SUMMER 2023 – COURSE CONDITIONS UPDATE
July 13, 2023 —
The twenty-fifth of July is a Tuesday. It is 12 days away. That day marks the halfway point of our season.
Already?
Wow.
Per routine, it’s that time of the summer to provide you all with an update on our golf courses.
Let’s dive in!
To start, we want to pass along a message of pride.
Many of you know from this spring, but we didn’t receive our family of H2B workers join us for 2023, due to unforeseen restraints.
These are seasoned workers with years of knowledge and property intel. To say it was tough news might be an understatement.
Here’s the point of pride: we were able to hire a group of local team members who were able to get their hands dirty with us. They have eager attitudes, work hard, and have helped us present the world-class golf product that our members deserve.
Flat out — they’ve killed it.
First day of work for the summer for these Valentine Badger high school students. A day of training on the Horse Course will set them up with the basics for the rest of the season! pic.twitter.com/17LgITMGwI
— Andrew Getty (@Andrew_Getty) May 22, 2023
Many are young. Others hadn’t worked on a golf course ever before.
We’ve invested into a group of high schoolers and young college kids. In return, they’ve poured themselves into this property, learning at an amazing rate and working hard.
Honestly — a few of them might end up pursuing a career in agronomy.
It’s been so rewarding and while it’s not what we’d planned, there is part of us that has been thankful for the learnings that have come from it. It’s a true point of pride and a win for the 2023 golf season so far.
That’s enough on staffing for now.
We’re just proud of the team we have this year. It’s been an immense help.
PRECIPITATION
Helping us out on the staffing side has been Mother Nature herself.
For those of you inclined to lift up a word to the heavens and asked for rain, we thank you. It’s been working.
Our rain totals so far for the year:
- May: 4.28″ (average May rainfall in Valentine: 3.13″)
- June: 4.00″ (average June rainfall in Valentine: 3.56″)
- July (so far): 0.59″
Another 0.33” overnight and our irrigation system is getting some abnormal time off. I’m sure we’ll pay for this later on pic.twitter.com/SY8FKSBfHp
— DJ Shallenberger (@huskershally) June 30, 2023
The rainfall has been so incredibly helpful.
And it’s not just the rainfall, but how we’ve received it. It’s come a quarter and half inch at a time, allowing the property to soak in the water and retain the moisture. It’s been ideal.
Hard rains are better than no rains, but when the heavy rains arrive, they tend to run to low turf areas. This gives our turf no time to soak in the moisture and isn’t too useful.
Hard rains are also really rough on our cart paths that get washed out easily.
The rainfall we’ve received has been perfect.
Couldn’t ask for a more perfect morning than today. pic.twitter.com/sw6QLC6D5h
— Andrew Getty (@Andrew_Getty) June 28, 2023
WEATHER
We’ve also had unseasonably kind weather conditions.
Cool nights (sometimes as low as mid-40s) and highs rarely exceeding 90 have provided low stress environments for our grass.
We’re using our POGO weather stations to gauge the weather on property, namely average wind speeds and direction, high and low temps, some soil temp data, and more. For mid-July, we’ve been given quite the break with the weather.
And that has lead to some awesome playing conditions.
Which if you’ve been on property, you know…
TURF
Our turf conditions right now are very strong. We’re very pleased with where things are.
The spring started well, and the early summer has been fortuitous. It’s led to where we are right now.
We’re especially proud of our greens, which are phenomenal right now. They are rolling at our desired pace and incredibly smooth. They’re also healthy.
Right now, the name of the game is to maintain.
If anything is unhealthy right now, it would be two areas: a few aesthetically displeasing dollar spot areas on a few fairways from the cool wet temps, and some par – 3 tee boxes.
The tee boxes on the threes are taking a bit of a beating due to volume of play, but we’re thankful like projects we’ve done to 6 Pines and 7 Dunes in the past. We wonder “how did we get by before” when we had less teeing area.
We’ve been working on topdressing greens when play is light. That along with putting our young talent to work in sodding a few sand areas from bunker blow outs and cart path exits from cart traffic.
We have been staying busy with our mow crew keeping up with the turf growth from all of the nice rain we have received.
The guys have been working hard mowing lasers of lines on the Dunes and perfecting the half and half look on the Pines.
As the grass has been healthy on our greens tees and fairways so has the grass and weeds in and around our bunkers.
This has kept us much busier keeping them raked and clean as we enter the middle of July.
We can usually expect some of these jobs to slow down as the rain slows down once entering the heart of summer, but we won’t complain about these types of problems.
HIMALAYA UPDATE
Finally, we’re almost ready to start allowing for play on the revival of the Himalayas putting green.
This was a fun project we launched last year and it’s been rewarding to see it come to life.
Before the end of the summer, it should be ready for full use.
Taking a cost-effective approach to our maintenance is part of how we operate — and this project fits that wonderfully. It cost us nothing but a little bit of labor to get it done.
Hopefully, it’s a place for you to get some additional practice in within a few steps of your bed.
If you’re ever out on property and see a gator racing around, wave and say hi. We love saying hi to members.
This property is a blessing to spend every day on.
Thanks for reading, we’ll leave you with some beauty:
June, as always, never disappoints with wild flowers on the prairie. By far the most penstemon I’ve ever seen. pic.twitter.com/OJueNZXVRG
— Andrew Getty (@Andrew_Getty) June 13, 2023