Winter Preparations

Where did the season go? We still have a few leaves on the trees but most have come down. We mulch an awful lot of them but do have to pick some areas up. Not sure there will be enough to justify the leaf sucker and box going on the dump truck or not. We have mostly recovered or cleaned up from all the storm damage. There are still a few trees off the played area that will need to come down but those can wait. We had the "happiest day of the year" this week when we winterized the irrigation system. This old sentiment may not be as true if you have a brand new system but when dealing with one near double your age it sure feels nice to put it bed and not wonder when it is going to break next. Or have to worry and plan when to use it next. Judicious water management is stressful mostly because you have to rely on weather forecasts so you do not water when it may rain. And we all know how accurate forecasts can be, especially outside of 36 hrs. Just a few days ago the forecast for next week was several days of rain. Then I heard someone say they were giving a chance for another nor easter. Now it appears clear with no precipitation. With that kind of prognostication it is a wonder I even have hair never mind a rapidly greying head full of it. We had an election since my last post and regardless of you political views we certainly have a personal stake here with three previous visits from President Obama, so now maybe we will have a few more in our future. On that note someone posted a plea on Turfnet for the President to be more of a vocal supporter of golf in this next term. He tended to play down his rounds due to political pressure but the industry at large could use a boost so maybe I should write him another letter inviting him to play with his "girls" here next time. I tried a few years ago but never heard back. One of the largest growing segments of players is women and he has three in his life. Read an interesting golf article related to the election, check it out HERE
We made some headway in our plans to add forward tees to the course this week. The architect Mark Mungeam had his second look at the course. He had enough time in this visit to lay out the locations and make the necessary notations for a presentation of this work. His plan is to propose a couple of locations on every hole but we spent time finding the best ones to meet our criteria such as proximity to irrigation, a natural fit to the landscape etc. More on this when I see the proposal.

Mark pacing off distances for sketches

Mark taking notes

As the weather has turned lately I would be remiss if not to put in a frost warning. I explain the different ways we use the term frost in an earlier post, check it out HERE

well used photo to discourage winter play and or traffic on frost and the damage that could occur