Pretty Plain Jane.....

This January, like most January's, was a drawn out affair that bumbled by while I putzed around the shop, the course, the internet, and my computer.   Golf course wise things appear to be O.K.  We have as much as 18" snow in some areas and very little in some of the treed areas.  The little stint of warm weather and small amount of rain has had no impact on the green surfaces since most have plenty of snow.  I would hazard a guess that winter ice wise we are out of the woods and can now start wringing our hands over what type of spring melt we will get.

Like always I spent most of January planning out the year.  Decisions are based on past successes and failures and 2015 saw, IMO, more successes than failures.  For the most part, successes as of late are defined as decreasing costs with limited negative impact on course presentation.  One of last years successes related to fertilizer.  Turf nutrition is the one of the larger line items on our budget with just over $5000 spent on fertilizing greens alone this past year.  Sounds like lots but take a look at this:

The points on the blue line show we've spent less on fertilizer for the greens each year over the past three years.  To be fair that has been the trend for a while now but nothing as dramatic as seen in the last 3 years.  With turf nutrition there is always new information being made available and it's up to each person to wade through the information and decide its value.  Over the last couple years I've been reading lots about a style of turf nutrition call Minimum Level for Sustainable Nutrition (MLSN).  Explanation of MLSN requires its own post but for this post I'll gloss over the details and attempt to relay the gist of it.  MLSN is a type of soil analysis that identifies quantities of nutrients within a soil and then estimates the amount needed to be applied via fertilizer to maintain nutrients at or near a minimum level for healthy turf based on the amount of nitrogen applied throughout a growing season.  

I sent away soil samples last year and the recommendations that came back found our soils were not lacking in any of the required nutrients for growing turf.  So all I needed to add was nitrogen to allow for uptake of existing soil nutrients and to maintain healthy turf.  With respect to the greens, I did not jump in with both feet but I was still fairly true to the MLSN theory and guidelines.  Nutrition for the tees, however, was based 100% MLSN.  I guess conditions this spring could either push me farther done the MLSN road or make me regret the whole idea.  As always, stay tuned.

Air Head....

For whatever reason, over the past couple weeks, I'm having trouble shaking the cob webs out of my head and I feel like I'm moving in a vat of molasses.  I suspect it relates to being glued to my office chair and staring at a computer and doing absolutely no physical activity.  November can be a bummer....

What's new?   Another staff change in the equipment maintenance end.  Starting in mid-November I hired Neil L. to be KGC's new mechanic.  He's being busy grinding reels, repairing various items, and finishing off some pet projects I've had on the books for awhile.  The best one, as boring as it sounds, is a small trailer he is fabricating that will come in handy for transporting all but the largest pieces of equipment the club presently owns.  Whether you picked up on it or not, when a piece of equipment breaks down not only is it left on the course to help drive home the point of how undependable and aged our fleet is but some equipment, having a hydrostatic drive, are difficult to tow.  The trailer will make it possible to haul most of the fleet back to shop where Neil can make use of the shop and its resources.

Homemade Tilt Trailer

Putting the course to bed went fairly well with all the preventative treatments be applied without any obvious hitches.  Cold temperatures starting near the end of November shut down any growth and pretty much pushed the turf into dormancy.

Graph from Weather Station

 As an aside, you can view the historical weather (only from August 2015 to present) for KGC's weather station by going HERE and scrolling down about half way to the bottom of the page.  There you can choose to view daily, weekly, or monthly weather stats.

The last week has been interesting with about 4 to 5 inches of snow on the ground and all the rain (1" since Dec. 4 up until Dec. 9).  Take a look at this:

More Weather History

Over 80 mm (or about 3.75") of rain in the past 30 days!  That can't be good.  However, I dug around on Monday and didn't see any real bad news ice wise.  On Wednesday I dug where I could get to and again didn't see any bad news and actually came across some greens that thawed.  Today I dug around again and the only ice is on the greens with a tarp (#7 and #15) which is why we tarp those ones since they are prone to ice.  Long story short, things look rosy.  The fresh snow over the past couple days and the coarse granular, "blocky" snow down to the green surface should, with any luck, give us good protection from the next warm spell.

