Curling for Ice Research

Last Friday, there was a fund raiser for research on ice damage on turf. The event was put on through the Michigan Golf Course Superintendents Association at the Detroit Curling Club. While we at Huron Hills and Leslie Park escaped massive turf injury, many golf courses in south east Michigan lost grass due to being under ice for up to 10 weeks last year. The Michigan Turfgrass Foundation (MTF) and Michigan State University have made it a priority to stop further issues like this in the future.

One of the ways the MTF has done this is by purchasing a Low Temperature Chamber for winterkill research. The money raised by this event will go toward more equipment and other supplies for Dr. Frank to use for this effort. (I paid for the event using my own money, no city funds were used, FWIW.)

The 32 MiGCSA members pose for a group photo.

Receiving instruction from DCC members.

Learning the finer points of sweeping the stones.

It was a lot to take in. It is not as easy as it looks.

My first try in "the hack."

The man on the right is Dr. Frank. Greg Pattinson (Superintendent at Indianwood) and I scored 7 points here against Dr. Frank and his team. There are only 8 possible points in an end, btw.

Snow (Again)

So, looking at the weather, I decided that I should remove some of the snow on #5 and #8 greens. The temperatures and sun looked to be the right combination to make sure that we get some of the ice off of those greens. It worked....... and then we get 6 more inches of snow. The ice underneath the snow is, for the most part gone, however, so it was time well spent. Here are some pictures from last Friday. At the top is a close up of #5. You can see the ice that was underneath the snow. The second image is #8 green (which get a lot more shade, but had less ice than #5 for some reason)At the bottom is #5 green.

1st year on the job

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