The Week Ahead And My Pounding Headache

The following bullets will highlight major maintenance activities on the course for the coming week:

• Verticut and lightly topdress greens early Monday morning (thatch control, ball roll improvement, firmer surface)
• Haul road sodding scheduled for Thursday morning and should take 2 days to complete
• If the wind ever subsides fairways will be sprayed with a liquid fertilizer
• Greens and tees sprayed with a new wetting agent that will hopefully help with the numerous chronic dry areas (a symptom of excessive mat and thatch on both greens and tees)
• Get control of the rough (involves staff training)
• Continued repair of LREP work on the front nine including sprinkler adjustment
• Fill the lakes

About my pounding headache. I don't know if its from the mile long list of tasks that need to be completed, the amount of Diet Coke I'm drinking, the howling wind or a sinus infection but its starting to irritate me. On a positive note the city waterline was thawed by IVIS on Friday. It took 8 hours and approximately 800 feet of line to reach the 75 foot long block of ice and thaw it out. To make a long story short it was completed just in time  to fill our very low irrigation reservoir. As mentioned above we can now begin to fill the ponds as soon as we get some water volume back. 

I'm sure you are noticing a few deficiencies on the course. I know I have but with a new staff and Eric and myself stretched out,  some things will be missed and tasks will have to be prioritized in order of importance. The LREP work and staff training are primary reasons for a lack of detail in some areas on the course. Let me list a few things I've noticed and some you have brought to our attention. Some major, some minor, all important:

• Bunker rakes needing reorganizing or a lack thereof (we are waiting for an order of 50 that was supposed to be here Friday)
• No Kleenex in the course washrooms
• Tee markers too close together (I want 6 paces), too close to the back or front edge (I don't want to feel like I'm going to fall off the edge) or pointed in a less than desired direction. 
• Rough beginning to sway in the wind
• Bunker raking improving but not where we want it
• Major greens surface repair on #'s 4, 14 and 16
• Major tee surface repair on #4 tee gold
• Further course cleanup not helped by 4 continuous days of 50 km/hr winds

I could go on but I just want you to be reassured that as the season progresses and the grounds crew keeps making great strides forward (I'm part of the equation as well) conditions will keep improving. I realize we can't keep everyone happy but it doesn't hurt to try. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the golf course please contact me at 780-203-4211 or send me an email (wpeckham@mayfair.ca)

Wade Peckham