Good Morning,
This past week we spent a lot of time on our regular scheduled maintenance programs. The irrigation system has been running steady every night and the irrigated areas of the course are still growing rather nicely. The non irrigated areas have become dormant and only need to be mowed once in a while. We are down a staff member so it has made some evening mowing as well. By the end of this past week I was very pleased with the condition of the golf course.
Irrigation repairs continue to be a steady part of the work week. I repaired several more electrical connections, replaced some damaged heads, and adjusted irrigation schedules on the computer. I still have a couple of irrigation heads that are not working correctly (#5 white tee box) but will get those repairs completed on Monday. The repair process is not extremely difficult it is simply very time consuming. I have gained a lot of ground the past couple weeks and I feel good with the operation of the irrigation system.
The rainfall totals really reduced the irrigation needs the first half of 2019. The well was never turned on until this month and has only run for 144 hours. Six days of running the well for the entire year to date has never occurred. The golf course is irrigated with over 450,000 gallons of water each night on a full program. The well pumps 432,000 gallons of water in 24 hours. Our water permit allows the well to pump over 26,000,000 gallons of water into the pond each year and irrigate over 39,000,000 gallons of water onto the course. We have only used a fraction of these totals in 2019. Probably the lowest totals ever in 20 years.
We had a few greens with damage that occurred back in March from the heavy rains and rapid snow melt. These areas have been plugged earlier in the year and we topdress them on a regular basis. They have filled in very nicely. This past week we added some smaller plugs to help speed up the repair process. These areas are low areas on the greens that drain very poorly. We will continue to topdress them until they are no longer noticeable.
The irrigation pond has been treated on the west side (#5), the north side (#11), and the southeast side (#12) for algae control. The copper sulfate crystals have removed almost all the algae in these areas. There is still other aquatic vegetation that will need to be removed this fall with aquatic herbicides that prohibit irrigation for 72 hours. I have done some research on this chemical and feel pretty comfortable I will be able to make a difference in controlling these weeds.
Tuesday we hosted the morning and evening league ladies league end of the season tournaments. Friday we hosted the Clay County Pork Producers at the golf course. There were 49 golfers that played nine holes of golf, ate a great meal provided by the CCPP, and enjoyed some social time as well. Today we are hosting the season ending men’s league tournament. The golf league season is coming to an end but there is still plenty of time to play golf with beautiful fall weather.
We have had three straight golf seasons with very poor weather. The rainfall was the worst this Spring than the previous two years. This weather has really impacted our revenue at the golf course. Our season pass totals were the lowest they have ever been since the 18 hole golf course. We need some nice weather moving into 2020. I have been operating the grounds maintenance with one less staff member to attempt to help the budget we are currently operating. When it rains there are no golfers but staff still needs to maintain the golf course.
This concludes another week at SMGC. Please contact me with any comments, questions, or concerns so they can be addressed in a timely manner. As soon as you let me know I am able to take your comments and move toward correcting the situation. Last weeks comments I received were addressed within 24 hours. Enjoy the remainder of your weekend.
Spencer Municipal Golf Course 