News

Good Morning,

 

This past week started off with four inches of snow covering the entire golf course. The warmer temperatures started to return on Tuesday and the snow started to melt fairly quickly. By Wednesday the majority of the snow was gone and the golf course was very saturated. Although we were not expecting so much snow, the precipitation was great for the golf course, especially all of the new sod.

Staff began the work week in the shop preparing equipment for our off season maintenance practices. All of the reels were removed from each mower, bedknives were replaced, and the reel sharpening process began. Each reel and bedknife are individually sharpened to produce a sharp edge which in turn creates a healthy cutting process of the turf plant. I had completed the sharpening process on 15 fairway reels by the end of the week. We are a little more than halfway through the process.

Last week we finished laying over 6500 square feet of sod around the golf course. This week we finished working on some low areas on #4, #5, and #10 fairways. These areas were edged, black soil was added, and the sod was placed to eliminate the problem areas. We ran out of sod and will need to finish this project in the Spring. Thankfully we were able to get so much accomplished yet this Fall.

Quite a few cart path areas were addressed including the area where we park our rental carts. Road gravel was added followed by some grading to help eliminate standing water. I have continued to work with our City Manager to develop a plan to have all of our cart paths addressed with a new asphalt surface. I am hopeful to have more details on this in the near future. 

The red twig dogwoods were trimmed last week along holes #14 and #15. We started picking up a lot of the debris this past week and hauling it to the tree site. Staff also started hauling some of the tree debris around the maintenance facility to the tree site. We have a lot of debris that still needs to be hauled away from the golf course. Hopefully the wood chipper might be a benefit to help get everything into smaller pieces reducing the number of trips to tree site.

The end of the week blessed us with some great golf weather. There were a lot of golfers out taking advantage of the warm temperatures. Today we are hosting our rescheduled Four Person Best Shot event with a shotgun start at 10:00 AM. We are looking forward to seeing some golfers today and hoping it continues next week.

The golf course sign next to the practice green had some finishing touches made to complete the painting of all granite signs on the golf course. These signs were installed in 2001 and have held up very nicely over the years. They still look brand new after the makeovers have been completed. Here is a comparison of before and after of the course sign:

Tomorrow we will start removing some of the larger trees around the golf course. There are approximately ten large ash, pine, and spruce trees that need to be removed. We also have about 35 other smaller trees that will need to be removed as well. This project will be our main focus until it is completed.

 

Coming up on Thursday and Friday evenings we will be hosting the Upper Des Moines music bingo fundraiser nights. This event helps raise money for UDMO to assist members of our community. It is such a fun event and definitely for a great cause. There are still a few tables available if anyone is interested.

 

I hope everyone enjoys the remainder of their weekend. Please reach out if you would like additional information on a topic from the golf course.