Mink Meadows Turf Maintenance Department: Update & the cost of projects

The easiest way to think about this theory of the cost of a project is, if we do not normally build forward tees or do other major projects than what else do we do? There are only so many hours in a week or month and every year we fill those days maintaining the property. I have explained in this blog how every year we expand the acreage of where we maintain and this adds to the bottom line. Example's are the left hillside of nine. No longer woods that required an odd stick pick up, this area will require more inputs. The new tees will add to the overall acreage of tees and we maintain them higher than rough or fescue areas where these tees were placed.
So there has to be a cost associated with all of the time we spent away from the regular duties we perform right? What did we skip or avoid to take the time to do the project? It is an interesting exercise to put a finger on it. My personal management style is to do what we can on a daily basis with the staffing at hand that day. Sure some things take priority and there are "must do" items but when you maintain a large parcel of land there is always plenty to do. I explained this theory to my son many years ago when faced with a large school project on the old parable, how do you eat an elephant? The simple answer is one bite at a time. You have to prioritize and chip away at what you can. I often tell people I could keep 10 people busy every day. If there is that much work available how do you manage with less? This is where the art part of the being a golf course superintendent comes into play. Our profession is described as being part art/ part science. It is true we have to wear many hats: electrician, plumber, agronomist, arborist, horticulturist, personnel manager, salesman, chemist, etc and then artist. We joke amongst ourselves that it is all smoke and mirrors, but that is mostly referring to how healthy it "looks" versus how healthy it is sometimes. Many courses are walking a tight rope and can slide rather quickly with a bad weather event or luck, but I digress.
This Spring the cold lousy weather was a blessing. It kept the grass from growing much so this gave us some free time to devote to projects. Personally I am behind on some of the plant protectants I need to apply on the course and luckily the irrigation system only has a few minor issues that have yet to be fixed. We have two new staffers and their training on mowing equipment, irrigation repair, etc may be a bit behind as well. Will has a couple of equipment issues that were put on hold and the overall course clean up and maintenance has suffered. We were not raking bunkers or changing cups until the weekend. Again the weather was such that mid-week we had few golfers so few noticed. Now that the tees are complete and the weather improving we will get on a more normal mowing schedule and start to chip away at the rest of the course clean up and preparation. We have one week to prep for the largest tournament of the year, The Holy Ghost tourney for the PA club. This is an outside function with a few of our members playing in it but most being non-members so it gives us a chance to impress our guests and kick the season off with a buzz in the island golf community, if we are worth buzzing about. We are close. There are a few issues that need our attention to get us where I like us to be and with a good push this week we should be in decent shape. I played the course yesterday and by all accounts it is good. The greens are putting well and aside from the 5th green we had good control of the annual bluegrass seed heads. If you have no idea what I am talking about look at the fairways or your lawn and you will notice the white seed heads at the surface. We apply a chemical which suppresses this seed head on greens to make the plant healthier, it does not spend all of it's energies producing the seed, and to give a better putting surface. The grass everywhere is starting to grow and even out so the course is just playing better. And the weather is better. All of this makes the course play better. We will attempt our first aerifying of the season one week from tomorrow May 6th. We will utilize solid tines and topdress heavily so they should be easy to do and back open the next day and putting OK.