Friday, February 24, 2017

Starting off on the right foot...

With the abnormal winter we are experiencing from the lack of snow, to the record days we have set for high temperatures, February 6th became the opening day for golf for 2017.

We have received roughly 60 inches of snowfall to an yearly average of 140 inches.  These conditional have allowed us to have full access to the course.  Justin, Ralph and myself have gone through most of the interior tress on the course raising the canopy of all the evergreens and cottonwoods.  This practice will allow our guests to find their errant golf shot at littler easier and to assist their advancement of their next shot.  This is another one of our practice that we have started to help with our current pace of play program.  Remember this fall and all the native grass we cut down to 5 inches?  Another advantage to us this practice is the increased irrigation sprinkler coverage allowing for healthier grass and better playing conditions.  We have estimated that we have trimmed over 300 trees.  Still to come are cleaning out of the dead and storm damaged limbs in the heavily populated shrub oak patches. 

With the early golf season, we started to take down the snow fence around greens first.  I normally start this process on March 1st, but mother nature had different plans this year.  As you enjoy your early round of golf, you may notice red painted dots around the greens and tees.  We know that when we put this course to bed for the winter, all the power to the sprinklers were working properly.  When we pull out the t-post from the ground, we paint every hole with red paint.  After we fill  the irrigation system with water we will turn on every sprinkler head to make sure it is working properly.  If for some reason it does not work, we know we might have hit a shallow power wire with one of those posts.  We will track the wire to find the break and 9 out of 10 times, it will be on a red dot.  I implemented this procedure several years ago, after experiencing a huge electrical issue on 3 tee complex.  With age comes wisdom!