What I Noticed While Playing In The Men's Opening And Other Thoughts

Its important for a superintendent to play their course on a somewhat regular basis. For myself that might mean once every 2 weeks depending on a whole list of excuses. The round I played this past Saturday really drove this home for me. We have been so busy the past week getting ready for opening day and herding the new staff around the golf course that the only way I could do an honest evaluation of the grounds was to play. I had a great time playing with Robb James, Wade Hudyma and Kevin Mckee. What follows are both the good and the bad as far as I'm concerned anyway:

• the back nine is in far better condition than the front nine aside from the new sand
• the new bunker sand looks good and is very playable
• the turf conditions around the 3rd and 4th greens gave me heartburn
• the lakes would look good filled to the highest level possible (cannot do that until the irrigation system is on and we have the city line thawed)
• my staff have a ways to go in terms of training and completing their tasks in the manner we have instructed them ( as an example all you had to do was check out the bunker raking or try to wash your golf ball in a couple of empty ballwashers)
• the damaged Poa on the greens (specifically #'s 2, 3, 6, and 8) should recover fairly quickly as May progresses
• there are many small LREP sod jobs on the front nine requiring repair (poor results from low quality turf and over winter settling) 
• a few fairways need to be moved back closer to the red tees
• Paving, curbing and rerouting some of the cartpaths (on the advice of Ted Locke) would move the golf course to a whole new level (in my opinion)
• the Royal Mayfair is a beautiful golf course with so much more potential that I get impatient thinking about it

This Week On The Course:

1. Irrigation system startup on Monday
2. Fertilizing greens, tees, fairways, etc.
3. Haul road repairs should begin later in the week
4. Fine tuning the new bunkers
5. Demo of a Toro Sand Pro to compare with out existing power sand rakes
6. Course washrooms and fountains open by Tuesday (barring unforeseen problems)
7. Marking front nine fairways
8. Training, training, training

See you out on the course,

Wade