Slow but sure!

This spring the weather has had more peaks and valleys than one could imagine.  But, slowly the course is greening up and the grass is growing.  Today we cut the greens for the sixth time.  Fairways have been cut twice and vertically cut once.  Tees and collars have also been cut twice.  The third green has been treated a little differently with a few less cuts.  Today we finished charging up the irrigation system. Now with the ability to put water on things, we have begun to put some seed down. 

Here is a bit of a timeline in pictures of the third green

April 2nd

April 8th after a rain

Today April 24th

As you can see it has bounced back quite well.  I am still sticking to my prediction of the first week of May for this green to be open.  

May 5th is my target date to bring back the rest of my staff, including students. This is when the course will be in full swing.  The rest of the tee blocks will be put out at this time.  As well as other things such as the hole locations being moved more often.  We appreciate your patience with us getting the course up and running.  Patience is certainly one of my weaknesses so I know what the avid golfer is going through right now.

Cheers Kendall

Why is the golf course not open yet?

Why is the Golf Course not open yet?

Luckily or unfortunately the decision of opening the golf course comes as one of my duties here at the Parkway.  Even with the beautiful weather this week I still think it was the right decision to stay closed.  The grass has come a long way this week, but it has a long way to go as well.  The reason we have stayed closed is because of the harsh winter/late spring and the damage that has been caused to the greens.  

A month ago when we were still under mounds and mounds of snow, my mind went immediately to how bad the damage would be.   The course is in much better shape than I thought it would be at this time. 

The tees come through the winter very good.  This is to be expected because they are on high ground that is flat.  For the most part they all have good exposure to the sun and they were clear of snow and ice earlier than the greens and fairways. The tees are not the reason we are not open.

The damage on the fairways is very spotty.  It is mostly in areas that are low lying where the ice made its way during various freeze thaw events.  This won’t hold us back from opening it just is not the most visual appealing thing to look at, especially during Masters week.

The greens are the reason why we did not open.  There was damage (winter kill from the ice) on every green, just in varying degrees.  If we were to open last week as many of you were hoping 1, 3, 5, 10, 13, 15 and 17 greens would have been closed and you would have to play temporary pins in the fairways.  Again there was damage on the others greens as well.  All the greens need this time and weather to get a head start on the season and prepare for summer.  If our greens would have wintered the same as the previous 4 years than we would be open right now.  I hope this explains why we did not open.

Now with all that being said, we are planning on opening on Good Friday April the 18^th, this is weather pending.  There seems to be another bout of cold moving through early in the week with a chance of the white stuff.   The 3^rd green will not be open at this time.  We are hoping this green will be playable by the first week of May.

I know it is hard to be patient after a winter like that, but golf season will start very soon at the Parkway.

I will leave you with this some of my employees tease me that I change my mind a lot.  I tell them “I wouldn’t change my mind so much if mother-nature wasn’t constantly changing hers”

Kendall

Spring Update

 

This week has been great for the course.  That being said we are a long ways off from opening.  We have been out for several tours of the property.  Mainly the course is just too wet to get out there and do much of anything.  As well the hard winter has left the course with let’s call them bumps, bruises and some pretty nasty wounds.  This inevitably is going to lead to scarring of certain areas that we will see well into the season.  When we do open the course will have a long ways to go to bounce back from that winter.  That being said we understand everyone’s desire to get out and about as the weather gets nicer.  There has been a steady stream of cars coming in and checking out the property this last week, and even a few people have stopped in to see me. 

If you have come in to the course you may have seen this at the Putting Green.

The putting green certainly has its issues.  (shade, tree roots, foot traffic, Bad drainage)

Here are some other pictures of some Greens. 

Here are some plugs that I took out of 2 green about three weeks ago.  They basically look very similar to the ones below that we brought in on April 1st.  At the time they were in three different stages of hurt.  As you can tell one is doing great and the others have greened up quite nice but have not grown as much.  This is how I believe most of the other areas of the greens will respond.  The brown areas will be slow to wake up.

Here are some plugs that were taken Tuesday April 1^st from three different greens on the back nine.  I tried to pick the worse looking spot on each green.  This picture was taken 53 hours after I brought them inside.  You can already notice bits of green.  This gives me hope for the areas that are pictured above that do not look so hot.

Below is a close up picture.  It is a little blurry but you can see the green coming.

I remain very optimistic that the golf course will bounce back quickly.  

Cheers

Kendall