Dear Members,
As you know, over the
past several months we have experienced a wide range of temperature swings.
These conditions enabled us to aerify the greens in January and have them
covered immediately afterward. This will allow our greens to recover
sooner, providing for an early spring green-up period. With our next
aerification scheduled for August, golfers will have an excellent surface
throughout most of the season.
Aerating in the winter
as we do allows us to do "core removal" at a time that will not
interfere with the golfing season. This process is very important to
remove excessive organic matter near the top of the surface, creating greater
breathing room for the turf and improved drainage. This will keep the
greens healthier and enable deeper root growth.
It has been our
strategy to aerify during the winter so that our greens are not disrupted with
the aerification process during prime golfing season. You might visit
other courses at this time and see their greens in better condition than
ours. This means that they have chosen to aerify later in the
spring. While their greens may look good now, they will have a disruption
in April or May, as all courses must aerify their greens. Lakewood, on
the other hand, will feel its pain early and reach prime golf season with its
greens ready to go. Aerating in the winter also puts little stress on the
greens as the grass is mostly dormant during these times. With the climate we
have during most summers - high humidity and heat - it's important to have a
deep root profile. Then, when we do have a drought, as we have in recent
years at times, the greens are better able to adapt and not burn-out. The aerification we
perform in August is done with small tines, loosening the soil and breaking up
some organic matter while providing for air movement after a summer of
play.
In addition, removing
the cores as we do in January, followed by covering the greens, enables the
grasses to heal quicker than they would during traditional cold weather.
Of course, with the wide temperature swings we experienced in early March, we
did remove the covers earlier than anticipated, exposing the greens to the
warmth and sunlight, allowing them to heal faster.
All in all, we
anticipate having our greens in excellent condition early in the season and
throughout the summer, with minimal impact on Members golfing enjoyment for
greens conditioning.
On other items across
the grounds, we have installed curbs at select locations and we are allowing
the grass behind the first green to grow higher, improving the turf and making
it an easier walk from the cart path to the green. We have also "deep-tined"
all our fairways and approaches to the greens. A light top-dressing of
these areas will take place in April.
Elsewhere, we are
creating a new white tee on the eighteenth hole, lengthening it by
approximately 30 yards. We expect this to be completed by the end of
March, followed by a few weeks of grow-in before opening it for Member
play.
However, a great deal
of my staff's time was also spent assisting with getting the Club's new
Air-Structure up and running. We installed a new irrigation system for each
court and aided the various contractors as needed to meet schedules.
Our final steps in
March will be going through our bunker prep process, cleaning the edges,
checking for consistent depth of sand and adding as needed. With over
four acres of bunkers, this is a very time consuming process, but one which is
important to maintaining a premier course. We will also be adding sod at
select areas in the short-game area. Obviously, the amount of heavy
traffic this area receives results in a very slow recovery time. By
adding new sod now, the short-game area will be in good condition when Members
begin to use it in the coming weeks.
Regards,
