Week of May 16th - dry conditions continue

Irrigation this May has been a common occurrence as we are very dry. Average rainfall for the month of May in Ipswich is 3.4 inches. This May we have only received .61 thus far. The last ten days of April were also dry. Wetting agents were applied to greens and tees this week to help maximize the use of the water we are applying and to reduce and conserve the amount of water that needs to be applied. Some rainfall would be nice to replenish the irrigation pond before we head into the summer months.

This past Sunday the crew from Turf Hound came in and installed the new mat system on the range. Turf hound is the leader in the synthetic turf market and produces the most realistic synthetic turf in the marketplace. The turf hound system is a big upgrade over the old mats and will take some additional pressure off of the grass tee.

We purchased a small little tow behind spreader this past week and it is all ready being utilized. This sprayer was purchased to combat vegetative and brushy growth throughout the golf course, but especially on the recently cleared right of 12. We will be going back into the right of 12 and mowing again, but spraying will take place to keep this area clean. This little sprayer will speed up the process instead of using the small backpack sprayers that we previously used.

Aerated 15 green surround

The green surround to the left of the 15th green was aerated, topdressed, overseeded, and soil amendments were added this week. This is a compacted area that sees a lot of play. We are looking to improve the turf in this area as we continue to prep the area to the left for sod and seed.

Fox with squirrel headed to den

We have two families of foxes with dens on the golf course. The foxes currently have young called kits. The kits are passed the nursing stage. This means Mom and Dad are constantly on the hunt. It is common to see foxes during the day on the golf course. The foxes are perfectly healthy and are just out providing for their young. They are certainly not rabid! In a couple of weeks as the young foxes become "teenagers" we may see them making jaunts out of the den and playing while Mom and Dad are out hunting. The foxes will not bother you and are just going through their natural cycle.

Some of you may have noticed some equipment stock piling in the parking lot. Saturday, May 21 will start a small tee renovation project. Jerry Deemers of Country Golf Inc. out of Traverse City, Michigan will be doing the work. This is the same outfit that did our fairway bunker renovation. We will be relocating the forward tee on 16 and leveling and enlarging the white tee on 9. The tees chosen were based on the priority list that the greens committee is working off of as well as the resources we had available.

In closing, a couple of Par 3 images from the course this week.