Super Bowl Tourney

Goal posts are ready for the super bowl tourney this weekend.  Do you think you can hit a golf ball through the uprights?

Hopefully Prater will send a lot through after the tourney.

Rain / Frozen ground

A very interesting rain on frozen ground yesterday. Two nights ago we received .5" of rain we on frozen ground leading to flooded conditions. 

#4 green with standing water on a frozen green

#3 green

Fortunately, the rain brought the frost out of the ground. Due to how dry our soils were, everything soaked in, along with the .2" we received last night, and the course is open to carts today and playing fairly firm.

Bathroom renovation - In progress

For the last couple weeks we have been working on renovating the bathrooms on the golf course. They were in poor shape from all the years of abuse. If the doors are not closed tightly at night then irrigation and rainfall can enter, typically peoples shoes are wet, and years of mopping and cleaning led to rotten and deteriorating conditions. We demoed all bad areas and rebuilt with water resistant materials, new trim boards throughout, repaired and rebuilt fixtures, painted, repaired, and deep cleaned the entire areas. Here are some before and after pictures.

Before

After

Before

After

As you can tell we are not quite finished and soon all bathrooms will be open with a nice new clean look and feel.

Slideshow 2013

I have been working on a slideshow summary of 2013. Please enjoy - Click on the square on the lower right corner to expand it to full screen. ">

Inversion Fog

For the last 3 weeks, and forecasted for the next 2 weeks, we have been stuck in a weather pattern with inversion fog and cloudiness starting in the early morning hours.

Just above the golf course looking down on the valley

This a very unique weather pattern due to our situation down in a valley, or hole.  All around us are higher bluffs that are about 800 ft in elevation above the valley floor.  The nights are clear leading to a cooler temperature and frost forming overnight.  Then the sun is visible many mornings right away, but as the temperature raises and moisture comes off the ground and atmosphere, a very dense fog layer forms, just like a cloud cover.

A view from the valley floor below the fog layer

It is known as Tule fog and is primarily found in the Grand Central Valley area of California, but with our rivers running through the valley floor adding to the moisture content, it is also very popular in our valley from fall to spring. It is compounded by our higher relative humidity in our area and also causes temperature inversions at lower altitude.

Right now this weather pattern is impacting the golf course by allowing frost to form most mornings and then fog is trapping in the cooler air, blocking out the sunlight and prolonging our frost delays with some a cool damp cloudy feeling in the air.  Typically it burns off by midday and then we have the same pattern the next morning.

Tule fog typically forms below 2000 ft in elevation and can be seen from the top as you drive the surrounding area above the fog.  Here are a few more pictures from above the valley on the highway that heads out of town.

Floating Range

One unique assert we have at our practice facility is a floating driving range.

Flight restricted floating golf balls are hit out into open water, the wind blows them to the shoreline, and then balls are picked up by hand with fishing nets.

When we have a stretch of wintry weather like we did the last month it makes for a very unique situation as the balls stay on the ice until it warms up and melts.

Frozen water with golf balls sitting on the ice

Up close of all the balls

Overall this is not issue, but it does pose a couple problems with inventory of balls during long frozen stretches like we had the last month.  It also leads to some very "long" shots as the ball keeps bouncing with a very unique echo sound as the ball hits the ice.

The Thaw

What a streak of weather we have had the last 6 weeks.  Due to the tight grasp mother nature has had on us it has been very difficult to get the golf course open.  It started with a few small snow showers, then cold weather for an extended period that froze the ground.  A period of freeze and thaw cycles that drove the frost about 12 inches deep, which I have never seen that deep here.  These cycles caused the small amount of snow to turn into an ice layer sitting on frozen ground.  Due to the frozen sub-surface we only were getting melt from the sun and air temperature, compared to getting melt from both sides if the ground was not frozen.  Couple that with our location up against a bluff and the current sun angle of December lead to only a few short hours of sun each day

First snowfall at the beginning of December

The freeze thaw cycles led to this ice layer on many greens

Typically here in the Lewis and Clark Valley we are gifted with great winter weather, i.e. banana belt, that allows us to play golf all winter long.

As far as the turf health goes there were no major issues or concerns.  The ice layer that was on greens was short lived enough that we did not have any turf damage.  The weather did force the turf to be more dormant and off color than I have ever seen here.  Typically we maintain a little green color throughout the winter, but not this year.  Ice is very dangerous and a major concern, especially with our Poa Annua greens, and there are many different types of winter damage and turf loss to greens.  With ice, Poa can survive about 60 days under ice cover where creeping bentgrass can survive about 120 days.  Another concern, and a more practical one for us, is crown hydration.  When the snow/ice turns to water it can be absorbed by the plant if it is not 100% dormant and then the cold nightly temperatures will force the absorbed water to freeze and rupture the cell walls in as short of a period as 1 night. These freeze thaw cycles, standing water, and cold nightly temps can be devastating, so our maintenance staff would keep a daily eye on the greens each day and squeegee off any standing water that melted that day before it froze that night.

The snow and ice covered course also allowed our maintenance team time to refurbish many of our golf course accessories that we use during the season.

Ballwashers being sanded down and re-painted

We also were able to continue all of our annual tree maintenance work and removal with the golf course being snow covered and frozen.

