Arrowhead Golf Club Turf Care Department: The winter struggles

We were blessed with early snow this year in October and November. It really helped with the moisture content in the soil profile. Unfortunately, since then the snow has been non existent. The snow we had on the course has either blown away, drifted and crusted up or melted in. To combat the winter dryness, we have started water the greens. Greens are our top priority, so we we will start watering them first until we feel comfortable with the moisture levels and then we will start watering tees.

We used our TDS 300 to measure the water percentage in the greens soil profile to get base number. We did this in early November. 10 and 14 greens were between 24-28%. They are now both close to 18-22%. With the warm weather we have been getting (mid 50's during the day; high 20's/low 30's at night) the greens are beginning to soften up.

We have two ways to apply additional water to the course without firing up our irrigation system. We have a 500 gallon water tank hooked up to a tractor and we use our trash pumps hooked up to portable roller bases. We have to wait till the temperature gets warm enough in the morning to start the process. We normally can get out onto the course after 10 am and we stop watering around 2 pm. We stop at 2 pm because we want all the water we applied to be absorbed into the profile before the temperature drops to freezing temperatures. Frozen water on the surface of the green can cause ice damage and possible could kill the plant.