The hope now is more snow and more of this:

Skiing with my "Homies" on the hill last Sunday

"Since You're Gone"....

It's the last week of October and we are pretty much on schedule with all the preparations needed before the snow flies.  The awesome weather has allowed us on the course in good time each day with frost only being a problem over the past couple days.  This time of year frost usually sticks around until "noon-ish" which drags out most of the fall prep activities, especially the fall spray treatments.

Last weekend was the fall work bee (go HERE) with a nice turn out and even nicer weather.  With only a few trees to clean up (dead fir on 2 G, all the weedy poplars back of 14 G) a large number of people were able fill divots on 4,5,6,8,9,11,16,17, and 18 Fwys.  If you missed this work bee don't panic since I'm pretty sure there will be one in the spring.  They are such a huge help.

The crew completed a very minor irrigation expansion located between 6 and 8 greens.  This area is somewhat out of the way but because of inadequate coverage it shows moisture and heat stress early which easily creeps into the neighbouring surrounds on both 6 and 8 greens.  Ultimately, this expansion will continue onto 8 green where we will install irrigation for the surrounds as well as continue to the cart path on the right of 8 green.  I get to hear players complaints about how rough the ends of certain cart paths are and the one on 8 is probably the worst.  The concentrated traffic and no irrigation make more that difficult to keep turf established in that area.  I know from past experience that sodding the end of a cart path with no way to irrigate is guaranteed to fail.

In future posts I hope to cover some of the geeky tech things we do.  This will be the first installment. One of things I like to do is gather information about activities on the course.  This information gathering in relation to fertilizing and tracking pest/disease outbreaks allows us to create a data base which we often use as a reference.  There is numerous companies offering specialized software and devices for just what I describe but in our situation they are not a necessity and are too expensive.  However, as is my style, I'm always trying to cheap out and bastardize a "made in Kimberley" solution.  I started with aerial photographs with mylar overlays and felt pens but a pal gave me an old "I-thing" onto which I was able to download particular apps and now I can map fertilizer applications with GPS and upload to a site which stores the "track".  Go HERE to see the most recent fairway fertilizer (clicking the "satellite" toggle in the upper left corner of the picture gives a real life picture).  My hope is to use this more in the future to track all applications on the golf course that will easily viewed by all.

Home Strech

It's the last week of play and we are still experiencing very nice weather.  I haven't had the question yet, but someone will ask why close when the weather is so good?  Operating costs for all departments is one reason but from my end I need time without play and before seasonable weather to complete necessary tasks (as referenced in the previous post).

Beginning this Thursday the big jobs associated with preparing for winter begin.  We will be winterizing the irrigation and as a result alternating 9's will be closed (go HERE for refresher).  With respect to the irrigation you may have noticed a complete lack of post regarding the usual problems associated with river this time of year (go HERE for 2014 summary).  Last years work and the quiet freshet this spring resulted in us reaping the benefits and not having to put a single minute into moving rocks to get flow by our intake.  We will always need to do maintenance and I plan to have a backhoe down at the river to do a little cleaning as well as take a look at the wet well and see if we need to bring in a sucker truck.  A few words of caution:  apparently I took too much liberty with respect to diverting the river last fall so we won't able to do that again and all we need is a heavy snow pack and a wet spring to have all our river work disappear so I have no doubt we'll be back down there.  On the good news/proactive side we're hoping to plan a site meeting with appropriate people and get the rules/regulations nailed down once and for all so we can plan and with the city connection completed  (we just have to run a pipe to the reservoir) the panic associated with the river should be a little more manageable.

This past week we began/completed jobs I had slated for completion in May!  The flower bed by the bathroom on 7G/8T is gone and will be replaced by a tree and brick work next spring (hopefully?!?).  We transferred some aerating cores to the main driveway that will eventually grow into a lawn.  That tiny job is part of my efforts to formalize/update the front entrance which, IMO, looks unwelcoming and shabby.  With cash being tight its difficult to commit any money to create dramatic changes to an area that few people notice as they roar up the drive way.  Just stand half way down on the corner one day and you'll see what I mean!

Punch Drunk...