We did finally have all the snow and ice melt and were able to re-open the course.  But then the problem we run into is the frozen ground, which I do open the course when it is frozen, plays very hard and fast. Followed by a couple small rain events and a night or two where the low temperature stays above freezing allows the top inch or two to thaw out and makes for conditions that require cart restrictions.   When the top inch is thawed and the ground below is frozen, then a small rain has no place to go and it sits on the surface making things very soft and squishy.   Leading to a couple days of limited cart traffic due to the ground below still being frozen.  Just a summary of some of the challenges and cycles with a northern golf course that has the opportunity to stay open all year around.

Now we are through all of those tough times and the course is fully open again, in good shape, playing well, and the forecast has most days hovering around 50 for the next couple weeks with only a few possible frost delays.  We will be getting back on a schedule of rolling greens this week, rotating pins with our 3 cup system, and other maintenance tasks.

Come out and play at LGCC
See ya on the course

Stump Grinding

Now that all of our tree removal is complete for the winter and Avista utility company has been through and completed all their work.  We went and ground all the stumps on the golf course.

Stump grinding is one thing I feel so many people or stump companies do not take it deep enough or don't take all the crown out surrounding the wood.  They grind just below the surface a couple inches, put soil over the top, and expect grass to grow next year.  Or they only grind the wood trunk portion and not the raised surrounding crown that is covered in soil and turf.

Here we grind about 1 1/2' ft deep and all the surrounding area that is raised up from the crown area.  Leaving us a perfect smooth and level area matching the surround, so after it is sodded it does not look like there was a tree removed there.

18" tree with a 5' stump grinding mark

Hauling away large debris and refilling the hole

Congratulations Colby and Brianne

Congratulations to Colby Schaefer, our assistant superintendent, and Brianne on their wedding last Friday Jan 3 in Walla Walla.

Colby and Brianne Schaefer - January 3, 2014

It was a beautiful wedding and the couple had a lot of family and friends in attendance to share the special day with them.  They are such a close and happy couple, and so delightful to have around.
Colby has worked for us now for 3 years at the Country Club and we are very blessed to have him.  I have never had an assistant superintendent that works so hard, is willing to do whatever the team needs, and is such a leader on our golf course maintenance team.

Congratulations and best of luck in your new life together.  Please congratulate Colby when you see him around the golf course.

Power Line Maintenance

The last 2 days the local power company, Avista, has been on the golf course removing and pruning trees that are encroaching onto the power lines and creating a safety hazard.

Just like roads and right-of-ways, power companies have a right-of-way directly underneath the power lines where they can remove or prune any vegetation that is growing, and there is a right-of-way that extends out 50' of the transmission line.  Some trees were limbed and 6 trees were removed.  They chipped the branches and we ground the stumps.

You see with the tree below, over the years the power company keeps trimming the top and we keep trimming up the bottom so we can play golf and get our maintenance equipment underneath.  Over the years it creates a very poor looking specimen and removal is the best option, allowing us to re-plant a lower growing species that will not get as tall.

Or with this location on the right side of #9 fairway, the greens committee is currently discussing the idea of adding a couple fairway bunkers to the right side.

Most of the trees removed have very little impact on the playability of the course, except this one on #9 is the only critical one.

Course Update

I hope everybody had a good holiday season and happy new year.  I know most of you are very eager to get back on the golf course so I wanted to give you an explanation and update of what is happening on the course.  Typically we are grazed with very mild winters and minimal snowfall, thus allowing us to play golf throughout the winter, but this year things have been a little different.  A couple snow storms followed by ice layers coupled with with very cool, foggy, and cloudy weather has had the golf course closed all but 5 days in December.

Our location is unique as we are the only golf course that is positioned up against the bluff, and for this reason we still have 4 greens that have a significant amount of ice on them.  The lack of sunlight on these greens forces us to rely on air temperature to melt the ice, and these holes are also colder up against the bluff.  With only a few hours of warm weather each day, and the ice is sitting directly on top of frozen ground (ice) the melting process is very slow.

Here are pictures from #14 and #2 this morning, January 2,  at 7:30 AM.

#14 green - Jan 2

I understand it is difficult when you drive around and all the holes you see from the road are clear.  I will open the course with ice on fairways or rough and completely frozen ground, but when the greens surface is covered in ice we are asking for major issues and potentially dead greens if we allow anybody to walk on them.  

We have been trying to scrape the ice off every day in the late afternoon but it is still frozen to the leaf tissue and will kill the plants if we “strip” it off.  Any mechanical means of removal on the greens surface will typically damage and kill the plant in this vulnerable state.

We also have talked a lot about opening up a partial golf course, but the idea is that all it takes is one group to play a closed hole and walk on the green and then we will be closing the green for 4-6 weeks in March and April to re-seed it and grow it back in.  Is 20-30 rounds on a December day when the hi is 38, worth $10,000 and closing a green or two for 6 weeks in the spring?

Majority of our cups look like this

On the positive side, the forecast has light rain and wind for this evening and tomorrow.  The warm breeze will be our ticket to get the ice to loosen up so we can open the course in the next day or two.  Please hang in there and we will get the course open as soon as mother nature allows us to.

We are making improvements and hope to have the course open soon, as here are pictures taken of 1 week ago of 2 green, 5 green and 14 green.

#2 green 1 week ago