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