Now that fall is here we are adjusting our focus away from routine maintenance and attempting to prepare the course for next spring.  As far as players are concerned the most obvious activity occurring throughout the course is all the aeration.

Normally, tees are aerated early summer but, and I'll be whining about this a fair amount as I review our year in future posts, staffing levels made it difficult to keep up with basic mowing let alone a high input activity such as aerating.  Cooler nights and increasing H.O.C 's has shifted labour away from cutting grass and  freed up man power for aerating.  Equipment failures are sabotaging our efforts but we're plugging along (no pun intended!).

A huge, messy job for the crew is aerating fairways.  We use 2 sometimes 3 guys  to operate 4 pieces of equipment in a process that takes close to 10 days.  The clean-up process is what takes the time.  Throw in play and you can easily triple the amount time needed to complete an average sized fairway.  So why do it now and not when we're closed?  Mostly because of time and staffing (if you type the phrase "fall activities" in the little search window located on the upper left corner of the web page any post highlighting the issues associated with fall prep/maintenance will appear for your reading pleasure or better yet click the blue highlighted "fall activities" located in the bottom left of this post and all posts will that lable will appear).  A somewhat irregular request I would ask of you as a member is while we're out there aerating a particular hole why not pick up and take a par and move on to the next hole?   The quicker we're done the quicker we're out of your hair!

Bunkers and Raking

One small change this year I hoped players appreciated was our attempt to introduce a different method to rake bunkers.

Smoothed Edges, Raked Bottom

I read about the "Australian Bunker" method this past winter and, as usual, ridiculed it but as more people began to posting on Twitter I began to warm up the idea.  We don't have buckets of bunkers but there is no doubt some are difficult to play out of.  Basically, by creating a smooth edge around the periphery all errand shots entering a bunker should roll to the bottom of the hazard.  A flatter lie should be an easier shot; or so they say (?).

The other reason for trying this style of bunker raking goes back to the "there isn't a business that can't find a 3 to 5% efficiency" quote I've mentioned before (GO HERE).  We've already cut down the number of days we rake bunkers.  For the past couple years now we've only hand raked half the bunkers each day and touched up the rest.   With this method we only smooth the edges where players have walked in and out, or if rain/irrigation has washed out a bunker face, or if an animal has walked along the edge otherwise we do nothing. The area we rake on the bottom is far less than before so it should take less time, unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be the case.  If you know my bunker raker you know that he is regimented and adapting to change is slow process.  He is definitely doing less so he should be quicker, however........

Mea Culpa......

What else can I say?  I haven't kept up with updating the blog and now any audience I may have gained have most likely given up.  With hindsight, I now know how stupid my staffing plan was for the 2015 season.  This isn't the time to go into it but spending my mornings operating 2 to 3 different pieces of mowing equipment on top of my regular duties has exhausted me and, frankly, made me bitchy!

A quick review of the little blurb that appears on the right hand side of the the blog page ("What's the Point?") reminded me of what I was trying to do and how I may have lost my way a bit.  Short updates with pictures not long winded over explanatory essays!  So let's try it again....

Lots to cover but this post will cover something you'll get to use.  I saw another superintendent post something on Twitter with some local weather information for his area and I asked where he was getting his data.  He directed me to a on-line source that sells weather stations for the backyard, meteorological weather mega-geeks.  So way back at the start of summer I bought a weather station but it took until August and help from KGC's I.T. guy, Bruce I., to get it working.  Go to Kimberley Golf Club Weather Station to see data from the weather station.  At the top is current weather and if you scroll down there is graphs and tables which give historical data for our weather station but, FYI, information is only available starting on August 16, 2015.

I know Kimberley is not that big but by looking at the info from the station before you come down you will get a feel for what the weather at the club is like.  Who cares?  Well in the very near future frost delays will be an issue again so instead of trying to get through to the golf shop in the morning to see if there is frost you will be able to look at the temperature a make an educated guess.  This time of year anything below -2 degrees will probably mean a delay.  Another FYI, the stations present location skews temps about 3 degrees warmer than it really is so if you see a temp of +1 it is more likely -2 ish.  I will still attempt to inform players of delays via my Twitter feed as well.  Twitter, another thing I have trouble keeping up with......