Winter Storm - The Rim Golf Club

Seems like every year, during the Holidays, we seem to always have some sort of a winter storm. This year it proved to be right on schedule. A few days before the New Year, we got hit with a pretty large snow storm. The golf course received nearly a foot of snow. The storms timing may not be unusual, but the amount of snow that has fallen is a bit unusual.

Since I have lived in Payson, we have been hit with snow each year. I am sure everyone has seen the usual, snow falls and then melts within a week. The roads are usually clear by the end of the day. Snow in The Rim Country is mostly a brief nuisance.

What made this storm unique, were the cold temperatures that followed the heavy snow fall. On New Year’s Day the low at my house was 1 degree. I have only lived in Payson for four years and I have not seen low temperatures like that. It was cold enough that a water line in the wall of my garage froze and burst. I have seen teens for a low before, but rarely single digits.

What does this mean for the course and our staff?

The staff will start working on our maintenance shop. We have a lot of clean up and organization that can be done to prepare for next season. We will also round up the tee markers from the course and start painting the respective colors for each set. This is also a good time for the mechanics to get caught up on replacing worn seals and bearings to get the equipment ready for next season.

I will have some upcoming posts that will illustrate some of the things that we are working on during this winter weather. Also, keep an eye out for our first video blog. It will be part one of our quest to correct the range tee wiring debacle.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact me.

Justin C. Ruiz, CGCS

justinr@therimgolfclub.org

February Divot Party

I wanted to thank all the members that helped out at our February Divot and Ballmark Repair Party.  There was a great turn out and the members were able to complete all 18 holes in a little over an hour.  Once we were finished on the golf course we all headed into happy hour and enjoyed some finger foods and a question and answer session. 

It was a successful repair party and on behalf of the maintenance staff we owe the members a big thank you for all the help.  The divots were filled perfect timing before a light rain.  If the temperature rise to the sixties again we should start to get some good germination. 

Stay tuned for the next repair party.  We are going to coordinate the next party around play volume.  We will definitely have another party in the near future.  The members have done a great job helping us out and it is a valuable time to answer any questions.

If you have any questions or comments or would like to find out how you can get involved don't hesitate to contact me.

Justin Ruiz, CGCS
justinr@therimgolfclub.org

Winter Course Clean Up

The winter months have given us a chance to do much needed clean up on the course.  Since the temperatures have dropped and the grass has had little growth in the last few weeks, we are able to focus more on trimming and thinning than mowing.

Removing Cattails out of the water feature on 7,8,9 was our first winter effort.  We are also going to try to get the Cattails out of #10 lake before they get out of hand.  Cattails may look natural at first along a lake or in a creek, but soon they take over the entire creek or boundary of a lake.  The creek can become obstructed from view of our members.  This overgrowth can compromise the lake's liner and make the water around the Cattails become stagnate which aids the bloom of algae.

Fire wise is of course our main focus this winter.  The surrounding lots on the course have done a great job thinning the vegetation on their property and we are making a strong effort to thin out the golf course native areas.  We have finished the fifth hole and the next area on the schedule is the 11th hole.  I know I have lost a few golf balls on the 11th hole in the dense manzanita on the left and right of that hole. 

We are nearly finished with the landscaped areas around the proshop, resturant, bathrooms and select tee and greenside areas.  We have been trimming back the ornamental grasses and woody ornamentals to get them ready for the spring season.  These annual trimming excercises will keep the plant healthy and give it the ability to show its true colors come spring and summer.

Lane and I are trying to accomplish some small projects this winter aside from the major clean up that is taking place.  We have worked on the drive off after the bridge on seven by installing large flat sided rocks to level the area travelled.  We are also taking a look at the walking trails from tee to fairway and green to tee that have been eroding over time.  We plan to try to make all the paths passable with pull carts if possible.  We are also looking at the drive offs from the fairways to the cart path.  Some have become incredibly bumpy and we are working at getting those more smooth if possible.

Overall this winter has been productive.  Even with a reduced staff we have been getting a lot of work done.  Last year we had more staff but be pulled in many different directions we tried to get too many projects done all at once and spread the crew too thin.  This year I have been keeping the crew on a better schedule to finish a project before another starts.  We will keep you, the members posted on our progress and we will try to get as much as we can before mowing consumes our daily tasks.

