Quechee News
Golf Course Update
Both courses survived the long 4th of July holiday weekend and are in outstanding shape. Both courses of greens have been vertical mowed and topdressed (Lakeland on Monday 7/7 & Highland on Tuesday 7/8). You may notice that each course's greens will be a bit slower than normal for a day after the vertical mowing & topdressing. This is due to the fact that we do not mow the greens the following day so as not to pick up all the topdressing and dull the mowers. They will return to normal speeds two days post verticut. This necessary cultural program is minimally disruptive to the putting surfaces for a couple of day s and really stands the turf up. It is also a key part of our thatch management program on greens and we do this process once per month throughout the growing season.
Green speeds were right where we want them for the summer, stimping anywhere from 9' to 10' on a daily basis before the verticut and they will return to those speeds by Thursday. More importantly they are very consistent and smooth from one hole to another, so what you find on the first green should be very similar to what you will find on the 18th green. As always, green speeds change with the weather and on wet days they will seem slower just due to the moisture. Also on very hot and humid days they appear to slow down, again due to the moisture in the atmosphere.
The back of the fourth green of Highland, which was sodded two weeks ago to speed up the recovery, is healing in nicely. This area was damaged coming out of winter and just never recovered due to many factors. The site is a difficult growing environment with too much shade at the wrong times of day and the design forces all traffic to the rear of the green for entrance and exit purposes, which further challenges the turf on the back of this green.
The planning process is underway for the permananet repair of the riverbank on 7 Lakeland. We hope to have a plan to go through the Act 250 permit process with by the end of summer. The work should happen at the end of summer 2009 if all goes according to plan. In the meantime, we did some minor stabilization and repair work by hand, alongside the 7th Lakeland greenside cart path in hopes of stemming the bank losses in this area until a permanent repair can be designed and permitted.
Summer is in full swing and I hope you can get out and enjoy the outstanding conditions!
Sincerely,
Ken Lallier, CGCS
Property Manager