Oconomowoc Golf Club -- Greens and Grounds: February Update

Wow, February has come to a close and for many of us Wisconsin-ites it's time for a change. The BUCKS are the #1 team in the NBA (that will not change). March historically, for me, is the start of the season as temperatures and day length improves with more days filled with daylight and generally warmer temperatures. Today, listening to the news, March rarely has days below zero as only 2 days since year 2000 have been recorded as below zero days. Thank goodness!

Ahead of what's coming for our Greens and Grounds Team. March will be an important month for us to finish the approved sunshine enhancement program list and hopefully begin cleaning up the property from the winter season. For trees, there maybe a few that we will not get to which will stay on a list to remove. Overall, our team was making great progress in January with the removals and then the month we all want to forget came, February... February was filled with some regular snow storms with 5-6"+ each time. The team definitely got some wear and tear from the snow removal and shoveling around the Club and parking lots. Then unfortunately the first week of February had a celebrity siting... Elsa from the movie Frozen visited the state and gave us an ice storm which set us back on the course.

Overall, the ice storm should have little effect to the course itself as I believe the turfgrasses will be able to withstand the ice impact that blanketed the 150 acre property. Generally speaking, turf under ice has around a 60-90 day shelf life of survival. The predominantly bentgrass course is closer to the 90 day life so with ice in early February, I hope we don't have ice towards the end of April (then I'll start worrying more). What affected us the most was the inability to go out on the course to work on more tree removals and potentially start stump grinding the tree bases. The ice on the course proved to be very dangerous and impossible to travel on the hilly terrain. Unfortunately, with the abundant snow cover and ice still below the snow, it may be difficult for us to finish our goals for the tree removals and stump grinding. In any event, we will figure out how to complete these two items with minimal impact to the members once we can in fact work back on the course.

This winter, the Greens and Grounds Department has been fortunate to upgrade some key equipment. Each piece of equipment will be fully utilized. Inside the turfgrass facility this past month, we have also been detailing the course accessories like those benches, ball washers, waste baskets, tee markers, cart signs, course plaques and more. The team of Eric, Smokey, and Mike have been great! As they say pictures are worth 1000 words... Let's hope for a better March than February!