The Little Dutch Boy.....

I am running out of fingers to plug the all the holes that seem to be popping up all over the place!   There's been lots of good things (weather, successful volunteer work bee, staffing) I could comment on but its the problems that are keeping me busy and distracted.  Here's a brief summary of the what is happening out on the course:

• Winter Clean-up:  We are slowly getting all the tree litter cleaned and with the help from volunteers last Tuesday a majority of the front nine holes were raked.  The biggest problem for completing the clean-up has been breakdowns.  Aside from the tractors front wheel falling off (bearings and planetary gear issues and now, as of Friday, a starter problem) both of our large capacity sweepers have been experiencing issues (broken sweeper shaft on the old Jac and list of costly engine problems on the vacuum sweeper) and both have spent most of the time sitting waiting to be repaired or being repaired.  The nice weather has the rough growing and needing to be mowed but with all the debris still to be swept up we're only able to mow those areas with the least amount of tree litter scattered on the ground.
• Winter Damage and Temporary Greens:  We've had no time to address the winter damage on any of the greens.  Some only require a few hours of plugging to be 100% but others require substantially more work.  Plugging is time consuming and my staff has been spread thin attempting to keep up with the maintenance and routine preparation required once the course opened for play.  As a general rule, players have been very understanding but I still need people to be patient regarding #7 green.  This green is a temp not because I'm worried about how it putts but because I'm worried about how play will affect its recovery.  I've heard the comment "Oh 7 looks fine.  We've played on way worse!" but again its the growth not the play that's my concern (at least at this point in time).
• Staffing:  The early opening has forced my hand and I've had to start some staff sooner than normal but I am also attempting to stick as close as possible to the budget and have adjusted the level of maintenance down to match the staffing numbers.  I am regretting that choice already but we are having to spend more money on equipment repairs early this year and I attempting to be prudent in other expense areas where I feel I have some control.
• Out of Left Field Stuff:  Up until this week most of the surprises have been equipment related but if you've been following the saga at KGC breakdowns have been a typical occurrence over the last couple years.  The seriously major issue that is now on our plate happen just yesterday (Why does sh*t always seem to hit the fan on Friday?).  At one point Friday morning something occurred which tripped a fuse on our 3 phase power line that feeds the river pump house as well as the irrigation pump house at the pond on 16 tee.  Usually, its just a twig that has landed on the power line and crossed phases but this time after the overhead power company repaired the fuse we only had power restored to the river pump house and partial power to the irrigation pump house (FYI, KGC owns the above ground power lines that feed the irrigation system and when we have a problem BC Hydro will not fix it.  We have to call a private company to repair it and we pay through the nose!)  Initially, I thought the problem was a 3 phase monitor inside the irrigation pump house but an electrician was unable to pin point the problem and suspects there may be a transformer issue.  That's a $15 000  to $20 000 replacement, I think.  So again we needed to call the private power company but by this time it was Friday afternoon and no one was answering their phone.  We'll have to wait until Monday.  Until then we have no irrigation but luckily it is only April and a few days without water is feasible but if problem isn't easily solved we may be "in dutch" (full circle, I love doing that!)