Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Winter Work

  Although its felt like it for some time now, today officially marks the beginning of Winter.  One of the questions that we field a lot down here this time of year is "What do you guys do during the Winter?"  First of all, you have to remember that our crew size during the Winter is significantly smaller than during the golf season.  Even though we don't mow with the same frequency this time of year, when we do get a break in the weather to mow, it takes a lot longer to complete.  When we're not mowing, we are working on projects that we otherwise wouldn't have time to complete with a full mowing schedule.  I thought I would take a few minutes and go over some of the projects we are working on.
  One thing that we can all agree on is that there will never be enough drainage.  We are committed to continually improving winter playability here at The Reserve.  Installing new drainage is a time consuming process that can impede play, so we limit our installation to the winter time as to have the smallest effect on play.  
  We also use the winter time to remove all blackberries and other invasive species from the golf course.  Each year we are required to remove all invasive vegetation from the Gordon Creek corridor to ensure a healthy and thriving wetland habitat for years to come.  We also clear out blackberries around the boarder of the property to create a buffer and keep all boundary lines clear.  This is also the time when the cattails and sedges in the creek systems need to be removed in order to make room for next years growth.  
  Finally, the photinia and arborvitae hedges around the courses have stopped growing for the season so we will prune them up to make sure they don't get overgrown as well as to ensure nice, uniform growth for next season.

 Along with these projects, we continue to work on other smaller projects to improve the golf courses for the upcoming season.  If you're one of the golfers who's willing to brave the winter weather, you're sure to see us out there so feel free to stop and say hi.  Happy Holidays! 

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Water Water Everywhere!!

  Winter is in full swing now which means cold temperatures and enough rain to make us long for those 100 degree days of July and August.  Currently, we are in the midst of a particularly wet cycle in our weather pattern.  Since last week, we've had roughly 6 inches of rain here and it definitely shows on the course.  The most effected areas are the bunkers.  Heavy downpours cause the sand to wash down the steep slopes and settle in the bottom of the bunkers.  The damage that can occur in just minutes with heavy rains takes hours to repair.

  First we have to skim any dirt and silt off the top of the sand and then we relocate the wet and heavy sand back to its original spot ensuring sand depths of 4 inches in the bottom of the bunkers and 2 inches in the face of the bunker.  It's a very time consuming and labor intensive undertaking which can take 5 workers an entire week to finish.  We have a large list of things we'd like to get accomplished this winter and our list of finished projects will be a lot smaller this spring if we put all our man power into fixing washouts as they happen. 

  That being said, with the heavier rains predicted for the better part of the week and weekend, we will hold off on bunker repairs until the weather turns for the better and our hours of work won't be washed away overnight.  With a little luck and some cooperation from Mother Nature, we can get the bunkers fixed in the near future and continue moving forward with the rest of our winter projects.