Good Morning,
Spencer Municipal Golf Course has been a participant in a University of Minnesota winter turf survey since late this past fall. Each Sunday, around noon, I take a picture of our practice green, document weather conditions, and provide an update of the week long weather changes. This information and photo are submitted to the research team to help understand how winter weather affects turfgrass. The link below is a short article describing this awesome trial:
https://horticulture.umn.edu/news/winter-turf-working-toward-greener-spring
Currently we still have a decent amount of snow cover on the golf course. However, the turf underneath the snow is very dry. With the warmer temperatures I will continue to monitor the greens and determine if we need to haul water moving forward. The lack of snowfall is a positive for most people but it’s a negative for agriculture. It leaves our soil profile dry and the tiles filling our irrigation pond producing only a trickle of water. It also puts a demand on our irrigation right away for the 2022 season.
On Monday night department heads, city council members, and the mayor met for the presentation of the 2023-27 Capital Improvement Plan. This plan outlines items for the plan and how they are funded by the City of Spencer. It was a great presentation by our Finance Officer Brian Weuve. The main focus for the golf course was to introduce a continued equipment replacement program over the next five years at the golf course. This Plan will go to the council for approval.
On Wednesday night the same group of individuals met with the City Administrator of Story City Mark Jackson. Department Heads spent the afternoon in one on one sessions sharing information to help develop two year goals for the city. It was a wonderful day filled with a lot of great discussion and information provided by everyone. In the end, the city council was able to decide on three main goals moving forward: what to do with the new 100 acres of land, Parks Master Plan, and development to the north of Spencer.
The Street Division finished hauling away our tree and brush pile we accumulated from our late season tree removal and pruning projects. In the future we will use a wood chipper and small dump truck as we go through the tree removal and pruning process. This will allow us to more easily dispose of the debris in a more timely manner. In the meantime, thank you to the Street Division staff for assisting us with this project.
Maintenance focus was spent on our two Toro 3150 mowers. These units have been our tee and collar mowers in the past but will be used for mowing greens in 2022. There were some small repairs completed on both machines to help them operate properly. New bedknives, 1/16″ thick were installed on the reels to help us provide a perfect cut on the greens at 3mm (.118 “). These two units are ready to go for the golf season!
We hosted a private party in the clubhouse on Friday evening. This is the fifth event we have had in the clubhouse this off season. The clubhouse is not open on a daily basis but is available for scheduled events during the off season. I have a couple more events coming up later this month.
The upcoming week will see city staff moving into the 2022/23 budget planning phase. Department Heads have completed the preliminary work in preparation for finalizing these numbers with City Manager Dan Gifford and Finance Officer Brian Weuve. After that the process moves to introducing the proposal to the city council for discussion and eventually final approval.
Enjoy the remainder of the weekend. I will see the golf board Monday evening and the city council shortly afterwards. Golf season is just around the corner!
—
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 