Good Morning,
More rainfall than we had seen the majority of the golf season fell upon us this past week. The golf course was completely saturated and the waterways were full of overflow. This moisture will be great to have in the ground heading into the off season. The past couple of years there has been minimal ground moisture heading into winter.
This past week we continued to work on our tree pruning throughout the golf course. We have completed all of the conifers and will continue to work on deciduous trees this coming week. These trees are pruned to make our maintenance practices easier as well as provide our golfers an opportunity to make a decent swing if they find themselves in the trees.
The rainy days left us working on equipment in the shop. We started bringing in mowers and removing the reels for service this off season. The reels will be sharpened and bedknives replaced in preparation for 2022. Also, any maintenance or necessary repairs are completed on the reels at this time.
I was able to survey the greens, tees, and fairways to try and establish where original mowing patterns should be completed. Over time the edges of different mowing patterns can slowly become smaller. In the spring we will expand the greens surface on holes #2, #8, #16, #17, and #18. There will also be some small changes on other greens to bring them all back to their normal sizes. Tees will be mowed out a little bit wider and some fairways will be adjusted.
These changes will be done by gradually reducing the mowing height in these areas. There will be some discoloration of the grass but it will adapt quickly and return to a normal green shade. You might remember this process from #11 fairway early in the spring of 2021. We expanded the width of the fairway further south on the last 100 yards of the hole.
We still have several projects we are working on before the season ends. This coming week we will continue to work on tree pruning, sodding sand traps in damaged areas, and equipment work. We have documented all of the sand traps from a maintenance standpoint and will be adding sand once the ground firms up later in the year.
Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or would like more information provided.
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Brian C Mohr
Director of Golf Operations
City of Spencer
101 W 5th Street
Spencer Municipal Golf Course
Spencer, Iowa 51301
712-260-5370
Spencer Municipal Golf Course 