Winter Conditions

One of our challenging situations trying to keep a golf course open all winter in the north is the constant freeze/thaw and moist conditions.  We half frost delays over 50% of the mornings and several spells throughout the winter that do not get above freezing for a week.  This drives the frost in the ground any where from 2-5 inches.  We also have a wide variety of weather that changes on a regular basis, we get 3-6 inches of snow and then a couple days of rain, we also have great banana belt winter weather with many days in the 50's and sunny.  All of this paired together creates a lot of different elements and challenges trying to maintain a golf course in the winter.

Currently the golf course is quit soft because we had 2 weeks of cold weather that froze the ground, then 2 inches of snow, followed by a warm nightly breeze with lows of 48 overnight and rain that melted the snow.  When this happens we have all the free water sitting on top of the frozen ground that does not allow it to soak in.  

The water will help bring the frost out of the ground and allow infiltration.  It is always tough in situations like this when the weather has moved on and it is 45 and sunny but the course is still closed.  We have opened back up now for the last 2 days, the frost is out of the ground down to about 3" allowing the water to soak in that far, but that is what has created the soft conditions, the water is sitting on that frost layer in the ground.  Every week is different here in the winter, it might be frozen hard, it might be soft, or most of the time we have great winter golf.