The Course is Closed, what has your crew been up to?

The deep freeze of 2019 continues, and the course remains closed.  Most of the snow has melted, but overnight lows in the 20s have resulted in frozen ground.  Its is quite difficult to predict a date for when the course will re-open.  On the positive side we have checked a lot of things off the TO DO list.  Here is a recap of a few of those projects.

We are adding a new hole location sign to the 5^th tee, we got the work shop in order and turned out a great looking sign. 

These signs are made from cedar trees that have been removed from the property allowing us to re-purpose materials when possible.

Curbing replacement continues and we were able to get a project done that I have been eyeing since we started this project.  Cleaning up the appearance behind the 12^th green is a great aesthetic improvement.  We have installed nearly 1,000 linear feet of curbing to date and have just less than 1,000 feet to go to finish the project.  Our plan is to be done by 2020 with all the work being done in house.  The staff has done a tremendous job with the details and the result is a great result.  Basalt was the stone chosen to replace the existing material and should have a much longer life than the original stone.

Before and After

Last winter we fabricated new garbage cans for the course and this winter we are taking it two steps further.  We are transitioning the bricks under these areas to match the bricks used at the driving range mat area to create continuity.  New water coolers are also being fabricated to better match the color and look of the garbage can.  Many thanks to a former Aldarra employee, Dean Owen, for taking on the fabrication of the water coolers.  It is going to take time to change over all of the bricks on the course. 

The stain used on all the course accesories is the same product that will be used on the soffit's around the clubhouse when they are refinished this season.  Below is a sneak peak of the new water coolers.  

 A huge thank you to Dean Owen for helping us with this project.  Dean was a long time employee of Aldarra and his stamp is all over many of the projects on the course, he created the brand you see on all the cedar benches and accessories.  Thank you Dean.

 Tree removal has also been taking place during the closure a continuation of previous years efforts to open site lines and improve turf conditions.  One of the biggest areas we were able to address was the view down the first fairway.  Alder growth on both side before the pond has reduced the sight lines through the years.  You can see from this picture taken before the course opened the original view of the fairway.  Compare that the view in the photo below from May of 2015.  This is the renewed view down the first fairway.

Compare that to the view in the phone from May 2015.  

This is the current view from the First tee

The prolonged closure has also allowed us to ‘clean-up’ a lot of areas that have become over grown in recent years.  Finding time to attend to these areas between daily maintenance is difficult.  Closures allow us to tend to these areas, improving details around the course.

The ground was not frozen before the snow fell and the micro-climate at the interface of snow and the turf is a perfect environment for Pink Snow Mold spores to reproduce and spread.  The timing of our fungicide applications didn’t line up with the environmental conditions due to the length of snow cover and many tees and fairways will have a higher rate of disease patches than we have seen in any other year.  This will have no negative effect on turf health but will take additional to time recover as temperatures warm-up going into Spring.  Additional applications (fungicide and fertilizer) will be made when mother nature cooperates to help recovery.

We are excited to get the golf course open and have people back enjoying the fruits of our labor.   Thank you for your patience and hope to see you out soon.