Busy Time!

Having worked in golf course maintenance all my life, their is never downtime on the golf course, even in winter. Typically at the golf season's end the greens and grounds committee, head golf professional, superintendent, and general manager walk the entire golf course and prioritize work they deem to be important to the golf course for the upcoming "off season." This year is no different than many, we have many improvements we are working on going into the 2012 golfing season. A list of work includes:

• Continuation of tree management in which over 50 trees were transplanted throughout the property (see previous posts).


• Drainage work on holes #11 and #18 (see previous posts). Later this spring behind #13 green and repairing the area in front of #18 green and adding much needed drain tile.


• Removal of the large brush pile near the maintenance facility so that we are able to create a large sod nursery.


• Preparing site plan for Schmaltz landscaping at 5/13 building. The plan is to improve the area around the building with some newer plants both annual and perennial. And getting a plan to enhance our new wildflower area near the pond on #13 by adding perennial plants on the southern end near the break of the hill. Because this is a large area, small clusters of plants will be planted every spring till it is filled.


• Repair and preventative maintenance on our existing fleet of equipment


• Grinding and sharpening of all of our mower reels and bed knives. Coming out of winter the reels are sharp and ready to go!


• Painting and repair of benches, ball washers, baskets, cups, etc.


• Checking and making improvements to our irrigation central control system.


• Snow removal.


• Meeting with vendors to make orders and talk pricing for the upcoming year.

This time of year also means budget time at Ridgeway. Labor, projects, capital improvements, and best practices are looked at in their entirety and up for review by the greens and grounds committee. Line item by line item is looked at and tweaked to fit the needs of the coming year.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season and I am excited to start the golf season sooner than later!!

Tree Transplanting

Finally the ground is frozen enough to transplant some of our smaller trees to more desirable locations. On December 4th the greens and grounds committee took the time to decide which areas of the golf course needed a few trees to make up for some that we have lost. Instead of cutting down smaller trees that are poorly placed, we have decided to locate them in more desriable areas. About 45-50 trees will be transplanted throughout the property. The results are great and it is a program that we will continue to improve on year to year.