Spring Golf at Gold Mountain

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Hole 15, Olympic Course

It is time do some spring swinging at Gold Mountain

As we swing into spring on both courses, we have completed our spring aerification on Cascade.  The planned aerification for the Olympic Course was rained out and has been rescheduled for some time after the West Coast Conference championship (WCC).

The Olympic Course is ready for the April 13-16 WCC championship with rough’s getting thick and mowing heights moved to 3 inches. WCC officials have requested the greens rolling at 12 feet on the Stimpmeter. We hope to give the WCC players some challenging rounds of golf.

We will welcome back our six seasonal crew members starting next week, April 12th, which brings our crew size to twenty for both courses. The added crew members allow us to pick up the mowing pace to keep up with newly fertilized and fast growing turf, as well as one crew member dedicated to seasonal flowers and landscaping. We are excited to bring you beautiful and immaculate conditions as we head into the busy golf season.

Spring is here and the grass is growing – time for some exciting rounds at Gold Mountain. Gotta love it.

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Welcome!

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

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!

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