Back 9 In Good Early Season Condition. Front 9 is Bruised

Now that decent spring weather seems to have arrived it is clear as to how the golf course has come out of winter and the cold, wet April we just experienced. The back 9 is in good condition aside from some small fairway damage caused by standing water that froze in mid winter in a few low areas on 15 fairway. There is evidence of the ski trails and other traffic that will recover as it warms up. On that note the Back 9 will open on Tuesday as planned. Some mainline work was completed across the 14th and 16th holes last week so that there would be less interference with play once Alpine begins work after finishing the 3rd and 4th holes. They will be working on the remainder of the front 9 (#3 and #4) over the next 2 weeks. Expect the 3rd hole to be shortened as sprinklers are installed before the turn on the fairway and at the tee. There are several locations on the front 9 that need serious repair work to bring things up to our standards. The right side of #2, the right side of #5, the right side of #6 and a few areas on #9 need more prep work and sodding. That work begins this week with the Turf Care team taking the lead. Smaller spots will be repaired after the large areas are taken care of.

The front 9 has experienced varying degrees of damage that is now very apparent. The 2nd and 6th greens have exposure damage that occurred due to a lack of snow cover after the tarps were over inflated. The existing snow cover slid off a bit and the lack of further snow over the last part of winter robbed the turf of insulation from some extreme cold that followed. These 2 greens are overseeded and covered and the plan is to put them into play when we open the front nine on May 10th. Expect extra aeration, overseeding and heavy topdressing on these two greens.

Damage on the ridge at 6 green

Snow shoe, footprints and ski trail damage

Standing water that became ice in February

The fairways on 2, 6, 7 and 9 have seen ice damage, traffic damage and standing water damage. The type of turf on these fairways (Poa annua) is fine if their is enough snow and no areas of standing water in February. Unfortunately last February was very warm then very cold. It is obvious to see footprints from snow shoers, ski tracks and areas of ice or standing water. It affected this area of the course worse than others because of the tendency of theses holes to hold water. Same issue in the summer after heavy rains but there is no draining in the winter, only ice formation. Recovery will take time but we will also begin a bentgrass overseeding program on these holes. This was planned on all fairways over the next few years but we now need to expediate the process out of necessity. Hopefully we will see bentgrass begin to establish and compete with the annual bluegrass (Poa annua).

The practice green also suffered from low temperature damage. We didn't over inflate the tarp on that green but the snow cover was greatly reduced in February. The warmup green was damaged by a lack of insulation and more mice damage. We can no longer depend on adequate snow cover and trying to keep the mice at bay. The warmup has been resodded with turf from our nursery. We used the creeping bentgrass section as we need to take a different approach to get this green through the winter if the climate is changing. One only needs to look at the chipping greens to see how well bentgrass can survive tough winters. They were subject to the same conditions as the other two practice greens and they look great.

Later this week look for another blog outlining Alpine Irrigation's Back 9 installation schedule.


IMPORTANT COURSE NOTE:

• The course washrooms and drinking fountains are closed indefinitely as the 1 inch water line has been cut by irrigation installation work. We have begun to fix each cut pipe as they are flagged by Alpine. Until all the repairs are finished portable washrooms will be in use at 3/6, 14 and 17.