Turkey Day Scramble Cancelled

Due to steady rain with more to come, The Turkey Day Scramble has been cancelled. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Happy Thanksgiving

Its that time of year to put the course at rest,
we've worked very hard and gave it our best.

The greens were poked and prodded and had rolled no better, we followed our program right down to the letter.

The zoysia fairways started slow but turned on a dime, they were so consistent you might of thought they were fake part of the time.

We sprayed the bermuda and sprayed and sprayed, we might think it is gone but it will never go away.

The leaves have been falling like rain from the sky,
we blow and we grind, my oh my.

Its that time of season for the clubhouse to shine,
with the holiday parties everyone having a good time.

Hopefully you are with your family today on this Thanksgiving Day,
thanks to all of you for what you do for us, it takes everyone to be on board this Big Glen Echo Bus!

We will see you not as often during the winter break,
but hope to see you back again this spring when the ice is off the lakes.

Happy Veteran's Day

Thanks to the men and women who have given us the right to say what we want without the fear of being arrested. Members, families, friends and peers who have served this great
country and continue to serve, we honor you on this day and everyday!

Happy Birthday Marine Corp

Happy 240th Birthday to our Marines out there! Would not be the country we are without your efforts in the past, today and the future!

USGA Article In Regards To Tree Management Plans

A great article from the USGA regarding trees on a golf course. Please take the 10-15 minutes it takes to read this outstanding article giving a historical record on how trees evolved on golf courses. This perfectly explains the situation we are now experiencing at Glen Echo. This does not speak of the elimination of trees but the thoughtful and considerate placement of trees as well as removal to improve overall playability, turf quality and the true cost of an overabundance of trees on a course.


http://gsrpdf.lib.msu.edu/ticpdf.py?file=/article/oatis-right-11-6-15.pdf

Weather Stats October

A warmer and drier than normal month of October leading to some great golf weather.

We had 45 days from 9/11 until 10/27 with only .62" of rain. Our weather station accumulated 1.14" of rain slightly higher than the official report from Lambert.

20th driest October on record.


Temperature  
                        Observed Value  Normal Value  Depart from Normal  Last Year's Value
High                          70.9                       68.5                        2.4                            68.7
Low                           51.3                       49.0                        2.3                            50.3
Mean                         61.1                       58.7                        2.4                            59.5

Precipitation
                                    .98                        3.33                     -2.35                          5.08

Late Fall, Winter Play

As the weather is changing, time for discussion regarding late fall and winter play rules.

This season we will allow carts off the paths as long as conditions are dry enough to do so. It does not take a lot of rain and or snow to place carts back on paths so when dry conditions and temperatures are comfortable, you should take advantage of this situation. A little golf, a couple cocktails and a lunch or dinner makes for a great day and helps the bottom line of the club. As freezing and freezing/thawing cycles begin to occur more frequently later in the season, cart path restrictions might become more frequent.

Also a part of our winter rules is for the practice ranges to be on mats only. I understand the desire to hit off of the ground but if we allowed play all winter on the zoysia, that area would be destroyed because of its inability to heal. We appreciate your cooperation in this matter.

I would expect frost to be on the increase as we move later into November. As a reminder, we will not allow play onto the course until the frost has lifted. One of the things we will face later into winter is frozen ground/frozen turf blade conditions from harder freezes. I don't worry as much about the ground being frozen as long as the grass blades are soft and pliable. One of the things I'm most concerned about later in the season is when the ground is frozen beneath but the surface begins to thaw. It might be a warm day above ground but this type of condition can create serious root shearing issues for us and damage our greens with every step. This type of condition will force us to remain closed until the freeze has lifted our of the green and allowed the surface moisture to drain away. I will discuss this problem in greater detail when our winter thaw occurs.

In the meantime, the staff has been busy blowing leaves everyday. From green's surfaces, tees, fairways, rough and bunkers. We also use our mowers to help grind them up once they are placed in winrows on the course. We will be breaking out our vacuum as well during the heaviest period over the next few weeks. We haul this material to the dump in the back of the driving range.

We are down to 5 hourly(Nick, Russ, Tom, Jason and Randy) Hort Becky, mechanic Dave and Skip/myself. We lose Randy after this week and Becky and Nick at the end of November. Still a lot of leaves to come off the trees. We appear to be 10-12 days behind in leaf drop so we will be deep into fall before most are down.

Come out and take advantage of this great weather over the next couple of days. It should be fun!!

Post 15 Days Since Greens Aeration

Its been 15 days since our greens aeration was completed and they are almost 100% healed. A few holes here and there still trying to close but overall in good shape. Did our first wet morning mowing today and rolling behind the mower. We have had to layoff early morning work on the greens to allow the sand to settle down a bit so we did not create a mess on the greens. Dry mowing and rolling was the order of the day last week.

We laid off the growth regulator at aeration time which allowed the turf to bounce back along with great growing weather helped in the healing process. I applied a regulator and some fertilizer last Friday before the weekend rain to reduce the growth of the poa annua and improve the growth of the bent grass. This should improve ball roll over the next couple of weeks before we allow them to get a little hairy before winter sets in. We have at least one more regulator planned before winter if weather allows help stunt the poa.