Recent Rains Turn Course Around Leading Into Club Champs Week

It is amazing what a little rain will do!  After over 105mm of rain following the drought, the course has made a nice recovery, greening up well throughout the property.  The greens, tees and fairways held up well through the extended drought thanks to the hard work of the greens maintenance staff dragging hoses around to keep up with the dryness.  But it was nice to get the added moisture for areas in the rough where irrigation coverage is limited.

PREP FOR CLUB CHAMPIONSHIPS NEXT WEEKEND

This Tuesday morning August 14th, the greens will receive their biweekly topdressing.  Book your tee time a little later on Tuesday morning to avoid the possibility of playing over some sand before it has a chance to be matted in after drying.

The Men's and Ladies' Club Championship is next weekend August 18, 19.  Don't be afraid to come out and join in on the friendly two day competition and play against a field of participants based on your handicap.


TODAY'S YARDAGES NOW POSTED ON 6  TEE

As we've heard, variety is the spice of life!  With the new multiple tee decks now in play on No. 6 there is quite a mix of possibilities where the blocks might be placed.  That being said, we are installing a sign on the bottom of 6 tee hill displaying the yardages of play for the Black, Gold and Green tees to avoid the frustration of bringing up the wrong clubs and having to walk back.


COURSE PROJECT UPDATE

New sand in No. 11 bunkers

New Sand has been placed in No. 11 and No. 12 greenside bunkers this week.

New curbing beside 2 tee

New Curbing is being installed along the 2nd tee decks similar to what is already installed around the proshop putting green, 10 tee, 9 tee and 3 tee and lower 5 tee.  There's been a lot of good feedback on the work and quality of the stone being used.  Plans are to continue with more areas in the coming year.

Ditch filling on No. 8 half way to completion

The ditch before the road on No. 8 has slowly continued to be filled in as time permits.  The busy course with frequent shot guns and the holiday weekends are a killer on taking up valuable time needed to complete the work.  We hope to have this project completed within the next week.


DOES YOUR DIVOT PATTERN USED AT THE RANGE HELP OR HURT THE COURSE?

According to the USGA a small bucket of golf balls (typically 25 or 30 balls) can remove a lot of turf. And if you’re really working on your short game it is not uncommon to hit 100 shots or more. This means a lot of divots which require a lot of turf recovery before a tee stall may be returned to the same location. Golfers have a big impact on the amount of turf coverage and performance of practice range tees. How one practices not only influences how much turf is removed with each swing, but also how quickly the turf will recover.

The three most common divot patterns – scattered, concentrated and linear – can be seen in the photo above.

A scattered divot pattern removes the most amount of turf because a full divot is removed with every swing. Scattering divots results in the most turf loss and uses up the largest area of a tee stall. This forces the golf facility to rotate tee stalls most frequently and often results in an inefficient use of the tee.

A concentrated divot pattern removes all turf in a given area. While this approach does not necessarily result in a full-sized divot removed with every swing, by creating a large void in the turf canopy there is little opportunity for timely turf recovery.

The linear divot pattern involves placing each shot directly behind the previous divot. In so doing, a linear pattern is created and only a small amount of turf is removed with each swing. This can usually be done for 15 to 20 shots before moving sideways to create a new line of divots. So long as a minimum of 4 inches of live turf is preserved between strips of divots, the turf will recover quickly. Because this divot pattern removes the least amount of turf and promotes quick recovery, it is the preferred method. 

Have a great round!