Wrapping Up This Week

At the end of this week we'll be completely finished with our winter prep work on the golf course.  Been an on going process over the last few weeks but we'll be finished just in time.  Temperatures have taken a drastic drop over night, we actually broke 20 degrees this past Tuesday night.  Days have been beginning slow as the turf has been frozen solid by frost.  We still need to be very careful with going onto the turf during this frozen state as damage can still occur.  Throughout the time that we wait for frost to melt off we've been busy taken care of odds and ends jobs.  Some of these jobs include trimming back all trees and shrubs that have grown through the fence on Waukegan Rd, removing all flowers around clubhouse along with picking up leaves, cleaning up around the maintenance facility along #5, and washing all equipment.  These are all necessary tasks that needed done and the frosty mornings have given us the time to do so.  Equipment cleaning is always a long task as we do have quite an inventory but I have the guys get very thorough.  Over the years it has taken less time as we keep up with the cleaning throughout the season instead of letting grease, oil, dust, and debris accumulate all throughout the season.  Detailing of each piece takes the longest as the guys go through with Armor All and other cleaning products getting things back to as new as possible:

Here Cuco and Jorge are cleaning the triplex's we use to verticut and roll.  They use a heavy duty industrial cleaner first to help loosen up greens and dirt before pressure washing with hot water.  This will be done to each piece of equipment.

The last few tasks that we are trying to finish is our dormant fertilizer applications to the rough as well as finish planting the trees and shrubs.  Today we should be very close to finishing the fertilizing possibly a little to wrap up tomorrow.  Trees will also hopefully be done before the weekend otherwise first part of next week we'll get those finished. 

We did go ahead and put covers on the greens this winter, and this will be the last covers are ever used.  Research shows you're safe with the covers for the first winter after fumigation but any use after that you only promote Poa Annua to redevelop, this was the case with 11, 14, and 16 when they were redone.  Covers were put on these greens the second winter after the greens were rebuilt and Poa grew right back in, that's why the greens were "Leopard" printed.  Cover throughout the winter with the young bentgrass will help protect but mostly help for early start up in the spring.  This will help areas that were a little thin to fill in.  All our fertilizer and topdressing applications were done prior to covers being put in place so the greens are now put to bed.

Topdressing of #7 Green

#15 Green ready for winter.  Leaves are off the trees and the cover is in place over the green.

#7 Green ready for winter.  Leaves are off all the Oaks and the cover is in place.