The End of the Season Preparations

In a few days we will have reached the end of October. After the 31st of October any days of golf in November are "extra" days. Once the 1st of November arrives we are typically able to keep the golf course open through the 1st weekend, after that, I like to say anything goes and once we see a change in weather conditions for the worse we have the ability to close the course as soon as required to place covers on the greens. Once that process is in place, that's it, we are officially closed for the year.

Next Monday, the 1st of November, we will be blowing out the irrigation system. We have around 1200 irrigation heads that need to be blown out and the entire process can take anywhere from 6-8 hours. Following the blowout of the system we will then be focusing on applying our final fungicide applications to the golf course. This application to greens, tees and fairways is to protect the plants from pink and gray snow mold. We typically want to make these applications as late in the season as possible and definitely after our final mowing of the season.

We also try to time the covering of our greens as late as we possibly can. We don't to cover the greens when the soil temperatures are too warm and the plants are still growing, we wouldn't want to encourage growth or fungi from growing under the cover. We also need a calm day to cover. As little as a 5 mph wind can create quite a stir and make the process of applying the covers quite difficult. Because of this, it can take us up to 3 days to cover 19 greens, if we have to stop and wait for another day when the weather cooperates.