Off Season Update: Weeks of Dec. 11th and 18th
- Michael Curtin
- Dec 22, 2023
- 2 min read
Happy holidays! We hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season and like us are looking forward to the new year. As a reminder we have set up a temporary course for members to use during the off season. The temporary course opens everyday at 10am. There are tee markers set up at the beginning of the 1st, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 18th fairways with a flagstick at the end of each of these fairways. Please stay off the regular tees/greens for these holes and use the temporary markers and pin locations. Short game and short game greens are also open for members to use excluding the short game tee which remains closed.
Over the last two weeks the Ipswich Agronomy team has been busy working on a number of different projects around the course as well as continuing some refurbishment work on course accessories. The storm from the beginning of the week has also left a large amount of work for us to tackle and cleanup work has already started. The course received over 3 inches of rain and high wind speeds that covered the course in pine cones, sticks, and took down trees in many areas. All green and tee surfaces have been cleared of debris and we will clean fairway surfaces were necessary as weather conditions allow. The heaviest accumulations of debris in the rough will be piled up and cleaned through out the winter.
Below is pictures of flooding to the back of our maintenance facility, 4th fairway, and the roof blown off our salt shelter:
Windrow of Debris blown off the 3rd fairway:
Storm Damage:
The strong winds from the storm Sunday night managed to cause seven large trees to fall around the course as well as numerous smaller trees/limbs. We have already cleaned up two of these trees and plan to continue removals next week. A few of the trees will likely be removed by a professional tree service due to the challenging nature of their removals.
Fallen tree behind 5 green being removed:
One of the fallen hung up trees on 9 was also removed this week:
Other projects:
Storm cleanup has slowed down our progress on some of our other off season projects, but not completely. The cobble stones along the cart path by the 2nd white tee and green have been removed. These areas are being prepped for sod. Smaller patches near the areas being sodded will also be loamed and seeded.
The rock wall being constructed on the 3rd hole has been finished. This project was led by team member Jim Kindler who has masonry experience and used it to the courses benefit. The team is very happy with the result of this work and how far the appearance of the entire third hole has come since last winter. Below are come pictures showing the finished wall.
Once again we hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season and we look forward to continuing to improve the ICC golf course in 2024. The ICC Agronomy team would also like to thank Bob Greenleaf and everybody that contributed to the fund used to purchase various gift cards to local food establishments. Below is a picture of the winter staff enjoying a pre-holiday lunch.
