9th Hole Progress

The construction on the 9th hole has come to a stop due to the snow and cold temperatures. They were able to rough shape the leftside bunker on the 9th hole as well as complete the drainage in that bunker. All of the sod has been stripped for the fairway expansion. All of the new irrigation has been installed in the fairway expansion, the 9th green complex, and the 1st green complex. The sod for the irrigation trenches was frozen so it could not be placed back before the storm. As the weather breaks they will be back to complete the bunkers and fairway expansion.

The snow has helped insulate the greens from this cold weather. On the 21st the soil temperature was 24 degrees but following the snowfall on the 22nd the soil temperatures have risen to 30 degrees showing how much the snow acts like an insulation blanket.

9th Hole

The warm weather has allowed the project on the 9th hole to begin.

New Year - Difficult Weather

The weather always plays a role during the growing season but this year it has continued into the off-season as well. The club had a good snowfall on the 3rd of January followed by cold temperatures. The temperature soared to 50 degrees of the 6th along with an inch of rain which melted the all the snow creating puddles which froze that evening when temperatures dropped to zero and hovered in single digits for the next few days.  The rapid melting of snow and rain event followed by quick freezing can create a winter kill potential. Here is a link explaining in more detail what can happen http://www.gcsane.org/Golf/images/newsletter/2013NL/gcsane-newsletter-oct13.pdf.

I took advantage of the warm weather on the 6th before the rain started to topdress the greens again with sand. We have reached our goal of over 10 tons per acre of sand as our winter topdress program to help protect the crowns of the plant during the freeze/thaw cycles and cold temperatures. As the sand continues to work its way through the canopy with rain events more sand will be applied through the winter.

Greenwood Tree has taken advantage of the freezing temperatures to get out on the golf course and start our tree management program for this winter. Our main objective continues to be gaining more light and air movement around greens including 3, 5 and 6 greens. We have removed some additional White Pine on the 9th fairway in accordance with McNeil's plan as well as to allow the young Sugar Maples space to grow. A few declining trees were also removed in out-of-play areas and we are continuing to remove old material along the driveway replacing them with additional Crape Myrtle trees.

Greenwood Working behind 6 Green in the Snow