That sounds a little melodramatic but that is one of the arguments I've been having with myself since last Thursday (Nov. 10th). As referenced in the last post, the small layer of snow remaining on the greens could be a problem. The forecast last week was calling for increasing temperatures and possible showers. We ended up making the call last Thursday to remove the thin layer of snow on those greens where ice could develop. The real troublesome greens were already tarped so the greens we removed the snow from were those greens that had a frozen surface, had some occurrence of winter damage in the past, and where the snow had slightly melted . The other greens that hadn't really seen any late season heat still had a couple inches of snow on their surface so we left them. We ended up taking the snow off of 4, 8, 9, 10, 12, 18. The moisture that ended up coming was a mixture of wet snow and rain and made for some interesting conditions.
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| Snow Layer 14G |
By Sunday most of the greens were like the above picture: a fluffy snow layer over corn snow over frozen ground. The corn layer is porous but tight and crumbled with little effort. The greens that had the snow removed were a bit different.
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| 9 Green |
Obviously there was less snow in general and the surface on all (with the exception of one) were slightly thawed. Again the snow layer was a tight corn snow but still came off the surface with minimal effort. The funky one is 4 green. The surface is bullet proof and the snow cover is very solid or, dare I say it, "ice like"? The layer is small and does come off with a bit more effort but now we have to decide what it could turn into. Again, the forecast is for more snow which puts a time constraint on removing the snow from 4 green since I would want anything left on the green surface after snow blowing to melt. Also, forecasted overnight lows are below -10 degrees Celsius and exposing a partially melted surface to that temperature is pretty much a guaranty for ice. There is always a way to rationalize your choices but it is only with the benefit of hindsight do you know if the right choice was made so, again, To Snow Blow or Not To Snow Blow......
