Fairway Repair Update

Course conditions continue to improve following the warm temperatures and rain which we have received over the last two weeks. The recent warm tempuratures and rainfall have allowed us to begin to see the product of the many long hours the maintenance staff has logged while repairing areas damaged over the harsh winter. To date, we have seen many damaged areas respond well to the vertical mowing, fertilization, and seeding completed by the golf course maintenance staff. Areas which looked bleak only weeks ago have begun to show signs of improvement. The most severely damaged areas, those located under the covers, especially display promising signs of recovery. As you can see in the picture, the covers are serving their purpose by retaining adequate heat and moisture to foster seed germination.Areas of damaged turf without covers have seen improvement through lateral turf growth and the recovery of existing turf plants, but we have yet to see sufficient germination of the newly sewn seed. Your patience is appreciated while playing a course which contains significant portions of fairways under cover. These covers will allow us to return the course to top shape in the shortest amount of time. Once the turf has sufficiently matured and the night time temperatures are consistently over freezing, the covers will be removed.

To date the maintenance staff has focused its attention on repairing the fairways on the Red and the White nines. The overwhelming majority of initial repair work has been completed on these nines at this time. As time progresses and conditions improve, the maintenance staff will continue to revisit damaged areas for fine tuning.

In addition to our normal early-season maintenance on the golf course, the maintenance staff continues to repair the winter damage on the fairways of the Blue nine. Because these fairways are flatter, have poorer drainage, and are the lowest-lying, they have received the greatest amount of damage. This is especially true on the fairways on the 4th, 6th, and seventh holes. Significant areas of these fairways will require vertical mowing, seeding, a fertilizing, topdressing, and covering. The extent of repair is illustrated in the picture of 4 Blue. The foreground of the picture depicts areas which have been verti-cut, seeded, fertilized, and topdressed, while the background depicts the installation of the covers. Through some long days of hard work by the maintenance staff, the Blue nine will be completed by the end of the week. Our goal is to get the repair work done so that the Blue nine will be ready to play as soon as possible.