Opening day is on hold for the short term, but we will will be making a decision in the next few days. If the snow stays to the north our plan is to open the course as soon as this weekend. My best guess is the course will be open at least by Wednesday next week.
Currently, we have most of the staff here working on mowing and cleaning up the golf. All greens, tees, and fairways have been mowed at least once and are in good condition. Even with the few warm days most of the playing surfaces are not aggressively growing. I do not see too much growth until the ground temperature stay consistently above 55 degrees. We are currently around 45 degrees.
Some of our rough edges along the fairways have a high percentage of creeping bentgrass. Bentgrass is a wonderful grass when cut below a half of an inch at rough height this grass tend to dominate and is very hard to advance the golf ball. I have looked at this issue in the past and without a complete conversion in these areas the rough grass has not filled in. This week, realigned our fairway edges and will start mowing some of the areas as part of our fairways.
We have made very good progress with our Fescue over the last few years. I have applied a crabgrass pre-emergent to most of the fescue already this spring. Our plan will be to treat for broadleaf weeds and undesirable grasses late spring. I will be looking at the heavy stands of fescue and treat these areas with additional products to help reduce the density. The University of Wisconsin is working on a fescue management study on holes 13 and 7. One of their research studies involves "playable fescue" I plan on implementing some of this research into our programs.
This week, we just started working on preparing the bunkers for play. Most likely we will not have all the bunkers completed by opening day. Once we completed this process we will go back and work on edging.
I am looking forward to a great 2016 golf season and look forward to seeing you very soon.
Currently, we have most of the staff here working on mowing and cleaning up the golf. All greens, tees, and fairways have been mowed at least once and are in good condition. Even with the few warm days most of the playing surfaces are not aggressively growing. I do not see too much growth until the ground temperature stay consistently above 55 degrees. We are currently around 45 degrees. 
Some of our rough edges along the fairways have a high percentage of creeping bentgrass. Bentgrass is a wonderful grass when cut below a half of an inch at rough height this grass tend to dominate and is very hard to advance the golf ball. I have looked at this issue in the past and without a complete conversion in these areas the rough grass has not filled in. This week, realigned our fairway edges and will start mowing some of the areas as part of our fairways. 
We have made very good progress with our Fescue over the last few years. I have applied a crabgrass pre-emergent to most of the fescue already this spring. Our plan will be to treat for broadleaf weeds and undesirable grasses late spring. I will be looking at the heavy stands of fescue and treat these areas with additional products to help reduce the density. The University of Wisconsin is working on a fescue management study on holes 13 and 7. One of their research studies involves "playable fescue" I plan on implementing some of this research into our programs. This week, we just started working on preparing the bunkers for play. Most likely we will not have all the bunkers completed by opening day. Once we completed this process we will go back and work on edging.
I am looking forward to a great 2016 golf season and look forward to seeing you very soon.