If you have any questions please contact me.
Justin C. Ruiz, CGCS
justinr@therimgolfclub.org

December Green Committee Report

Course Condition The Rim Country has received some snow. With the cold weather the snow has been reluctant to melt. The ground has been frozen most of the day and the grass has undergone dormancy. We are seeing the benefits of our late fall fertilizer application with keeping some color through the winter months. Projects Completed This last month has been slow. Snow restricted crew access to the course for a few days. We have kept the projects more manageable with our small crew. We have finished fire-wise on #5 and the hill on #8. I am sure you have also notice we have given a majority of the native its annual trimming. We have completed the hand work around trees, tees, and steep slopes to make way for a tractor mounted Brush Hog that will make quick work of the flat open areas. Projects in Process The projects that we have on our plate at this moment are fire-wise and pro-shop landscape. We have started the ornamental grass plant trimming behind 18 green and will continue this through the parking lot. This will take first priority now that we have completed #8 fire-wise. We will have a couple staff members continue fire-wise along #11, but it will be slow moving until we finish the trimming at the pro-shop area. We usually do fire-wise in the morning hours while we wait for frost. The late morning is mainly course set up. Now, we will start at the pro-shop then move to course clean up. We will concentrate on fire-wise in the afternoon if we feel there will be members present around the pro-shop area as to not bother everyone with the noise and flying debris. We are also working on goose clean-up. It has been a frustrating winter so far with the geese. We use Chloe to chase them off, but they know when we are done for the day and return before dark. Lane has come back in the late afternoons to scare them off, but we still have had little success. If you would like to see more about the geese clickhere. ElK We have experienced tremendous damage in the past month due to elk. With the recent storm when we lost a few trees we had numerous breaks in the fence. This allowed many elk to gain access to the property. We recently hired the cowboys to round up the elk that were on the property and they successfully removed two. I know that number does not match the amount of elk damage we are getting. The elk travel onto the property at night and leave in the morning when there is an opening. Since the cowboys showed up in the late morning, the majority of the elk had already exited. We have also been having trouble with a couple of our gates. Boards have mysteriously been removed or popped off and elk have gained access that way. We walk the fence once a month and if we see the remnants of elk we will walk it that day. Our most recent issue was the gate near the main entrance. The portion of the fence on the left as you drive in has been slowly sliding down the hill. This caused a gap near the gate that we have been blocking with boards. Recently that gate had boards popped off of it and left a large opening for the elk. With that being said we have straightened the fence and fixed the gate and we will see if most of the elk left the property in the morning or if we have some residents. Since the fence has been mended we will be ready for another visit from the cowboys, if indeed there are still elk on property. Projects Planned Future winter projects that we are looking at are as follows: - Pro-shop trimming. - Fire-wise. - Walk path repair. Ballmark and Divot Repair Party If you missed our first party we are having another 3:00pm on January 15, 2010. We had a great time for the first party. We completed the entire repair in a little over an hour. “Many hands make light work.” – John Heywood. We will all meet at Mr. and Mrs. Paczkowski’s house on #5 after the repair is completed. If you need the flyer that was sent out or have any questions please contact me. Side Notes I was asked to write a case study explaining our water conservation efforts at The Rim. The case study has been posted on the Environmental Institute for Golf web site. You can view the entire case study here. I have recently been asked to be on the cover of Golf Course Industry Magazine. The Editor had many questions about our divot and ball mark repair party and wanted to feature it along with other superintendents doing things a little different than normal maintenance. This will be coming out this month. Read more. I have also begun the search for this season’s intern positions. You can view the blog post about our internship program here. With the use of Twitter, I have been able to keep up with other superintendents across America to gain some insight on how they are dealing with issues on their courses. One of the superintendents is starting a series of posts on his blog called “What we do in the Winter”. I am going to take a similar approach and do a series of posts on what we do on the course. I will try to capture the nuts and bolts that define our work. If you would like to follow along, click here. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Dan or me. Justin C. Ruiz, CGCS

justinr@therimgolfclub.org

928.951.3421

Dan Devere, CGCS ddever@chaparralpines.org 928-951-3272

Freezing and Thawing

The forecast for the next week is calling for freezing over night lows. This will lead to the greens becoming frozen at night and thawing during the day since the weather still reaches the fifties during the day. The constant freezing and thawing we will experience may arouse some questions about course condition. I wanted to write this post to hopefully help answer any questions so you are prepared when you play golf over the next few weeks. Since the weather is not constantly cold the top few inches of the rootzone will freeze over night. Not only will this begin the hardening process and start to turn the grass off color but it also addes oxygen to the top few inches of the soil. We all know when the pipes under the house freeze, the water inside expands and the pipe breaks. The same process happens when the water in the soil freezes it expands, enlarging the pores in the soil. How does this affect you? Soft playing conditions. With the constant freezing and thawing that takes places the greens will become much softer once they thaw. The green will be much more receptive and can feel spongy. This is all collectively the freezing overnight weather. We are not overwatering greens. Actually we have not watered greens for a couple weeks now, even though the temperatures have been elevated and there has been no percipitation. When you tee it up in the weeks to come and you find the greens are a little soft and spongy, it is because of the freezing and thawing conditions that are upon us. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me. Justin C. Ruiz, CGCS justinr@therimgolfclub.org