More pictures of the course now:
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| beginning of nine fairway |
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| four fairway looking towards tee |
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| two fairway |
Snow vs Rain cont.....
Like any written article there may be some facts that are indisputable and others that do not hold as much weight as they may seem. Or changes in technology or turf breeding make lists outdated. I found an article that gives a nice explanation of crown hydration. Some of the statements however, may be misleading. Because we are on an island our temps are moderate and fluctuate often so the statement of occurrence in late winter for us really means anytime throughout the winter. Yesterday and today are both in the mid-30's so everything is still slushy and wet under the ice/snow cover. When it drops below freezing at night we are at risk for hydration injury. Also they have done a ton of plant breeding over the last 15 or so years and perennial rye grass is much more cold tolerant than it used to be. winter kill article
More pictures of the course now:
More pictures of the course now:
Snow vs Rain
As many of you know the Northeast is having a big year for snow fall. Many areas are receiving 10-12 inches at a time. I have seen and heard of massive snow banks as the stuff is piled higher and higher. There are some wonderful benefits to having snow cover. It acts as an insulating blanket protecting the turf from severe cold temperatures as we had last weekend. Along with this benefit comes a lower frost build up in the soil. This may or may not speed up thawing in the spring as it depends how much snow you have. What melts faster a foot of snow or a foot of frost? Another benefit is all the things you can do in snow: ski, sled, snow shoe etc. Winter rain on the other hand has very little benefit that I can see. Maybe filling your irrigation pond. We seem to be in this pattern of getting a few inches of snow then rain and ending up with 2-4 inches of slush that freezes. It makes travel difficult. Every parking lot is a sheet of ice. Everywhere you walk is ice. I am sure the number of falling accidents is way up on MV this winter. For turf we have these lakes and rivers everywhere that shift between various states of either frozen solid or fully liquid. This situation is very bad for grass as it creates a problem called crown re-hydration. Here is a link to an article on winter snow cover dated last spring from the USGA: "our experts explain"
These were taken yesterday and although the sun was out and it was a nice day the temps never rose above 34 degrees. As you walked on this it was all frozen and the dark areas were still liquid underneath. Snow has various amounts of moisture in it. Think great skiing snow is a dry powder vs snow man snow which is wetter and packs better. So our snow and rain mix is very saturated and wet. This keeps the top layer of turf saturated and prone to winter injury. More later....
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| first hole notice the darker sections in fairway |
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| cart staging area with foot deep puddle on grass |
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| flag pole lawn with continuation of river from nine green and cart staging area |
Top dressing greens in late fall
Our late season deep tine aerification was moved from November to mid September. So that means we did not get a big load of topdressing on the greens late in the season this year. So we decided to put one on just before full on winter set in. These pictures show the sand on half the green and the buffalo blower being towed behind a cart working the sand into the green. For those of you interested in the reasons we top dress greens please check out this link: http://turf.lib.msu.edu/gsr/1970s/1974/740317.pdf It is an older article but informative.
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| top dressing sand - right corner no sand |
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| buffalo blower working in sand |
Golf Club Road Drainage Project
I mentioned in my last newsletter article the completion of the road project we did on Golf Club Road to fix the drainage issue we incurred with the creation of the new house adjacent to the ninth fairway. We took the simple approach and used surface drainage or pitch to remove the water from the road surface. A couple of sub-surface or piped plans were floated around but these were more costly and potentially prone to failure, in my opinion. Not to imply that lowering the road for 100+ feet is simple, especially on MV where you never know what or where anything is under a road. Luckily all we hit was the abandoned cable feed to the old house.
We raised the low section where the puddles accumulated all summer and lowered the necessary section enough to create the right pitch for the water to flow downhill towards the parking lot. The water was then directed off the road towards the sound into an existing drain (patch of woods) before it reaches the parking lot.This was done in the fall and we left it that way to test the work. It worked perfectly.The only issue was the lowered section was basically sand and did not hold up well, as we expected. Because the pitch is so slight we had to lower the section more to be able to add a suitable road material. The lowering was made more difficult in some ways because the ground was frozen. The pictures show some of the puddles you remember driving through all summer and the work done to repair the issue.
We raised the low section where the puddles accumulated all summer and lowered the necessary section enough to create the right pitch for the water to flow downhill towards the parking lot. The water was then directed off the road towards the sound into an existing drain (patch of woods) before it reaches the parking lot.This was done in the fall and we left it that way to test the work. It worked perfectly.The only issue was the lowered section was basically sand and did not hold up well, as we expected. Because the pitch is so slight we had to lower the section more to be able to add a suitable road material. The lowering was made more difficult in some ways because the ground was frozen. The pictures show some of the puddles you remember driving through all summer and the work done to repair the issue.
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| MMGC's only water hazard? |
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| frozen chunks |
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| frozen chunks of road surface |
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| finished product with flow from meltdown yesterday |
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| you can see the shadows of the puddle and the drain is full on the right of the picture but the water slowly flows out |
Melt Down! of sorts
I walked the course this morning to check out the conditions after a day of rain. We received 1.08 inches of rain yesterday and the temps have been above freezing for 24 hours. I checked all the greens for frost or whether or not they are frozen. You have to love the English language. We refer to a frozen dew, if you will, as frost and have delays until it melts (or finishes off your garden or summer annuals) and then as the ground freezes we refer to that as frost and usually in inches or feet. As in "when they dug the cellar hole for that house down the street there was a foot and a half of frost". Needless to say we still have frost in the ground. I could not get a screwdriver in the ground more than an 1/8" in most places. The only place I could get it in fully was the red tee on number two. The hearty souls are out there none the less enjoying a little fresh air.
