Course Update 6/12/22

I couldn’t help but notice that in the last course update written in March that I said that we had a good winter under the snow…and then it all went sideways. As the snow receded, disease developed and has persisted. We have made an unprecedented 4 fungicide applications since April. The disease is definitely in check and has recovered in many areas, but we really need help from the sun and a break from the cool moist weather to put us over the top to full recovery.

In another unexpected gift from winter, our intake at the lake that provides our access to pump water up to the golf course was moved by the lake ice this Spring. The result is the need to get permitting to get into the lake with an excavator this Fall to straighten out the intake.

Regarding project work:

The Larkspur pool. Our turfgrass area at the pool is complete. We are awaiting the fence installation from Montana Fence that will surround the expansion.

Paving. Cart path paving on the back nine is still in the works; we were hoping that would occur before The Campbell. With every rainstorm and lost work day for the paving contractor I don’t know how realistic that is but we are doing everything we can to make it happen as soon as possible.

Bunker renovation. I recently had a meeting with our bunker contractor and our architect. Preparations are on track for the August 1st start on bunkers. As mentioned previously, we plan to begin on the practice facility and short game areas in order to leave the golf course untouched for as long as possible this summer.

‘PoaCure’ testing has begun for the season. We are treating the large practice green at the practice facility as well as greens 1,3,7,12, and 13. We will continue to plug poa from the greens that we are not treating chemically. In addition, we have treated the entirety of 13 fairway. This is the first entire fairway that we have treated and should give us a good indication of how successful this program could be. The protocol is 7 applications on greens and 5 applications on the fairway throughout June, July and August.

And on a final note, your Golf Course Maintenance department has lost 12 of its 20 core staff members over the last two years. We’ve been able to hire a few, but we are still down several. The most challenging part being that a lot of experience has walked out the door. We’re hoping that you won’t notice, but we will have some different schedules this season and we will be trying to use some different equipment in different areas to maintain productivity.