Welcome to our new golf course maintenance blog. As Greens Superintendent here at Gold Mountain Golf Club, I will be posting course information on a monthly basis to help keep our guests informed on course condition and maintenance updates at Gold Mountain.
Photo of a beautiful Gold Mountain winter day
My onsite weather station currently reads 5.43 inches of rainfall in the past 7 days yet the golf courses are playing surprisingly firm. Our fairway aerification of last fall is paying dividends now by speeding drainage of all this rain. The deep freezes we experienced in December and February also help with drainage as they tend to heave the soil and reduce compaction. One of the few benefits of extended below freezing temps.
Some scheduled maintenance practices that I know everyone asks about are greens aerification and topdressing. We have scheduled greens aerification for March 18 & 19 on the Olympic Course and March 25 & 26 on the Cascade Course. We will be using small ¼ inch tines on both courses for minimal disruption to the surface. We will follow this with a light sand topdressing 2 weeks later to smooth the surface.
We are hosting the West Coast Conference Championship (WCC) on the Olympic Course on March 13-14-15-16 so you may notice the rough on Olympic is a little longer than normal in the first two weeks of April March? but as soon as possible after this tournament it will be cut back down. The WCC has requested 3.5” rough and our normal height of cut is 2”.
We are in the process of rebuilding the restrooms on #4 of the Cascade Course. This will be a welcome improvement as the existing restroom is 40 years old and well past its useful life expectancy. We’ve applied for permits and are now awaiting approval from the City of Bremerton Planning Dept.
I would like to thank Shannon Johnson and everyone involved at Columbia Hospitality for putting this blog together and getting it on our website. I hope it will be a fun and informative addition to our site.
You may also follow us for greens updates on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoldMtGolf
Stay tuned for more soon!
