This winter and subsequent spring, if you want to call it that, has been an interesting one. Snow on the golf course throughout the winter is almost always a good thing-as long as winter disease control applications are done beforehand, and the snow does not cover a layer of clear ice that can sometimes form if we receive heavy rains followed by a quick freeze. Ice did not form last fall which is excellent. What we did get was some late ice formation around the middle of February when substantial rains on top of the snow filtered down through the snow and created a layer of ice on some of the, you guessed it, horrible draining older greens from the original golf course from the 1930s. We knew this layer was there and did what we could to speed the thaw when warmer temperatures finally arrived.
3 North Green April 13, 2023
This is a typical example of what we did to get snow and ice off of greens during the very warm temperatures mid-April. We manually cleared ice and snow off of the water release points on greens while using a green turf pigment to assist in absorbing radiant heat from the sunlight to accelerate snow/ice melt. This is a lot of work-at this time the course had well over 2 feet of snow in many areas and was extremely soft, which made transport of people and tools something to be done on foot. I have nothing but appreciation for the staff on hand that assisted us with this process. It was warfare but it was effective. While we do have a few greens where the annual bluegrass i.e., Poa annua was stressed, I feel pretty good about the overall condition of the golf course after such a winter. We all have to understand that many of the older, original greens at Nemadji are going to be more vulnerable to winter stresses then the more modern greens on the golf course due to their poor surface drainage, higher annual bluegrass component, and total lack of internal drainage (drainage tiles). This will be a thing as long as those greens remain without extensive rebuild. Meanwhile, we do what we can.
The extremely warm temperatures were great for getting greens clear of snow but sometimes too much of a good thing can be an issue.
5E Bridge 11:34 AM April 13, 2023
Nemadji River Flood Chart April 2023
The flooded bridge picture corresponds within an hour or so to the high point of the Nemadji River on April 13th. The bridge survived this flooding with no apparent damage but if the river had risen another 4 feet or so to match the record high then who knows what could have happened. If temperatures had stayed extremely warm for another day we may have found out. Makes me think that we should add bridges to the large list of much needed infrastructure improvements needed at Nemadji. To be safe, this bridge should be at least 4 feet higher than its current elevation to have the ability to withstand what seem to be more frequent extreme weather events. Speaking of extreme, winter turf disease pressure in the form of snow mold was about as high as I have ever seen in over 20 years working in snow country.
Back of 4N Green 4-28-2023 Treated Green, Untreated Smoked
3-year-old Nemadji Turf Nursery where tank ran out
Pretty easy to see here the efficacy of our snow mold preventative fungicide application made in October and November of 2022. Where it is green it is protected. Where it is brown it is not. The nursery in particular is interesting in that that was the last greens tank we sprayed for the year. You can see where the nozzles on the rig were sputtering at the end. This was intentionally left as a test area. The entire golf course-greens, tees, fairways, and rough-would look like the brown stuff in the pictures if we were to eliminate this application. While likely not completely dead, full recovery would likely take us well into June or later. Being a limited budget facility, we also, on the cheap, treated fairways at Nemadji experimenting with low usage rates of less expensive materials. Results were encouraging.
2E Fairway April 21, 2023, Treated left, Untreated Right
The reason Nemadji looks green overall right now is not because the ground never really froze-indeed heavy snow over unfrozen ground encourages disease development. It is because of protective measures that were taken six months ago. A key reason why we need a window of decent weather late in the season to put the course to bed properly-and why we close the course when we do in the fall. Winter preventative measures are like an insurance policy-some years they may be as necessary but in others, like this past year, we needed that insurance big time. Too bad there is not a policy to insure against vole damage.
Vole Damage 4N April 13, 2023
This sort of damage is prevalent pretty much everywhere in the Northland this year. A vole is a small rodent like a field mouse only typically fatter with a short tail. Not to be confused with a mole which burrows underground and frankly kind of freaks me out with the way it looks. Voles create tunnel networks under snow-particularly in heavy snow years-but above the turf surface like the picture above. Vole damage is always not nearly as bad as it initially looks and the turf will grow out of it once we clean the debris and get into good growing weather. Not really much one can do practically control these guys that is worth the trouble or expense of doing. Just a periodic issue that we have to deal with.
On a final note, wet conditions and cold weather have delayed our need to get a start on mowing operations but there is always time for drainage-especially at Nemadji.
11 South about 150 yards from green 4-27-2023
This notoriously slow to drain fairway needs all the help it can get and our hope is that the installation of a large surface drain combined with a properly graded line under the cart path will remove this water from this area quicker and more thoroughly. In addition, we will be able to grade and seed this area so that eventually it will not look or function like the next picture:
11 South around 375 yards out or so
I have never been a fan of using swales like this on the golf course. They eventually fill with debris, deteriorate in how well they function, and are a detriment to the playability and aesthetics of the golf course. While more work, drainage tile and surface drains have worked better for me over the years. Just my thoughts. The proof is in the pudding as we are only going to do the one swale closest to the green for now and compare its performance to the other two on 11 South. If we like it, which I think we will after large rain events, we plan on doing the others in the fall after closing as this work requires cutting through a cart path which disrupts play.
See you on the golf course.