New Senior Tees

We have added an additional set of tee markers to accommodate the wide range of golfers we have at Swope Memorial.  These tees are intended for seniors and people new to the game of golf.  They will play a little bit longer then our current red tees, but not near as far as the white tees.  All holes should be much easier to get on the green in regulation and therefore hopefully provide a more enjoyable round of golf.

Course Staying Wet

                            

Here is an example of just how wet the course continues to be.  We had to resort to push mowing sections of 9 fairway.

Aerifying and Fertilizing Tees

Recently we have aerified and fertilized a few of our tees to help give them a boost as they really start growing.  Above is the very small blue tee on the par 3 6th.  This tee is way to small for the amount of play it takes, and struggles every year.  We did the same process on 3 blue, 7 blue, 11 white, and 16 blue.  There are a few others that we will have to patch with new sod next week.

Greens All Healed Up From Aerification

Greens aerification was completed last Tuesday and they are about 90% healed up after 10 days.  We topdressed with sand on Wednesday to fill in areas where sand had settled down into the holes.  After rolling them again Thursday and then mowing them today, they seem to be almost back to normal.  We are ready now to lower our height of cut just a little bit to get back to where we normally are.  My guess is in the next few days they will be rolling as good as pre-aerification.  

We will also be allowing carts back into the fairways on Saturday, April 10.  After a mild winter with no extended snow cover, our zoysia looks like it has come out pretty well.  I know it is frustrating to stay on the path for the winter, but we will now reap the rewards of the great fairways we are lucky to have at Swope.

Tree Trimming

The following pictures are a snapshot of some tree trimming we did earlier this winter to help with line of sight problems and shade issues around greens and tees.  In all, we completed trimming on holes 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, and 18.  The following pictures are from 6 tee box where we removed some tree limbs that were beginning to creep into the line of sight from the back tee box.

This is a zoomed in view from the blue tee.

Here is the view after we did some major work.

This is the 34 foot towable boom lift we rented for the week.

Tree Removal

We had to remove this dead elm tree behind 16 green.

This is a tree on number 1 that was clearly ready to be taken out.