Ice Removal

Over the last few days with the warm weather the snow has been melting away very quickly. Some of the greens still had a large amount of ice cover that I feel had to be removed to allow for free drainage. I feel that the snow blowing process worked extremely well too a point. Also, the holes that we drilled into the greens last fall in the areas of last years damage did drain some of the standing water as you can see pictured here on 2 green


The problem that I had yesterday was the water flow under the ice cover was being blocked by ice and snow cover and was not draining off the green.

While removing the ice the smell of the turf was that of water soaked and anaerobic conditions. the process was done by chopping the ice using a shovel and just picking up the chunks of ice. As I was working I could see the water under the ice draining off the green










After many hours of work yesterday the greens that I worked on looked pretty good today. The smell of the green is still an issue but not as strong as yesterday. Hopefully we will get some moderate temperatures over the next few days to dry the surface of the greens a little.

Overall, I feel the what we did has worked and I am happy the the results. It is always nice to be able to see the golf course in mid to late winter to make sure everything we did last fall is still working. I am still a concerned about the golf course but I feel that we are on a good track. I have not seen any snow mold in the fairways, tees, or greens. There is quite a bit in the rough areas this year.

Thank you

Neil