Green Greens Already!

Here's a picture of our first greensmowing of the year-- Looking pretty good.  This took place on March 3 easily the earliest we have ever mowed.  Most years our first mowing occurs around the 20-25th of March.  Last year with the severe winter and cold spring was the latest first mowing and that occurred on April 5.   Definitely ahead of schedule this year and turf looking good.


Below is a picture of a covered knob on #7 green.  It looks worse than the rest of the green which is not usually the case for covered turf but it can and has happened a couple of other years.   This is one reason we are not gung-ho on covering all our greens.  During warmer winters the turf can stay too active under the covers and continue to use soil moisture leading to dessication.  Or the still active turf can get hit by a cold snap that it hasn't prepared itself for.   So while covers are often beneficial  they do not guarantee turf survival in all winters.   The damage you see below is pretty superficial but recovery will take some time.   A couple more days under that cover without water though and that turf would have been toast.

Aerification Schedule

Wow, spring has sprung which means aerification is just around the corner.  Here are some dates we plan on poking holes to help you schedule your golfing days to avoid our "mess".

April 5-6 Greens surrounds (one nine per day)

April 7-15  Fairways (couple of holes per day)

May 2-3  Greens  (one nine per day/ other nine will be closed)  3/8" holes should be healed in about a week


We do our very best to get this done as quickly as possible and recover the turf so play disruption is minimal.  Aeration is the cornerstone to building a great turf so we appreciate your patience and understanding when we perform this necessary task.

Opening Day

Wild Horse will be opening on schedule March 1 with carts allowed.  Each opening day brings anticipation from you the golfer but we as a maintenance  staff are always anxious to get back in the swing of things too.  Here are some reasons we are excited to begin another great season of golf at Wild Horse.

1)  The turf is looking great!  Winter has been much more kind to us this year so greens and fairways should be coming into spring in fine shape.

2)  New greensmowers!  We just received a new model of greensmower that we are anxious to use this season.  While there will be some minor differences to adjust to for us, this new mower style should provide an even better quality of cut resulting in a smoother putting surface.  With the recent weather we might get to use them earlier than ever!

3)  A bolstered fairway mowing fleet.  We purchased a used fairway mower to give us more reliability and flexibility in our fairway mowers.  Our fairway area of 54 acres is nearly double that of most other courses.  We spend around 800 hours mowing fairways in a season so having dependable equipment is crucial.  

4)  A completed transition to bluegrass/ryegrass greens surrounds.   We have talked about this often in other posts and we are thrilled with how well this transition has went.  While it might not seem like too big a deal to many of you, switching turf species with relatively little disruption is tricky but will pay dividends long term in how we manage that turf and how it affects playability around the greens.

5)  Better looking bunkers.  This is a subtle nuance that you will probably not notice.  However a before and after picture would clearly detail the last fall's renovation of some of the bunkers to a more rugged look.   Over time bunker edges had become too "smooth"  so we tried to return them to the blowout styled edges that were originally conceived by the designers.

6)  An intact staff.  I am very lucky to have a great group of guys that really like coming to work and take pride in providing a great product for you to enjoy.   Many have been with me for a few years and I am happy to say they all return for 2016.

7)  Last but most exciting for our facility is that the lodging cabins are nearly complete and ready for your stay.  This is a whole new venture for Wild Horse that we think will add to your experience here.

Blizzard

It's been several years since we have had a snowstorm like we had last week.  I forgot how much snow can pile up in certain places as seen in the picture just above.  It took us an hour to get this far on the cart path from the parking lot to #1 tee.   We will continue to clear out some cart paths so that we can start to get around the course and possibly be ready for carts on March 1.  That is still a long ways off so we will see what Mother Nature deals us in the weeks to come.

The top picture shows #1.  As you can see all is white except the fairway and green.   The second picture shows #9 green completely void of snow.  The wind whipped all 10" of snow off the turf and deposited it in the rough or beyond.   So all the benefit of a good snow was unfortunately negated by the strong winds.  The turf only has 25% coverage and greens even less than that with 10% covered.  That being said the turf still looks pretty good at this point of the winter.  We are looking forward to getting back out on the course and starting up the golf season. 

