Rain Continues

Our weather pattern of wet and cooler temperatures has continued over the last week. I feel very lucky to be having this weather leading into the month of July. The wet conditions cause a few headaches but getting rains like this at the first of July is a huge bonus. During the last week the maintenance team has continued to stay very busy. We are continuing to replace some zoysia areas in some of our fairways on the back nine that we haven't touched yet. We are getting down towards the end I hope and I think the fairways are starting to grow and recover nicely in the sodded spots we replaced and overall. However #8 and #9 are still a bit behind the others due to their locations and the growing environment with the shade caused by the trees and the winter damage that occured. Our plan this week is to apply another round of fertilizer to the fairways and tees to try and help push them along some more. Today we are busy verticutting and topdressing the greens to help keep them as firm and smooth as possible. Carts are off of most of the fairways today with the exception of few low areas. It looks like the forecast is showing another round of thunderstorms for tonight. We will keep our fingers crossed that we don't get a heavy rain as that would not be good going into the holiday weekend. The mowers are out today and all systems are a go here as we are working diligently to get as much of the golf course mowed before the rain moves in later this evening. We are still waiting on our demo sweeper to show up here to start aerifying tees and fairways. At this point we will probably move this process into next week and wait for the holiday weekend to pass so that we aren't disrupting the golf. Have a great week!

Week After The Timberwolf

The weather cooperated nicely and we were able to have a very successful and awesome 2014 Timberwolf event that saw some great golf action. Congratulations to Todd O'Neil and his guest for taking home the honors of becoming the 2014 Timberwolf Champions! It was a great week for the maintenance staff as well as they performed at an extremely high level and worked their tails off providing championship conditions for all the competitors. The golf course really held up well over the week. I was very pleased with how the greens performed and how the zoysia fairways and tees continued to recover from the winter damage. Last night we received about 1" of rain which has softened things up a bit. We are unable to mow fairways or tees today and carts will be on paths for the day. However we are still able to get out and vent the greens this morning with the solid tine to help break the surface tension and continue to provide oxygen to the root systems. We will work on the front nine greens today and then will complete the back nine greens tomorrow. This week we are going to be working on doing some more sodding in the fairways and around some of our low drainage areas along the run off areas. I am hoping to be able to install an additional senior tee on hole #6 and will use the cool season sod from this area to repair the drainage areas in the rough along the approach areas. Our plan moving forward is to start the aerification process of the fairways and tees sometime later this week or we may wait until after the 4th of July weekend depending on when I receive the fairway sweeper that we are demoing from John Deere to pick up the cores that we pull. This machine really makes the aerification process extremely efficient and very clean. I will keep everyone posted on when are going to start this process. Have a great week and I hope to see all of you at the club very soon!!

Finally Dry Conditions

Finally we are starting to get some wind and warmer weather to help dry out the course this week. This is a sticky situation as I am nervous to cheer on hot and windy conditions going into the month of July, because as we all know this can become the norm very quickly. However this year I am ready for a little drier weather to help us to finally get caught up on the mowing and to help us get rid of all the clippings. As I mentioned in the beginning course conditions have dried out and carts are finally off the paths today on almost all the holes except for #3 and 16. The maintenance staff have started our tournament preparations for the Timberwolf which starts on Thursday. We have been mowing roughs continually, mowing fairways and tees, and doing some push mowing of bunker faces and wet areas that the mowers can't get. Also today we are doing some more sodding on some thin areas on #8 fairway by the fairway bunkers in the landing zone. This area isn't going to recover and this is a high traffic area for carts and a landing spot for tee shots. Also this week we received a new member of our equipment family! Our new light weight roller for the greens showed up just in time for us to use for the Timberwolf. This piece of equipment will allow us to roll the greens and not cause as much damage to the green or the surrounding area around the green by decreasing the P.S.I per square inch that the roller effects and it weighs 250 lbs. less. I have attached a picture of the roller below. I am confident that this tool will help us to match the expectations of our membership on our greens. I hope you all have a great week and my staff and I are very excited for the the Timberwolf and to showcase the course to all the guest this week.

Wet Conditions

After receiving about 6" of rainfall in the last week and half things are pretty wet here at Wolf Creek. However the sun has been out all day today and it looks like Saturday is going to be a good day as well for some drying out. Carts are still going to be on paths today with hopes that we may be able to get off on a few fairways on Saturday depending on how they dry out today. We are selectively mowing some rough areas and green bank areas around the golf course today, which should help out with the playability of the rough. Unfortunately we aren't able to get out and mow fairways or tees today as they are still really wet and full of moisture. I am planning to try and mow them on Saturday unless they are still too wet then we will have to wait until Monday unless we get another shot of rain on Sunday. The crew has been able to do a little bit more sodding on some zoysia areas this week. The wet conditions has obviously slowed this process down. Hopefully we are going to be able to get some more done prior to next weeks Timberwolf to help with playability in some of these high traffic areas. Next week we will start gearing up and getting the golf course ready for the Member/Guest event which starts on Thursday. We are keeping our fingers crossed that "Mother Nature" cooperates with us and helps us out so that we can have a great event like we are set up to have. Have a great weekend and I hope to see you on the tee in the very near future!!

Rain Rain Rain

I guess the moral of the story is you better be careful what you ask for. All spring we have been asking for some much needed rain and "Mother Nature" has delivered over the past 24 hours or so. Since about 2pm Monday we have received about 2.75" so far and it is still raining and looks like it is going to continue for a while today. The rain has fallen at a pretty nice soft and steady pace which is really good to allow a lot of it to soak into the ground and recharge the subsurface of moisture instead of just pouring down and running off. This also helps to keep our creek in it's banks and not cause any major flooding. The creek is full but not out of it's banks at this time. We were able to get all the rough, fairways, tees, and most of the green banks and tee banks mowed on Monday prior to the rain. Also on Monday we installed some more zoysia sod in a few thin areas on #1 fairway that are in the landing zone for tee shots. Our plan is to continue patching a few areas before next weeks Timberwolf on holes #7, 5, 8, and 18 if the weather allows us to do so. Have a great week and I hope to see you out at the club at some point this week when the rain stops!!!

Wind and Rain

"Mother Nature" has continued her trend of giving us up and down weather patterns and along the way has provided some much needed rain. On Sunday night we received .6" of rain and then on Tuesday night we received another .55" of very beneficial rain. Carts will be on paths today for most of the day at least. We will check it later in the day to see if things have dried out. Along with the beneficial rain that Sunday night's storm brought it also had some high winds with it that caused some tree damage around the golf course. I have attached two photos of a big limb that blew out of the tree behind #9 green and then a photo of some other tree limbs that fell on #4 tees. We had several limbs on the ground along with a bunch of little debris all over the course on Monday morning. Also on Monday and Tuesday we did our monthly solid tine venting on the greens. This was perfect timing as the greens were starting to not take the water as good prior to us opening them up a bit with the venting. Being able to do it and to catch a rain like we had on Tuesday night was perfect timing. We are going to continue to work on sodding zoysia in some of the thin areas around #4 approach, #1 approach and fairway, and #5 green side bunker. The golf course continues to perform well and is playing very well right now. I am extremely pleased with the repairs we have made and the progress that the course has shown coming out of the tough winter.