Winter 2020 – Course Conditions Update
November 20, 2020—
As fall slips begrudgingly into winter, our team remains busy working to prepare our courses for another sullen offseason.
Sad? Yes.
But winter isn’t all that bad.
With such beautiful weather in early October, we were happy to soak in the warm weather as long as we were able.
But now it’s time to let the property rest.
As we flipped our calendars to November, despite some warm stretches, we encountered a pair of 2” snowfalls. Although this put a couple hiccups in our prep schedule, it brought some great moisture with it.
Moisture…. we’ll (almost) always take moisture.
As for aerifying, we typically try to sneak out and grab a headstart in October, wherever we’re able.
This year, it was a different story.
In late October, we finally started pulling those plugs. We started first on holes 12-15 on the Dunes, navigating the rest of around the occasional snowfall.
When we aerify and water when we’re able. We still haven’t blown out the irrigation systems, more on that in a second.
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Fall is also fertilizer time.
Just a few weeks ago (early November), we spread some 56,000 pounds of material on our property. It took us less than 8 hours. Amazing.
The product we laid was slightly different from the year’s past, but we’re hoping to get micros (micro-nutrients) up with this application.
While doing all of that, our focus remains on keeping the bunkers in place. We do this by adding hay bales to our bunkers.
As much as we love how the wind has shaped the land, we have a few spots we’d like to keep in place.
To do so, we took 1,300 total bales and placed them in strategic spots throughout the property.
In total, we’ll use about 200 on the Pines. The other 1,100 will head over to the Dunes.
This is pretty labor intensive work. As we lose our staff for the season, it gets difficult to do this work. So we got a bit creative.
On October 17, the Valentine boys basketball team helped us spread hay bales throughout the property.
They were a huge help!
For their help, we’ll be able to help them out with their basketball season.
In the spring, we hope to draw out the football team.
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We also try to hold onto our irrigation systems as late into the fall as possible, to keep water on the property.
We’ve never gone past Black Friday with our irrigation systems full.
And once we start bleeding them out, it’s a 4-day process.
However, dropping temperatures in late October (some nights well below freezing), definitely kept us on our toes.
Forecasts show that we should be good for another week or two.
It even allowed for one last mow!
As we head into winter, also throw down some fungicide to help prevent any turf disease. Nothing out of the ordinary, just an application to protect.
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For specific course work, we’re always cleaning up trees on the Pines Course.
This is an effort to keep it clean, as well as help with playability and maintenance concerns throughout the season.
Key holes of focus are 7, 10, & 11.
Particularly on Pines 11 to the back right of the green, we’ll remove a good portion of Cedar trees. These trees are a bit invasive and act like invasive weeds.
Clearing them out will provide a clearer view of the canyon and a healthier corner of the property.
On the Dunes Course, Jeff (& Elvis) will be doing cart path work.
As many of you know, wear and tear on the cart paths happen when the sand is always moving.
Scattered mostly throughout the property, a few areas of focus for Jeff will be Dunes 2 (by the green), Dunes 5 (behind the tee), and 12 Dunes (near the green).
Mulching will start here soon and we’ll hope to have most of the greens covered with a protective layer by the second week of December.
The mulching process takes several days across both courses.
Obviously the Dunes (and its average green size of 14,000 sq. feet) takes longer than the Pines.
We’ll be wrapped up with this well before Christmas.
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Anyways, that’s all for now.
If you don’t hear from us for a few months, we’ll be out hand watering fairways and greens wherever we’re able.
Hopefully our hands don’t freeze.
We’ll check in again in the spring.
