Mowing Right Along...

Not many of us in the golf course industry have seen a spring quite like this one.  With a week of 70's behind us and the 7 day forcast showing highs in the 70's and even a couple 80's there is no doubt we will be seeing our golf course come into its own much earlier this year than any that I can remember.  Tomorrow will mark our third mowing of the greens this year, and next week we will likely begin mowing every other day.  My gut tells me that we will still have a significant cool down yet this spring, and dare I say some "wintery precipitation" could still fall, but we will certainly enjoy this preview of what I hope to be a great year.

Alan puts the first cut of the year on #17 fairway.

Assistant Superintendent Ben Christie works on

smoothing the root pruning trenches.  These will

get seeded in April.

A downside of the early spring is that we have spent

so much time mowing grass that our winter crew hasn't

been able to finish our winter cleanup yet.

Another victim of an early spring is an unprepared bunker.

We will be bringing back some seasonal help next week to

start getting bunkers ready for the year.  Golfers will have to

show patience while we finish our prep work.

First cut of 2012!

March 7th could be one of the earliest "first cuts" in the eight seasons I've been at CCC.  The non-winter we had and the recent warm temperatures have caused some growth and greening up on the golf course.  We mowed greens only today and will likely get collars and approaches mowed yet this week.  I am not in a huge hurry to mow tees and fairways partly because we have about a week's worth of cleanup to do after two days of nearly constant 35mph wind!  Any weakly attached branch managed to find its way to the ground, including half of a tree next to the practice range and a crab apple near the 18th green. We will likely be spending some time during the next week cleaning the branches up and slowly get around to mowing tees and fairways as areas become clean enough to mow.  In the next few weeks we will start bringing back part of our seasonal crew to help prepare the rest of the course for the season.