Everything Good Must Come to an End

Well the season is over at Kananaskis Country Golf Course and all our crew have gone their separate ways.Thanks to everyone who stayed to the end and helped us put the golf course to bed in a relatively short period of time compared to the amount of tasks we had to get completed. This allowed for James and myself to get all the fairway spraying done by Friday night before we got a dump of snow that is still on the ground as I am writing this.

I had a great time this season, so thank you to everyone who made this summer for me, one I will not forget. We started with around 40 individuals in the spring, and by the end of the season we were a highly efficient team working together to get the course shut down for winter.

For most of you I am sure some of the relationships you created this season will last a lifetime, as I know many of mine will. Good luck to everyone this winter that was apart of our team this season regardless if you went back to school, headed back home overseas, travelling around the world, or even just starting a new job. I will leave you with a final “Season in Review” presentation I did it the other day. If you guys have any feedback from the season please feel free to email me at assistantsuper@kananaskisgolf.com.

How its Done in K Country

This is a time elapsed look at how we prepare our greens for winter at the Kananaskis Country Golf Course.

Step 1  Unfold the tarp and get it into position

Step 2  Roll up tarp to the edge we plan to start laying bubble wrap

Step 3 Organize and layout bubble wrap to match our bubble wrap maps for each green

Step 4 Staple down bubble wrap

Step 5 Secure down tarp with tarp nails

Step 6 Put up elk fence around the perimeter of the green

Step 7 Put sandbags into place to keep wind from pulling the tarp up

On average it takes our teams an hour to an hour and a half to complete a green. The double green in this video is roughly 14,000 sq feet and requires three tarps to cover the entire surface. We bubble wrap and tarp 30 out of our 40 putting surfaces, while all greens and tees are protected by elk fence.

Finish Line in Sight

Our First tarp put down this season

We are currently into winter shutdown mode at the Kananaskis Country Golf Course. Blowout was completed a week ago and we are currently into the process of putting up protection for our greens and tees. On our greens we use an edging, bubble wrap, impermeable tarp, elk fence combination that I will get into more depth in my next post. On our tees we only use elk fencing to protect the surfaces. Calvin has completed all our fungicide applications on tee and greens and will get into fairways next week.

Derk, Teal, and Jana Putting up tee fences

We are getting into mornings with heavy frost so we can’t be out on the course first thing in the morning, so we are slowly cleaning up the yard and detailing the equipment until the frost burns off. We are well ahead of schedule for this time of the year I and I anticipate we will have the course ready for winter in a weeks time at the latest. The crew is doing a great job of staying motivated, as we have turned greens tarping into a bit of a friendly competition between James’ team and my own team.

I really enjoy this time of the season as I get the chance to work side by side with our crew again and have a few laughs as we work towards our goal of closing up the course by next week.

Hopefully we can have a few more weeks of nice weather so that everyone can get their respected courses closed up before the snow flies.

Everything needed to be put on or around 18 Kidd green