On the Course!!!

As usual it has been a very busy month at the golf club. We just completed spring greens aeration that went very well. Due to the late start and the presence of sand from winter topdressing we went strictly with a solid tine aeration without pulling cores, and no topdressing. We were also able to do our aeration on Sunday night and Monday without closing the golf course, so that was a success.


Our SMRID water came in on May 10th but had to be shut down for a few days to fix some flood damage. We did take our pond down close to 10 verticle feet, our lowest level in 3 years, but with receiving all the SMRID flow since it has been back on we returned to full by the end of the Victoria day long weekend. During this time we were receiving over 500 usgallons/min, so over 700,000 usg for a 24 hour period. With the Smrid now on we have resumed full irrigation on the golf course.



The Vallely Practice facility is now OPEN. We ask anyone using the facility to always check in to the proshop and obey a few rules. When using the tee box area you must hit from between the markers. A new fairway has been cut out in front of the green for practice, as well as a collar around the green for chipping. Please repair ballmarks and fill divots once practice is completed. Also to ease the pressure of picking up the range balls, we are asking all golfers to bring back a bucket when done.



As we get well into the season we want to remind the members to help us out by following some simple maintenance practices. Always obey the cart signs, they are there for a reason to control traffic and alliviate stress to the turf, that being said always keep your carts on the cart path around greens and tees. Ballmarks on greens are a very important component to keeping our greens in great shape, so take a moment to fix yours plus 2 others. Divot repair on tees and fairways! Unfortunately I have seen a dramatic drop off in the use of sand so far this spring. Let me remind you that every pull cart has a sand bottle, and every power cart now has TWO sandbottles, so no excuses, if you are waiting to hit a shot fix some divots and keep our fairways great.



I have been asked a lot in the past couple of weeks what can be done for dandelions. There is a misconception that 2-4-D products like Killex are ban. THEY ARE NOT! Your best option for dandilions is a Killex, Tri-kill spray, that is sprayed on the weed directly. These products are available at most stores that have Garden centers. There are products right now that are being heavily advertised as non-chemical solutions unfortunately the science has yet to prove they work! So maintain a healthy lawn that cleans and produces the air we breath!



For those members up on the internet , I have a new feature we want you to get on your blackberry, iphone or computer. I have starting using twitter from the golf club, giving a daily update as to what is happening today on the grounds. I will update any special maintenance for the day, new additions to the club, and any other interesting things that are happening at Connaught. You can follow me at twitter.com, then search for ConnaughtSuper. It is as easy as that, or download the twitter app for your iphone or blackberry. Check it out before you make your way over to the club.