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| practice putting green, notice the ski tracks of ice |
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| nine fairway, ice foot prints |
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nine green all ice
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| two fwy Some of these puddles happen even in the warmer seasons but rain on frozen ground really moves and collects in some interesting places. Much of the ice shown in these pictures melted by the end of the day but I hope I illustrated the issues faced with winter traffic. The compacted snow can turn to ice either in a footprint or track from skiing or driving. Any ice has the potential for winter kill and some of our worst winter kill came from large puddles and the freeze thaw cycles on the edge or the entire saturated area. Lets keep our fingers crossed. |
Osprey pole
We added an osprey pole to the course quite a few years ago. We first tried it on the seventh hole behind the sixth green. After a few years and no activity we moved it down to the outside corner of two because we had seen some activity in a pine tree in that area. We did see a little activity on the pole in this location but after five years or so nothing substantial. This fall we were approached by a landowner/member to see if we were interested in moving it off the course closer to the water. We said sure it was not working on the course and so we tied the move in with the fall beach project when we had an excavator on the beach to help set the pole back up. we took it down and moved it with our bobcat and then transferred it to the excavator who hauled it the rest of the way down the beach and set it in its new location. The pole moved approximately 200 yards but ended up traveling a couple of miles.
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| old location on number two |
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| just as we entered east side of beach |
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| view from east side of jetties |
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| climbing up out of channel between jetties |
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| traveling west down beach |
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| climbing off beach into dunes |
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| setting pole |
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| final position |
Weather update
Not very timely but at this point still not sure if the membership has received the latest newsletter to be informed about this blog. Anyway the Northeast was hit with a large storm this week which made the news for a time and some may be curious as to how their summer residence fared. We were spared the worst of the storm and received almost an inch of rain instead. It snowed around 3:30 am then the rain came. By 6:30 it was mostly drizzle and two inches of slush and puddles with temps around 40. Maybe an inch or two of snow fell before the rain. Later in the day the winds picked up, the temp dropped and we received a dusting to an inch of snow. Overnight temps were below freezing so now we have this layer of ice with another dusting of snow on top of that. Yesterdays highs just above freezing so some melting but otherwise just an ice coating everywhere.
Pictures from the apartment deck above pro shop towards one green and then parking lot
Hearty souls
With a high of 40 today and the greens back open our heartiest golfers came out to enjoy some winter sunshine.
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| cannot be too cold. one with no hat and only ball caps on the other two! |
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| another group coming into the turn. |
Root Pruning in January
We have some serious competition with tree roots in certain areas of the golf course because of the close proximity of trees. I purposefully left the two large oaks on either edge of the practice putting green some 10 years ago when we cleared the woods and built it. I thought they framed the green nicely from the clubhouse. Yet I still have the reputation as a "tree hater", go figure. Well for the first five years we had little issue other than the dropping of leaves, branches, acorns on the green surface. The last five years have been another story. Every year it is more difficult to keep the turf healthy adjacent to these trees. We did some root pruning this spring on the first green and then the entire length of the eighth hole. We never found the time to do this putting green. Yesterday we borrowed a wire locater and painted the irrigation wires and pipe so we could pick a spot to trench.
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| Will running sod cutter |
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| Kevin removing frozen sod |
The first step is to cut the sod and then remove it. We then run the trencher in the exposed area cutting through any roots. The trencher can cut through some pretty thick roots.
The next step is to fill the trench back in and put the sod back. If the roots were cut and no irrigation components then all is successful and we should get about five years of good growing before the roots encroach back into the green surface.
Essentially finished product.
Notice the weak turf area. You can still see the aerification holes and a few of the cup cutter plugs we took from the nursery to patch the thinnest spots. When we pulled the plugs out they were mostly tree root mass and not soil or grass roots. The root pruning will allow the turf to recover and thrive without the competition of tree roots.
Winter Play
An excerpt from the latest newsletter article on winter play on greens:
I would be re-miss if I did not put in a word or two about winter play on greens. By all accounts the recommended and preferred philosophy would be to stay off the greens entirely. At MMGC we have great sympathy for the brave and hearty souls that like to play the game all year in any conditions, so we have worked the best compromise to ensure the health of the turf and allow for the greens to be open as much as possible. “Frost Free or Fully Frozen” is the mantra I have tried to get across. When the greens are fully frozen and temps are at or below freezing we keep them open. Also if there is no frost in the ground at all we keep them open. It is when we have frost in the ground and the temps are above freezing that the top inch or two gets soft while the frost is breaking underneath. This is when they are most vulnerable to damage and we put the flag in the big cup in the fairway. Usually this is in the spring but can happen several times in the off-season as the temps fluctuate.
So we are in the thick of those conditions mentioned above. as the snow melts and the temps are high things will be soft and mushy. After this warm spell chances are good we will back on the greens fully frozen again or maybe just frost free and firm.
It is certainly more work for us to monitor the conditions and move the pins back and forth but we do this for the players who enjoy using the course all winter. We appreciate your understanding by staying off the greens in the times we have them closed
It is certainly more work for us to monitor the conditions and move the pins back and forth but we do this for the players who enjoy using the course all winter. We appreciate your understanding by staying off the greens in the times we have them closed
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