What we like to see

Here is what we like to see in the middle of winter.   A nice snow cover on all of the turf on hole #1.  It was not a heavy snow but it provided some moisture and cover everywhere.  The turf is looking pretty good so far this winter.

I welcome any questions or inquiries about what we do or why we do it a certain way.  I can continue to write about what I find interesting on the course but really want to hit topics that you find intriguing.   As we progress through the winter I hope to keep updating consistently to get you in the mood for golfing this spring.  Feel free to email me at jmahar@live.com with topics you might want to learn about here at Wild Horse.

Rough management and playability

One of the most difficult areas to manage on the course for proper playability is the rough or "Wooga".  The rough should be somewhat penal as that is inherently its role.   Our feeling is that a shot into the rough should be findable but cost the golfer a half shot.  By that we mean the golfer should be able to advance the ball back into the fairway but not all the way up to near the green (thus a half shot penalty).   Sometimes our rough can be more unforgiving than that.   While we try to address that concern through burning, haying, and irrigation management there are some situations that are out of our control that can lead to difficult playing options.
One of the most common complaints we hear is that the rough is thickest along the edge of the fairway so a small miss is more penal than a big miss.  That is definitely not fair or preferable to us.  Much of the blame goes to errant irrigation but that is mostly untrue.  While some spots do receive irrigation overspray from sprinklers we have really tried hard over the last few years to eliminate that as much as possible by moving sprinklers in or out for more precise coverage.  There will still be some drift but it is minimal. 
One of the biggest problems for that area along the edge of the rough is seen below.  It is the amount of snow that piles up along those areas.   Wind sweeps snow off the fairway and deposits it along the edge.   A couple of these events can deposit 2-3 inches of extra moisture in that strip which can mean the difference between playable rough and unfair rough.   There is not much we can do about snow blowing into the rough but we have started periodically mowing a couple of swaths around the outside of the primary rough cut to make that strip more even with the rest of the rough.   Also this fall we aggressively applied glyphosate (Roundup)  to those areas to thin out the bluegrass that wants to thrive in that wetter environment. 
There will always be some luck as to the lie you might get in the wooga but we are cognizant of the conditions out there and try to make them as fair as possible while still maintaining the look of a links course with "unmaintained' rough.

Snow blown into edge of rough

Snowmaking

It was nice to hear from some of you that missed my blog when its tab was put under the members login section.  Now it is easily accessed from the main page.  You have not missed much as there hasn't been a new post in over 3 months-shame on me!!  I appreciate hearing that there are a few avid followers which will motivate me to be more timely with my posts.

It is the dead of winter now and while we haven't had much snow here at Wild Horse the little bit we have had has been good cover.  For the most part it laid down pretty well and provided decent protection for the greens.   Also the mild December without many real cold overnight lows has kept the turf a bit green and looking good for the end of the calendar year.

We have started a new process this year to try to avoid the calamity of winterkill we experienced last year.  It is SNOWMAKING!!

Snowmaking on #2 Green

We are very new to this process and are learning as we go about what kind of conditions are necessary to make good snow, the equipment necessary to do it, and other little things that can complicate a relatively simple process if all goes well.  We have not done much snowmaking this year because the first half of December was too mild even at night to do much.   Since then we have had some snowcover provided by Mother Nature, but are starting to lose that now and will probably try to get some snow laid down in the next couple of weeks.  

So why make snow?   Because it seems we never get much snow anymore!!   Even this year when many places north and west and also east have received snowfall we have been mostly left out.  And we know from experience that snow is the best insulator against cold temperatures and also provides moisture when it melts.   So we thought what better way to "cover" greens than with snow rather than expensive, labor intensive greens covers.   Will this guarantee survival?   No there are no guarantees in the natural world but we think it will really help our grass survive in most cases and also come out with more vigor in the spring.

So we are still in the learning process with this new tool but we think it definitely has potential.