Golf Course Update

Winter Season
During the early parts of December and January we went through a few freeze/thaw cycles but were able to get the green surfaces clear to prevent any ice formation.  The months of January and February saw some significant snowfall along with very cold temperatures and minimal freeze thaw cycles. We are very pleased that all fine turf areas including greens, tees and fairways have wintered very well with no ice damage and minimal if any turfgrass disease. 

In early December we had two significant windstorms that knocked down more than a few trees throughout the property, this has also added to our clean-up efforts.  Most notably we lost two white pines at 7 forward teeing area.  This area has been roughed in for some stone steps from the back of 6 green to access the 7th tee.

Currently we are wrapping up some of our winter projects, these include:

• Clean up around the new extended netting which has been installed at the short-range/chipping area. 
• We are adding fill along with grading the newly captured area on the right side of #1, we will be hydroseeding in the coming weeks
• Grading and hydro seeding right of 17 fairway
• Rough grading new stone steps at 7 tee, where we lost trees in winter storms
• New curbing is being installed at #1 tee area next to the cart path
• #1 pathway is being re-surfaced

We have a busy couple weeks planned for the golf course:

• Topdressing our fine turf surfaces, fairways, tees, approaches
• Sodding/seeding some mouse damage from overwintering
• Solid tine green aeration
• Tee aerification
• Driving range matt installation
• We will be re-purposing our old netting between the bag drop and the 12^th hole. This will be installed in the trees and provide additional protection from arrant tee shots in this area.

We have recently charged our irrigation system and are managing several breaks throughout the property.  This is somewhat expected with the age of our current system, currently we are experiencing glue joint failure as our biggest challenge, followed closely by electronic component failure in our field controllers.

Capital Projects & Irrigation System Planning
              This spring we are planning to continue to improve the property with the following projects

• Turf Hound mats will be installed at both the main driving range tee and the short-range tee
• New netting and poles to better protect the chipping green area
• New tees at 1,2,5,8,15 and 17
• The addition of curbing to our pathway system

The club hired an irrigation consultant last fall to help with the planning, design, and tender of the upcoming irrigation project.  We continue to work through this process and are close to having a design complete to move forward with the process.
We look forward to another outstanding season here at Mad and seeing you all back here next Wednesday May 4^th for opening day!

See you on the golf course,

Respectfully,

Chad Vibert
Golf Course Superintendent