April Cold, It Will Get Better

25 degree low for this morning, that is a bit chilly for April. Luckily for the zoysia it is just beginning to green up down in the crown of the plant so we did not lose much ground. We just some rough grass on the short range yesterday. First mow of the tall grass this season. We do have a few spots on the course that might need some trimming by next week.

I feel much better this year going into the season than last year. A year with our staff operating for the most part on their own everyday. All of us are much better organized than last year plus we did nothing to zoysia going into winter so we should be in good shape this season. No doubt last year we had some growing pains with me being completely consumed in my clubhouse/GM role.

We've got our areas sprayed as needed, we are a little behind in pre-emergent applications in the rough after all the rain but with cold temperatures and applications starting last week, we should be able to catch up pretty quickly.

Seed head applications for greens has shown excellent results so far with very few seed heads emerging. We will have seed heads but I think our levels will be reduced with our late November application being instituted this season.

We do have some significant tree removals to perform here in the month of April. The dead oak off of 10 white tee, believe the Oak is dead along the right of 15 about 100-150 yds but need to verify and the dead elm along Lucas & Hunt on #4. We will do some of the work ourselves and some handled by  contractor to reduce weight on upper levels of tree to our staff.

Laser-leveled both 5 tee and 14 on Thursday. 5 tee fairly solid but 14 tee is a bit soft from moisture so we will have to delay its install to insure it dries down properly. I would expect we will get at least one of them grassed in the next 7-10 days and hopefully 14 soon thereafter.

This will be my 10th full growing season at Glen Echo. I think we've made tremendous strides over those 10 years. We had a bit of a rough greens year in 11 and a very dry year in 12, zoysia took a bit of a ding last summer but overall I think this small in number and dedicated group of staff members have provided excellent conditions for our members and guests. Operations much larger than our organization have had difficulties matching our conditioning year end and year out. I look forward to seeing you on the course.