This has been one of the best summers for weather and golf that I can remember for along time, but all good things must come to an end. We are approaching our final weekend for 2012 golf season and although we are closing the golf course our work is far from over, it will become a race between us and mother nature to get the course put to bed before the snow blankets the landscape for the several months. In preparing the course for winter we will do a number of things such as blowing the water out of the irrigation lines, applying our winter snow mold protection on greens, tees and fairways, topdressing greens and tees, putting covers on the greens, verticutting and aerating tees and fairways, bring in all the accessories, winterize the washrooms and if the weather is still cooperating we will work on projects such as drainage, cart paths or paving. This is a critical time of the season and it is very important that we are able to do what we can to protect the golf course over the winter months. It seems that there is never two winters the same and because of this we continually modify our methods through advancements in technology, trial and error and networking with our peers to get ideas on what we may do to improve our program. Once the course is put to bed we will monitor the course over the winter for things like snow cover or lack of and ice hoping that mother nature will be kind and allow us to come out of winter with minimal damage and have an early opening.
