voids with new bentgrass plants, or the
fertilizer will push the remaining turf to fill in the voids.
The damage to the 5th green was rather extensive,
and therefore we have decided to close the green and cover it to increase the
soil temperatures. Elevated soil
temperatures will promote germination of the seed and help any plants that
survived resume growth. The plan is to
leave the cover on for one week and assess the recovery before the spring Member/Member.
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| April 23, 2015 |
I can assure you that I am the last one who wants to close
any greens, but I also don’t want to be dealing with winter a minute longer
than I have to. The good news is that
the rest of the course is emerging from the winter beautifully. The fairways are glowing and the bentgrass on
the greens looks as good as I have ever seen.
Hopefully it won’t be long before we are able to resume our normal
greens maintenance programs that provide the firm, smooth, fast greens that we
all enjoy at Pine Orchard.
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