Cross Country Skiing Do's And Dont's

The following is a very short list of do's and dont's. Do enjoy your time on the course. Don't ski across greens and tees. Please. Yes the putting green counts as a green. Maybe it wasn't a member who skii'd across it earlier this week. Now you are asking, "Why not?"or, "How come we can ski across fairways and the rough and not the greens or tees?" Good question.

Here's the answer based on my experience. Basically ice eventually kills all turf if it covers it long enough. If that is good enough for you great. If not read on. Compressed snow has its insulating value severely reduced. If further accumulations of snow do not cover ski tracks, for example, ice can form whenever warm weather arrives. Add this variable to the type of turf under the snow or ice and this is when real problems can arise. The two types of turfgrass on our greens and tees each have their own tolerance to how long they can survive under an ice layer. I won't go into how long as research has shown it can vary greatly depending on mutiple factors. Suffice to say bentgrass can survive much longer than Poa annua (annual bluegrass). The problem here is that both species are present on our greens and tees. The greens and tees are also cut very short so it is much easier for ice to form around the crown of each plant. The crown is very important being the focal point of all turfgrass growth. Kill the crown, kill the plant no questions asked. The turf on the fairways (more reslient to our winter issues) can withstand much longer periods of ice cover and even thicker ice. To a point. Ski tracks usually are not a problem as the turf is cut higher on the fairways and it takes a lot more ice to encase the plant.  However, mid winter thaws can create pools of ice on the fairways that will leave dead grass in the spring.

I'd ask you to just trust me on the above but we hardly know each other. You can research this on your own or talk to others about it. Remember that skating rink your mom or dad made for you in the backyard when you were younger? If they got lucky and flooded it when all conditions were in favour of the lawn it might be okay in the spring. More often than not the lawn didn't look so good in May. So instead of hoping things will turn out for the good this spring lets mitigate the chance of ice forming on our putting and teeing surfaces by doing our best to stay off them. Your help is greatly appreciated as Mother Nature likes to give us all the ice we can handle sometimes.

In closing, we have the track making equipment in place. All we need now is more snow (and some practice) and you should then have some pretty good trails to glide along this winter.