update

some of the goings on around the course in the last week or so:

Sprinkler stuck on overnight

Mike putting new vinyl on bunker rakes

first fungal disease of the year: red leaf spot

Mike and Barry edging bunkers

another fungus amungus: waitea patch

flowering tree in the Franklin st sign bed

close up of the blooms

We received some much needed rain over the weekend. 1.49 inches fell over a 2.5 day period. The turf showed some life after the rain but it is still patchy in growth. The annual bluegrass or Poa Annua is seeding like mad mostly in the fairways and rough. We treat the greens with a chemical that supresses these seed heads to improve putting quality so they do not have nearly as many seed heads. The fairways are white there are so many this year. The greens are very hungry as we have given them only a tiny bit of food through the spray tank and with the advanced growing season they have used up their stored reserves from winter. They have a patchy appearance and very little color but are rolling so nice I hate to slow them down with a big growth push. I will time a good push with aerifying on may 7th, however to help them recover quickly. We have a tourney sunday and then our biggest of the year next sun May 6th. The PA club has their biggest fundraiser here and for us a double shotgun of fivesomes is the most people we see in a single day all year. It is a great opportunity for us to showcase the course. Not the best time of year being this early but we try to meet the challenge every year and give the Mink some good pr to start the season.

Moss right side of 1 fwy before rain

I never paid a lot of attention to the moss in the woods but it displayed the extent of the drought we are in so dramatically that I thought I would take a picture. I'll have to slice it off the first tee again to see if it recovered after last weekends rain. My guess is we will need more than one storm to overcome the lack of rainfall in the last 6 weeks.