Winter Set-up

The blog has been a little slow recently and I apologize to my readers for that.  I have been focusing a lot of my time on being the interim GM while we search for a new one.  Overseeing the bar/restaurant and starting up the pro shop with inventory has been time consuming but a welcomed challenge.  The pro shop is now ready for our grand opening this evening as the club now owns the pro shop.

On the golf course, the agronomy team has been very busy the last month with leaf clean-up and setting the golf course up for winter play.  The toughest part about having a northern golf course open all year around is having traffic on dormant turf.  In the growing season the turf continues to re-grow itself and we play on a new surface everyday, but in the winter it is the same leaf tissue that continues to get the cart and foot traffic all winter.  

On tee surfaces, we combat this issue by using matts on the par 3 tees.

The remainder of the tees are set in 1 location and left in the same spot for the winter.  In the spring it is better to have one area of the tee box that is really beat up and needs to be seeded, compared to the entire tee having some damage.  This way in the spring we can use the 75% of the tee that is perfect, and just overseed that small portion that received the heavy traffic from winter.  On the greens, I set up 3 cups, the 1 we are playing today has the pin and the other 2 have black discs over them.  This way we can got out and change cups even when it is cold and frozen and still move the traffic around the green.

It has worked very good for us in the past and this year we set the golf course up for winter play the same way.

Winter Course Set-Up

Here at Lewiston Golf and Country Club we have a unique situation managing a cool season turf golf course in a northern climate that is not snow covered all winter.  We actually have very balmy winter weather as we sit down in a banana belt valley, and most days the highs are around 50 and we keep the golf course open all winter.  The night time temperatures and cooler soil temperatures force the turf to go dormant, and that creates the challenges that we face.  Traffic on dormant turf that does not have the ability to re-grow and recover from the abuse of golf.

To combat this we have developed a few unique tactics in course set-up and things you will encounter while playing out on the course.
           
              1)  Before the greens freeze in the fall we cut 3 cups on the green.  The cup that we are playing to today has the pin and flag in it, while the other two have a black disk over the cup.  This allows me to go out and rotate hole locations and rotate the traffic around the green even on the days when I cannot get a cup cutter in the ground.
           
              2)  Par 3 tees have matts to hit off so we do not continue to take divots when the turf is not growing back.
              3)  The par 4's and par 5's have the tee rocks and location set in the same location all winter.  This creates all the traffic and abuse to be localized to one area on the tee box.  Thus leavig us 90% of good teeing ground come spring and that 10% that was beat up over the winter can be aerified, seeded, and allowed to recover with no traffic as we will avoid that area on the tee for the first month after we began to grow again in the spring.

Red circles - 3 cups cut in 1 green, 2 cups are ou of play with black discs, 1 cup with pin and flag

Red circles - different hole locations, ability to change pins without cutting a new cup in frozen greens

Up close of the disc covering the cup that is not in play today

Tee markers are either way front or way back to save the rest of the teeing area during winter play

Matts are utilized on par 3 tees to prevent divots when the turf is not growing. 

I hope you enjoy the nice winter days out on the course and please look for these unique features next time you play.