Week of April 3rd
- matthewbehl
- Apr 7, 2023
- 2 min read
Today was the opening day of the 2023 Golf season here at Ipswich Country Club. The Agronomy team is happy to once again see golfers enjoying the course.
At the start of the week Winterberry Irrigation spent two days replacing 38 leaking saddles of the irrigation system. This will be the fifth year that we have had Winterberry perform these repairs. These saddles are the most common point of failure within our irrigation system and we have been putting forth considerable effort at replacing the saddles used during the systems installation with a better part. Thankfully, over the last few years the number of saddles leaks we experience have drastically decreased. For reference in the spring of 2019 Winterberry repaired over 200 leaking saddles.
We also had five additional quick couplers installed in our fairways to help with hand watering. These will be a huge benefit when it comes to quickly providing these fairways additional water during dry periods and help with water management.
Bunkers were thoroughly gone through prior to opening day and spots needing sand were noted. We have begun the process of adding sand to these spots and this work will continue next week.
You may have noticed the bubbles in the pond to the right of four green. These bubbles are from a pond aerator system that was installed in conjunction with the HOA. This is a project that has taken a lot of time and coordination to see to its completion. The goal of the aerator is to improve the aesthetics and health of the pond. If successful a future winter project we are considering is removing the brush growing on the sides of the pond to further increase the visual.
Finally this weekend is looking to be very cold in the mornings. Friday night is predicted to have a low of 26 degrees and Saturday night a low of 27 degrees. If these low temperatures occur it will result in a delayed opening of the course on both Saturday and Sunday. We will open the course as soon as turf conditions allow, but this may require the agronomy team to limit what maintenance is performed those mornings.