April 15, 2021 Course and Club House Update

 Hi Folks,

I hope this update finds all well and still excited for the upcoming year.  The snow has finally melted, even in the dark corners of the golf course and the frost is coming out of the ground.  Work continues on the club house, both exterior and interior, and we are working on the course to recover from the winter.

Like the March Update I'll lead with some photos of the Club house so you can see the progress.  

The Multi Purpose room on the second floor is really taking shape now that the drywall has been installed.

Multi Purpose room from another angle.

Although hard to see (no lights installed yet) this will be the simulator room and the members lounge.  The open space in the wall will house a window to spectate and or heckle.

The stone patio out side the restaurant is almost finished and the siding is being installed

Same patio from the south side

Here's the club house from the one tee side. The stone work on the wall facing the parking lot is making great progress and looking great! 

The interior of the existing clubhouse is also getting a facelift.  We are adding an office for Brett and reconfiguring the hall to create an entrance to the new facility.

Another view of the clubhouse from 9 approach.

The slightly warmer weather we've been experiencing is beginning to show us where the golf course has suffered from the winter.  As predicted from the samples we had pulled early March, there are pockets of ice injury around the golf course. 18, 10 13, 7 have taken the worst of the damage, suffering roughly a 60 percent loss sporadically around the greens and predominantly in the low areas. 

18 green Ice damage

Number 7, back of the green

Number 10 green freshly tarped. Our tarping team today from the left are Mack, Lincoln and AJ.

Number 7 in the front.

 The current temperatures (with the exception of a few out lying days) have been below the level where the turf will really take off.  I am encouraged by the growth that we’ve had already, during the small amount of warmth we experienced.   The healthy plants will take advantage of the warmth and grow more quickly while the damage plants will be slow to show any movement.  As things get warmer and the plants find themselves in better growing conditions the less healthy will show improvement.   

Our process to correct the damage includes a hard brushing in both directions, fertilize with plant available liquid fertilizer, over seeding with our bent grass seeder, roll and then covering the green with a tarp to elevate the temperatures.  We would normally include watering the seed, but I am concerned about any lingering frost in the ground that might damage the irrigation system.   This weekend is supposed to be wet, and we will most likely charge the system next week to continue keeping the seed moist. As a side note, this is the earliest I have ever seeded in New Brunswick, typically the first week of May is our target.

  

Here's the tarp installed on 18. The tarp elevates the soil temperature and helps to reduce loss over night.

It’s unlikely to see much germination while the temperatures are this sporadically low but in the event we see some growth, we will be that much further ahead.  There is no magic pill for recovery from these situations, it's more of war of attrition.  We seed, tarp, hope for growth, seed, tarp, hope for growth.  As the weather improves each seeding layer will see better results, until the damage is fully recovered. 

 2, 3, 8, 11, 16, 9 also suffered some injury but at a much lesser degree.  These areas are of lesser concern, main due to their smaller size and reduced but not decimated population.  I expect as the conditions improve these will areas will get smaller.  Treatment remains the same, brush, fertilize, seed and tarp. 

Number nine green from the club house, the whitish areas are the damaged sections.

This is the "reduced but not decimated population" area on 13 green at the back left. This will improve much faster as there are already mature plants in place.  

Here's the same spot on 13 but from viewed from 18tee. The guys are tarping just the weak sections.

That leaves 1, 4, 5, 6, 12, 14, 15, 17 in great shape. 

Number 2 from the back, looking great!

Number 4 from the back, also looking great!

Number five from four green, you guessed it, also looking great!

On the whole not a terrible winter result but we definitely have some work to do.  At this point we are still looking at our traditional opening date of Mid may,  but are optimistic with good weather and some luck we might be earlier.  Please stay tuned for further updates and a discussion about moving the putting green!