Hard to believe it is the middle of March already and we just received 25cm of new snow.
Before the snow, we trekked out to visit a few of the greens and to take a couple of plugs. South facing slopes and greens that we looked at had at least 15cm of cover that was hard crust on top and powdery snow underneath the crust. We found no evidence of any ice cover in areas we looked. We took plugs from 8 which is one of the last three poa greens and plugs from 11 which is one of the newly resurfaced greens from the spring of 2012. Both plugs are green and growing and show very encouraging signs for spring. Spring is always an unpredictable time of year for turf and even though the plugs look very good now, we will keep a close eye on course conditions as the snow starts to melt.
In the shop, the mechanic continues to be busy with the regular maintenance of the equipment fleet. As I write this, he is entrenched in the grinding room working on sharpening and servicing the remaining cutting reels. The tee markers are all getting painted with the updated paint colors to match the new tee yardage markers. The shop itself is getting a fresh coat of paint, in places, to prepare for the upcoming season. In the office, we are continuing to interview for the few spots we have to hire for. Of the core group of about 30 team members, we have 25 returning team members. We making the hiring process a priority and believe that this high retention rate starts by hiring the right people.
This is the time of season where all of a sudden the snow is gone and the mowers are going. See you soon!
Questions concerning any of the information here can be directed to the EPGCC Maintenance Department through our Twitter account, our Facebook page, or contact us directly at the shop.
We ventured out onto the golf course to check snow depths after the heavy snowfall we experienced on Thursday, March 21st. Our best estimates indicate we had up to 50cm of accumulation on the golf course that day.
We found that in the places we checked, we have 65cm to 75cm of snow accumulation. In low areas the snow was easily more than 1m deep and in wind swept areas, the drifts are more than 1m tall . With some above zero temperatures expected for the remainder of the week, we will see some melt but it looks as though it might even be mid-April before we're out on the course.
