One year ago, I started my work here at Leslie Park. 2009 was a good year and I had to hit the ground running. Luckily, my predecessor, Charlie Gaige, had left the course in great shape for me and I was able to spend the first couple of weeks getting situated inside my office. I was also able to go through a lot of old documents and reorganize.
Once the snow was gone in March, I was able to determine that we had some winter kill on greens 5, 8 and 9 as well as some on 9 fairway. This winterkill happened after we got some rain, followed by freezing temperatures and a lot of snow. What this meant was that these areas had a layer of ice for around 60 days. Even though the grass was dormant, it still needed to respire or breathe. the ice layer prevented this and some of the grass subsequently died. We hit these areas with some seed but it was still well into May before all of these areas were completely healed. This winter, I do not think we will have this problem again but I have noticed some ice on a few greens, especially on #5. This is something I will be keeping an eye on and if we get a day or two with temps in the 40's, I will probably try to physically remove the ice from some of these areas.
Also, if you remember, last spring was particularly cool and damp. This meant that the new greens were slow to green up. #1, 8, 10, 11 and 17 greens were rebuilt and re-grassed during the renovation back in 1994. When this happened, the grass variety that was chosen was a compromise between early green-up and summer heat tolerance. The result is that, while those greens are well adapted to summer weather and hold up better to temperature above 80 degrees, they are slow to get started in the spring.
We are currently gearing up for the 2010 golf season and we are currently hoping to open in the last week of March. Of course, it is all dependant on weather, so keep your fingers crossed.
All for now
Scott
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