"Mastering" the Look of a Major

It will soon be April here in the Peace, and with any luck at all, we'll finally get to see some real grass. While the Links groundskeepers will be scouting the course for snow mold and ice damage, many golfers will be turning their attention to the Masters at Augusta National in Georgia for the first major championship of the year. Aside from witnessing the world's best players making great shots on one of the world's most famous courses, some folks will be wondering, "Why can't our course look like that?"

The short answer is money and geography. 

Augusta National:

1. Shuts down for most of the year in preparation for the tournament.
2. Has a nearly unlimited budget.

3. Has fantastic drainage for the wet seasons, irrigation for the dry seasons, and built in ways of heating and cooling the turf if temperature problems arrise. 

4. Is built on rootzone soil that is tested, amended and tested again before the first strip of sod/stolon/seed ever touches the soil.
5. Has access to an array of fertilizers and pesticides that would dazzle any petro-chemical engineer.
6. Is mowed no less than daily with perfectly sharpened state of the industry mowers. 

7. Is located in the southeastern United States

The grounds crew even use dry ice to keep the azaleas from blooming too early! And in the unlikely event that any last minute blemishes crop up there's always special green turf paint for touch ups. Even the water hazards are chemically adjusted to present the perfect hue of beautiful cobalt blue! What golfers see on television is a beautiful, manicured, impractical, unnatural, impossible to reproduce playing surface. 

Rather than wonder why our course can't look more like Augusta, northern golfers might do better to look at the course conditions they'll see on their screens in July at the Open Championship at St Georges in Great Britain. There's a reason our course is called Links!

So enjoy the Masters, and continue to look forward to our own opening day. We'll have the course looking its best as quick as we can. With hard work, and some help from Mother Nature, we'll hopefully soon have a course that patrons can take pride in playing of as you seek to master your own championship rounds.

Still Playing the Waiting Game!

Ok, so last week we got a little ahead of ourselves! March is living up to its reputation big time! Enough with the "In like a lion". By now we are all looking forward to  "Out like a lamb!". The only good news is the days are getting longer. Dawn will now be on the early side of 7 AM and will continue to creep forward by about 4 minutes a day until late June. With the increased daylight, rising temperatures are sure to follow. The average mean temperature in the North Peace for March is still -5 with lows going as deep as minus 10 and highs topping out at just above freezing. Its not till April that we can expect mean temperatures above freezing. Even then the mercury will not creep much above 8 degrees! Save those shorts for May. March and April might be called shoulder seasons but that doesn't mean you'll get to work on your tan just yet.


Once the snow does begin to melt, managing the moisture will play a big role in how we prep the course for play. An extended thaw freeze cycle for example, can leave turf vulnerable to ice damage. A fast thaw can produce water faster than frozen drainage systems can cope. Large areas of standing water can leave turf susceptible to disease or root rot. Even a gradual thaw may result in grounds that are too soft to deal with mowers or heavy equipment. Spring remains a waiting game. Waiting on the light, the sun, the moisture levels and the grounds crew to provide a playable course can be tough, but when it all comes together, the anticipation will all be worth it!

What Lies Beneath

Another week has passed and finally we are seeing some signs of spring! They say in the Peace country you hear spring before you see it and the sounds of running water are surely a welcome tell tale sign. As the snow recedes however, there is always a little anxiety present about what lies beneath. If, like me you are the owner of a large dog with an active digestive tract, you know a little spring cleaning will be imperative!

Fortunately Links is not as enclosed an area as most back yards, and while we have our full share of critters who go when and where they have to, for the most part we let nature take care of the outdoors litter box. As a greenskeeper, I'm more concerned about what might be growing rather than showing under the snow.

Snow mould is our principal concern early on while prepping the course for play. Snow mold is a fungal disease that appears in the early spring as the snow melts. There are two types of snow mold: Grey snow mold (also known as Typhula blight) and pink snow mold (sometimes referred to as Fusarium patch). Pink snow mold infects the crown of the plant and can cause more severe injury than gray snow mold which only infects the leaf tissue.

