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.

First snow

We received our first measurable snow last night.  Even though it is only a couple inches, the forecast does not have us above 30 degrees for the next 8 days. Based on that, I see the golf course closed for a few days.

Fortunately everything on the golf course is ready for winter as we took advantage of the warmer un-frozen soil yesterday and finished up winter course set-up, spraying for snow mold disease, and getting the turf ready for winter.

The ground is not frozen yet so today we are buttoning up the last small project that was "open" on the course.

Drainage project along #5 green

Winter Play - Divots and Ballmarks

I have been asked about filling divots over the winter and is it worthwhile?  The answer is yes, please continue to fill divots and fix ballmarks even during the winter months when we are dormant.

The reason is - even though the soil temperatures are low enough where seed will not germinate, the seed will start to absorb moisture and stay viable until the soil temperatures warm up again, and when that happens the seed will actually be ahead of the game and germinate faster compared to if we just went and filled all the divots this spring. 

Please watch the short video below about dormant seeding produced by a superintendent in CO and a mentor of mine that I once worked for as an assistant at the Country Club of the Rockies.

http://www.turfnet.com/page/turfnet-tv.html/_/kevin-ross/

Also, by filling divots it creates a smoother surface for our winter playing surface.

Lastly, please make sure to fix all ballmarks as it is even more critical this time of the year because the turf is not re-growing itself and we are not creating a new putting surface everyday.  Over the winter we are playing on the same putting surface day after day so it is even more critical to maintain the surface we have for the next day.