I am coming back from a few days at our national conference and trade show. 16 Hours of Education and 8 hours of trade show make a guy long for home but I am grateful for the experience and education. After touring the course today, it is obvious that the staff has been busy taking down the remaining trees involved in our 2012 course improvement projects. This work will be completed on Monday.
I took some root zone depths on the greens and am pleased with the results. Our current root depth is between 3 and 4 inches. This is great all things considered and will no doubt improve over the next few months. The greens are accepting balls well and putting conditions should improve over the next few weeks. A golf ball is about 1.7 inches in diameter so the roots in this picture are almost 3.5 inches in depth.
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| You can see the roots coming out of the bottom of this profile. |
We are always weary of flooding especially when channel 12 is advertising flood warnings. The river has crested at 13.17 feet and is falling. The golf course is in not current danger but pray for limited rainfall over the next week.
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| Click the graph for updated river information from NOAA. |
You should notice some new and improved bluebird houses on the golf course. These houses have been placed to not affect golf. However, if you find yourself behind one, just like an irrigation satellite, please take relief. The houses have been moved from trees to prevent predatory attacks on the bird nests. You will notice the extra efforts taken to prevent predators from gaining access. Some houses are still on trees to promote a variety of habitats. Bat houses and
Purple Martin houses are also in place to help with mosquitoes. You should not notice the bat houses as they are well beyond the boundaries of the golf course. Duck boxes will also be installed to promote a habitat for the Mallard ducks on the property. Remember, ducks are great, geese are terrible. Our assistant superintendent, Kevin Mark has done a great job, reformatting and championing our environmental effort of encouraging wildlife on the golf course. Please contact Kevin at
kmark@willowoakscc.org if you are interested in participating in a bird house monitoring program.
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| The ground underneath the Purple Martin boxes has been cleared of structure to encourage the birds to find the houses. Purple Martin scouts should be out to find habitat. These birds help with our mosquito population. |
You should notice some new and improved bluebird houses on the golf course. These houses have been placed to not affect golf. However, if you find yourself behind one, just like an irrigation satellite, please take relief. The houses have been moved from trees to prevent predatory attacks on the bird nests. You will notice the extra efforts taken to prevent predators from gaining access. Some houses are still on trees to promote a variety of habitats. Bat houses and Purple Martin houses are also in place to help with mosquitoes. You should not notice the bat houses as they are well beyond the boundaries of the golf course. Duck boxes will also be installed to promote a habitat for the Mallard ducks on the property. Remember, ducks are great, geese are terrible. Our assistant superintendent, Kevin Mark has done a great job, reformatting and championing our environmental effort of encouraging wildlife on the golf course. Please contact Kevin at kmark@willowoakscc.org if you are interested in participating in a bird house monitoring program.