Snow mold damage looks like circular patches (3"-12") of dead and matted grass. Depending on the severity of the outbreak, the circles can coalesce and become a large mass.  Both gray and pink snow mold can be found  together. Pink snow mold owes its name to the pink color of the web-like mycelium growing on the grass surface. While the grass is wet, the mycelium starts out white and resembles cobwebs. As it matures it turns its pink or salmon color. The mycelium quickly disappears as the grass dries.

Gray snow mold is similar to pink snow mold except that its mycelium remains whitish-gray. Gray snow mold is also distinguished by the presence of tiny black mycelial masses (sclerotia) on the grass blades and leaf sheaths of infected plants. Pink snow mold does not have these.

Snow mold occurs after an extended period of snow cover on ground that is not completely frozen. It can also be caused when fertilizer or weather causes a flush of growth late in the fall. Snow mold also grows under leaves that were not cleaned up or in long grass that wasn't properly mowed before winter set in but those conditions are usually found in the rough or areas most golfers want to avoid. Its the tees and greens that get our attention first.

There are fungicide sprays for both preventive and curative treatments of snow mold. Snow mould is ugly, and while most damage will recover in time, our relatively short playing season means we can't always wait for Mother Nature. Normally, once an area has dried, the infection will cease and new turf will grow back. To speed up the process, infected areas can be raked to encourage drying. Over-seeding may be needed and if the damage is extremely severe, topdressing can be applied or areas can be repaired like a bare patch and plugged out.

In an ideal world the snow would vanish over night and be instantly replaced with beautiful green grass. While we all know that's not going to happen, it won't be long now before equipment starts to roll! 

Waiting on Winter

Looking outside this morning its hard to imagine that folks are hoping to be teeing it up in just over a month. It still looks pretty white out there but spring is coming and the grounds crew at FSJ Links will need to be ready. As I mentioned last week one of the most important steps in prepping the course will be pulling the protective covers off the greens and tees and assessing the course for winter damage.

When it comes to covering or uncovering greens and tees timing is very important. The grass needs time to "harden" off and acclimate to colder temperatures in the fall. Installing the blankets too soon or too late could mean damaged grass in the spring. Similarly pulling the covers too early or too late in the spring can also result in weak or damaged grass. Anyone who has spent any time in the Peace country knows that our wildly unpredictable weather can make it a challenge to find just the right time to pull off the covers.

Moisture is the principal culprit when it comes to winter damage. Too much can lead to ice cover and winter kill. Too little and plants dry out and die. Snow cover provides insulation through the winter and valuable moisture in the spring, but can also provide good growing conditions for snow mould. Grey snow mould is a common disease of turfgrasses in areas where there are over 90 days of continuous snow cover during the winter. And, as with most problems, its better to prevent mould than to have to fix it later! Hopefully our fall preparations will see us get off to a great start this spring.

So, while we all play the waiting game, its even harder on the grounds crew than the golfers. Waiting to see the hand that Mother Nature has dealt us this year is a little bit like opening a Christmas present from a quirky relative. Will it be something great or a major disappointment. Whatever the result, we are still anxiously looking forward to getting at it!

Welcome to Making The Cut

Welcome to Making the cut! This blog will offer information about what's happening outside at the Fort St John Links Golf course. As the guy who cuts the greens (most of the time anyways) it will be my pleasure to keep readers informed about whats happening out on the course.

Right now whats happening is a whole lot of very little. In early March the course is still solidly under a thick layer of snow. That's not necessarily a bad thing though. The snow that's lying out there today provides some valuable moisture to promote spring growth in just a few short weeks! When the snow goes the grounds crew will have a lot of work ahead of us to get the course ready for your enjoyment. Blankets will need to be pulled from the greens and tees and turf condition will need to be assessed for winter damage. If all goes well opening day should come towards the end of April. When the course does open up you should see a few interesting changes from last year, but more on that next time!