Steady as she goes

We are continuing to make progress on the snow removal from our greens and tees. We have brought in a Toro polar trac to aid the bobcat in snow removal from our tee decks and fairways eventually. Our plan is to have all the greens cleared off by the end of the week and hopefully have the tarps off by Good Friday. I would like to wish my friends over at the Wascana Country Club in Regina good luck as they battle some intense flooding. Hopefully all the hard work that was put in over the last few years renovating the 9th and 10th fairways will not be lost. Above is a picture of the 9th fairway at the Wascana Country Club, I would take snow over flooding anyday. As well thanks for everyone for checking out our blog, we are over 1000 views and I know I haven't checked out the site 1000 times so afew people are checking in from time to time.

Well I spent the day on the couch watching the final round at the Masters and it did not disappoint. The course was in amazing shape as always, and there was great compeition right to very end. I am definitely itching to get out on the course, but I have a feeling we are at least 5 weeks away from opening. The turf care team is busy removing snow from all the tarped greens in anticipation of the temperatures rising and the necessity to remove the covers from greens to prevent any damage. Things look great under the tarps and we want to keep it that way. I am very happy with the work ethic our team has displayed this last week, we will continue to push through clearing the greens on the Mount Kidd course and with a little help with mother nature we should meet our goal in the next week or two. We spent the entire day yesterday working on 14 Kidd green removing the 3 to 4 feet of snow that covered it. Hopefully we only have afew greens like that left. I have decided to get a bit creative and make a slide show of what we have been up to the last two weeks.

A Great Start

 Well my prediction ended up being dead wrong. The first few days seemed to be a warm up for Wednesday. The crew came into work and pounded it out for almost 10 hours removing snow from greens with shovels. Our team has accomplished a tonne over the last week and that is only because of the strong work ethic everyone has displayed since arriving to join our team. The massive dump of snow (45 cm) that we woke up to this morning will set us back a bit, but I have no doubt in my mind we will be able to get back on track and continue to push to get all 40 greens cleared of snow. Having a great bunch of individuals who work as a team and stay motivated, makes my job that much easier. It has been interesting to see everyone come together from all over the globe and develop the strong team mentality that is going to be necessary for our turf care team to be successful over the season.

After the Storm

Well over the weekend we received another big dump of snow, just like the rest of the area. It definitely set us back a bit, but I was surprised how fast the snow started to dissipate last few days. As well our first wave of staff arrived over the weekend, many of them wondering if there truly is a golf course under all the snow. We had a awesome first day with all the staff putting in a great effort on the shovels breaking up the snow for the snowblowers on the greens located on the back nine of  the Lorette course. I am lucky to have Trent Luckhurst working along side as a foreman managing the other team. I don't expect an Aussie to have much experience in snow removal, but he did a great job looking after his team with his scarf wrapped around his neck. It will be interesting to see if we can continue our pace over the next few weeks, as I anticipate I might find some sore bodies in the morning.