Change Of Plans

As the title suggests there has been a change in regards to the recovery plan for the 6th and possibly 2nd green. Our initial idea was to aerate, overseed with a new quick germinating bentgrass and give the Poa annua a chance to recover as it always does. Unfortunately the golf season being as short as it is in Edmonton does not lend itself to the type of recovery we initially wanted. This thinking does not synch with member expectations. Therefore we will sod the 40% of the green that is damaged on #6 on Friday, give it a a few days to recover and put it back into play. The end result will be better than waiting until the end of June for a slow recovery. The 2nd green is more difficult to deal with. There is less damage overall but it isn't concentrated so it may be a sod project completed in a few stages. That decision will come in the next 24 hours.

The warmup green will be ready for use by the May Long Weekend. The putting green will be aerated and overseeded and allowed to recover over time.

Note to consider:

• Newer golf courses with bentgrass greens and or tees and Kentucky bluegrass fairways will fair better than older courses with predominantly Poa annua surfaces after winters such as we just experienced. There isn't an older Poa golf course in our area that hasn't had some degree of damage on some area of their course.
• We came out of winter in March, April was terrible and now we have a warm beginning to May. The grace period of April which in the last few years has been very helpful to turf recovery was non existent. Overall conditions will improve daily. Keep in mind the course was covered in snow on April 24th. Nature does not care. It is what it is and no amount of money or expertise can change that. 

The irrigation work is progressing well as Alpine will move to the 16th hole on Friday. The 3rd hole reopens as the Par 5 but the back tees may need to be moved up to the whites for a few hours. The Turf Care team has been working on larger repair areas over the front 9 but we are changing that plan as well. We are now going to start on the first hole, complete all the repairs possible at this time then move to the 2nd hole and so on. The repairs are required because Alpine could not do a proper job of backfilling and sodding in cold wet and then ultimately very cold conditions in early to mid November. That was the trade off for doing work in the fall as opposed to the summer months. The repair work Alpine is doing now  on the back 9 should require much less attention from the Turf Crew.