Frosty Morning and Delayed Tee Times

It was a winter wonderland on the golf courses this morning.  Temperatures dipped as low as we've been in years and a heavy frost formed.  It's hard to believe in will be 84 degrees in a couple days here!!

 

Frost at The Forest

We had some patchy frost this morning which led to a delay in tee times for about an hour.  It was very light and little to no effects should be seen from it.  The pictures below were taken between holes 1 & 18 on the Bobcat.  

While your local weather station may have reported 39 degrees this morning, remember that their thermometers are mounted about 6' above the ground and the temperature at the canopy is actually lower.

 

Pine Straw Installation

 Today we have pine straw being spread on both golf courses.  The straw serves two purposes.  It acts as a weed barrier and has an outstanding presentation on the courses.

Palmetto Maintenance

In order to increase the playability of our golf courses, the golf course maintenance crews on the Bear and Bobcat spent about six weeks trimming, and in some places removing palmettos.  Below you can see the before, during and after of one of the beds on hole 14 of the Bobcat.

The process of removing the stumps in this one bed took these three workers almost a whole day.

 

Storm Clean-up

Mother Nature decided to throw the GCM department a curve ball this week.  Winds reached 40 mph on Tuesday morning.   

This was the view from #1 Bear first thing in the morning. 

 The Clean up effort accumulated a large pile of debris 

A large Carrotwood Tree was snapped in half by the high winds.

Beach Renourishment Program

 For the last couple of weeks Jake and the Bobcat Crew have been working on some Beach Renourishment on Bobcat 6 for Goliath, Henry and Ally, our resident alligators.  The gators have been complaining about their sunning area so we made them a nice new beach.  

I think this is Henry.  As you can see there is a golf ball that belongs to TFCC member Bob McKay, on his back.  I'm going to say that is a HAZARD and take my penalty and move on!!!

Monday Maintenance on the Bobcat

On Monday, the Bobcat Course had its morning closure.  During that time numerous tasks were completed.  Greens were vented with needle tines then rolled and mowed.  A soil amendment was made after that.

The needle tining, as shown above, is nothing more than a very light aeration.  It allows bad gases in the soil to escape and water to penetrate the canopy better.  In other words, it just makes everything we do more efficient and the greens healhier.

After aerating the greens they are then rolled.  There is practically no disruption to play after this process is completed.

 The last thing we do to prep the greens for the days play is mowing them as you see in the background here.