Sneak Peak

The 2011 golf season is right around the corner.  This year we are going to have a new golf car fleet.  The new cars will be the Club Car Precendent i2.  I will say the this golf car is very nice the ride is very smooth and they are very reliable. This year is already getting to be exciting before the season opens. 

As of today, I am looking at the 29th as the opening day.  There is still quite a bit of snow on the ground and many areas that are still frozen solid.  Hopefully, the weather will remain warm enough to get the rest of the frost out of the ground.  A nice rain will really help.

USGA Green Section Record 3/18

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/USGA-Green-Section-Record--March-18--2011.html?soid=1103157499740&aid=-ZAJswyDoqM

Ipad

Last week, I attended an educational conference that was put on by Reinders. Reinders is a great company that supplies Hawks with equipment, Irrigation, and just about anything in between. This years conference was their 20 year anniversary. Each conference Reinders has the top educators from not only Wisconsi but from all over the United States. Topics included native area management, reducing our nutrient inputs and a great debate with Dr. Rossi and Dr Gaussion, which I throughly enjoyed. The highlight for me was winning an iPad. I have been working with the iPad now for 4 days and all I can say is what a great tool. I reached out to a fellow golf course superintendent who writes not just a golf course blog but a blog dedicated to technology. His website is http://iturfapps.com/ covers all types of platforms. He sent me a great email with some prefect apps for me to use on the golf course. Feel free to access his website to keep up to date and some great ideas you can use daily to make your life more productive. One great app, from Toro, that I will surely use every day is the on the screen shot below. This apps gives me the ability to access my irrigation program from anywhere. On many occasions I have returned to my office to either turn off a program or turn on the system. This will save me time and in most cases a few hours of sleep in the summer. Another is Note taker hd ,http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/note-taker-hd/id366572045?mt=8, now I just started working with this yesterday but it basically turns the ipad into a pad of paper. You can actually use your finger to make notes and save them

I would like to thank Reinders for such a great prize, I will use it daily.

Sent from my iPad

Course Update

We are finally getting rid of this winter  weather. The rest of the week looks great.  The extended forecast shows 50' or high 40's for the next 15 days.  I walked the entire golf course today, everything is looking great. The color is very good, actually much better then expected.  I do not see any snow mold damage. I also feel we have made it through without any ice damage. The snow on the front nine should be gone by Thursday.  The back nine on the other hand has a lot of snow.  Today, I started to plow the cart paths on 15,14, and 12.  As you can see in the picture there is a lot of snow.  Really nothing abnormal from prior years.  This years  snow pack on the path on 12 is as bad as I have ever seen it.  If we did not remove the snow from the path the snow would be there for quite some time.  I worked for almost 5 hours today plowing, mostly on 12  barley making it to the woods.

The 2011 golf season is right around the corner,  I have most of the staff position filled and just about everyone will be here by the end of next week.  I do not have an official opening date yet since there is still considerable frost in the ground.  My best guess as of today would be around the 30th for opening day.   I will keep you posted

Value of a golf course

http://www.asgca.org/images/stories/publications/VoGC-booklet.pdf

Here is a great article on the value of a golf course that I found.  Looks like this week we will finally break out of winter.  I have a the staff ready and waiting for the start of this years golf season.  We will do our best to get the golf course open soon.  A couple of things that we most remebr before the course can open

1.  All the frost must be out of the ground
2. I usually like to have all the greens and tees rolled and mowed

I hope to see everyone very soon, I am looking forward to a great 2011 golf season