Weather seems to be the topic of conversation

Despite the abundance of rain in recent weeks, the golf course has held up well. Staff morale and course conditions both remain good and we are pleased to see it. The city of Edmonton received record amounts of rainfall in the month of June and at the Petroleum Club alone, we had rain on at least 21 of the 30 days in the month. Specifically, the weekend preceeding the Edmonton Golf Association Ladies Amateur saw more than 75mm (3") of rain over a three day period. Preparations for the Ladies Amateur continued through the rain and the maintenance staff put in some very long, very wet days to get the course back to playable conditions. Unfortunately, the rain forced the cancellation of the first round but the second round went as scheduled.

Recently, the maintenance department has been double cutting fairways later in the day. You may have noticed a convoy of fairway mowers all mowing on one fairway. We mow later in the day in an attempt to dry cut the grass after the morning dew has disappeared. This provides a better quality of cut and in turn a better playing surface for golfers. This video is of three of our fairway mowers cutting in tandem across the fairway to make the cut as efficient as possible and with little to no disruption to golfers.

The month of June also saw the beginning and end of a very intense but thankfully short cotton season. It only took a couple of days of sunshine for the cotton producing trees to start letting the cotton fly. The staff had some fun with the cotton even though it can be a headache for them from cleaning rollers of mowers to allergic irritations. The season ended fairly quickly, to the relief of golfers and employees alike.

We've also had a busy aeration schedule lately that included another tee aeration, a greens aeration and a fairway aeration and topdressing. The videos below are of the two different aerators used on the tee aeration. Depending on the shape and surrounding area of any given tee box, either the tractor mounted aerator or the walk-behind aerator is used. Following aeration, we topdress as a way to add sand to the playing surface to help with that area's consistency.

You may have also noticed that the cartpath bumps have been shaved down. Todd Creighton, a contractor specializing in asphalt repair among other things, brought in an asphalt planer that reduced the severity of the bumps on the cartpaths, primarily caused by tree roots. He spent half a day grinding off the bumps and we cleaned up the dusty grinding behind him. The grinding isn't a permanent fix but it is a solution that makes the cartpaths useable and more pleasant to drive on. All of his information can be found on http://www.everythingconcrete.net/ including his contact information and services he provides.

As always, if you have any questions, concerns or comments, please feel free to post them here or contact us by email. Here's hoping for some sun and warmer weather!