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Willow Oaks Country Club Golf Course Updates

Our goal is to keep the membership informed about projects, agronomic practices, and upcoming events on the golf course.

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Navigating this Webpage

Maintenance Calendar, Follow us via Email or Social Media, and ways to find more information

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Spring Aeration

Golf Course Closed March 27-31

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February Golf Course Update

Winter Projects, Bunker Maintenance, and Greens Aeration Schedule

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Air Movement and Fan Video

I took this video to show the efficacy and performance of our new Turf Breeze portable 50" Fan.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Digging Out

I trust that everyone had a great Holiday Season and I hope you join our team in looking forward to the start of a New Year.  Over the weekend, we received between 3 and 4 inches.  With warm weather coming the rest of the week, I assume the snow should melt off by Thursday or Friday.  We look forward to warmer temperatures and some golf in January.  Have a great week.

Monday, December 20, 2010

The USGA Green Section and the Putting Green Performance Pyramid

The USGA Green Section was formed in 1920 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the USGA in an effort to provide impartial and authoritative agronomic information to golf course officials.  The USGA Green Section is the foremost authority on golf course management and is the largest contributor towards university-based turfgrass research in the world.  As part of the USGA's Turf Advisory Service, the Director of the Mid-Atlantic region of the Green Section, Stan Zontec visits Willow Oaks twice a year to bring a wealth of information and an impartial yet concerned perspective regarding turfgrass growth requirements, how these requirements might best be managed for golf, and ideas that other golf courses have found to be beneficial.  Stan is the longest tenured employee of the Green Section and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to every site visit.  Every week, the USGA Green Section sends out updates and articles that can benefit golf courses.  Here is a great article from the USGA Green Section concerning Putting Green Performance. 

You can find a lot more information at http://www.usga.org/Course.aspx?id=7800

Monday, December 13, 2010

Snow covered Golf Course

The golf course has already received close to an inch of snow with more expected throughout the day.  With high temperatures forecast in the mid-30's until Friday, we could be covered with snow for a couple of days.  Our staff will utilize this time by rebuilding, painting and staining golf course amenities such as benches, birdhouses and on/off posts.  Our Equipment Manager, John Anderson, is also receiving some much needed help with our winter maintenance program.  I hope that you enjoy the snow, drive safe and have a wonderful day.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Winter Bunker Work

The arrival of December has already brought us freezing temperatures, a little snow and winter projects.  As we look forward to next season, an area that we can still improve on during the winter months is our bunkers.  We will work steadily through the bunkers, checking depths, replacing liner, and adding sand as weather permits.  Yesterday, we began work on the right fairway bunker on number Eight.  Contaminated sand has been removed, new, thicker liner has been installed and the bunker has been edged to create an ideal sub-surface for new sand.  Bunker liner is a fabric that is installed on the subsurface of the entire bunker, below the sand, to help keep sand on the sloped faces and prevent contamination.  Playability out of the bunkers is affected by a number of factors, including but not limited to irrigation frequency, sunlight, wind, traffic, severity of slope and most importantly golf course design.  The goal of bunker management is to rake every bunker with the same consistency and to maintain consistent sand depths on every bunker slope and base.  We will continue our efforts in this area until the bunker sand completely freezes.  Please feel to stop and ask questions when you see our team out on the course.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Snow covered Sunday

We arrived this morning to a snow covered golf course.  The light dusting of snow created great pictures and views of the golf course.  The snow is starting to lift but is still quite heavy in some areas.  It will be a very difficult day to play golf with all of the snow on the ground.  The greens have a heavy frost and play should be delayed until 11:00 a.m.  Contact the pro shop for more information.  Have a great week.

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