FARM GREENS SPRING FLUSH EARLIER THAN NORMAL It's only early March and due to the recent moderate weather we have been experiencing, the Ultradrawf greens on the Farm course are now coming out of dormancy.  This is 2-3 weeks earlier than we see in a normal year.  In the images below you will see on the first one taken late last week where some new growth is showing up where the leaves are light green.  The darker green grass is the older leaves with green pigment.  One week later you can see where the new growth is nearly 100%.  The bottom picture is a green aft ..read more

January 18, 2024 Course Update To date the winter of 2024 could be defined as wetter than normal with near normal temperatures.  With that said, this week we are experiencing our first real bought of cold artic air with temperatures forecasted to be below 15 degrees for several nights this week.   Farm Ultradwarf Covers Thus far we have only covered two times, but the cold air this week had us working overtime on Sunday and Monday to not only pull covers, but we decided to add some extra protection by adding a layer of pine straw beneath the covers.  Based on the current fo ..read more

 WARM SEASON GRASS - SPRING TRANSITION UPDATE Now that soil temperatures are starting to warm it is becoming apparent the short burst of cold air in late December has done some damage to certain areas of the two courses.  The Irving Park course has suffered the most damage, but the Farm course is not immune. As is the case with most years where we have experienced a measurable amount of winterkill or winter damage the areas affected are in the less-than-optimal growing areas.  These areas include wet areas, dry ridges on tops of mounds, dried out bunker surrounds, and the usual ..read more

 Irving Park Aerification - February 27-28 Our first aerification of the year is almost here on our Bentgrass greens on the Irving Park course.  This is a crucial procedure that serves to provide ideal growing conditions for the plant throughout the spring growing season.  Our aerification program consists of three timely spaced-out procedures that are carefully designed to remove excess organic matter and compaction for the overall long-term health of the greens.  The late winter aerification is the slowest of the three to recover due to cool soil temperatures and a corres ..read more

 Leaves, Leaves and More Leaves As is the case every year, the course has more than its fair share of leaves waiting for removal.  With 2.76 inches of rain falling over the last two weeks it has proven nearly impossible to get the equipment off the path in order to clear and/or remove the leaves.  The Irving Park course always proves more difficult to deal with each season because unlike the Farm there are no places to blow the leaves too, not that the Farm course staff doesn't do more than their fair share of vacuuming up leaves. Instead, at Irving Park every leaf that falls ha ..read more

 After months of delays, the construction crew from Medalist Golf finally arrived on site this past week to begin the process of putting the Irving Park practice area back together.  While the shaper has been here several weeks the 4 man crew responsible for constructing the features, installing new drainage and irrigation and finally re-grassing the area arrived last week and have been making steady progress. SOME NOTABLE CHANGES The club did retain the services of Golf Course Architect Keith Foster to aid us with the new design of the entire area.  A committee that consisted o ..read more

 Ski Lake Spillway Renovation The spillway pipe structure on Ski Lake (#1 Pond Farm Course) has been successfully replaced.  The original Galvanized pipe had deteriorated to the point if could no longer be trusted on what is the club's only high hazard dam.  The project has been in the works for several years with the permitting process taking well over a year for the approval of our engineered plans.  The pond had to be dropped over 10 feet to conduct the new construction work.  Once the work began it went very smoothly and finished on time despite a few heavy rains s ..read more

 Leaves and More Leaves You can't discuss fall golf without mentioning leaves.  Despite the mild weather thus far this season the leaves have finally began falling and keeping up with them is no small task for the guys on the crew.  We will dedicate 80-90% of our manpower over the next 8-10 weeks trying our best to keep the course as clean as possible.  There of course will be days where we lose the battle, but whenever we fall behind just know we will work extra hard to catch up all in an effort to make everyone's golf experience as enjoyable as possible.   Fro ..read more

Next Monday-Tuesday (8/23-8/24) we will undertake our final greens aerification on the Irving Park course.   Aerification is an important cultural practice. Through aerification we; 1) extract excessive accumulation of organic material; 2) improve soil gas exchange; 3) stimulate new root development; 4) stimulate microbial activity; and 5) improve the plants ability to withstand biotic and abiotic stresses. Having said that, there are still plenty of golfer skeptics! Aerification is one of the most despised cultural practices when it comes to the golfer as it disrupts ..read more

Farm Course Closed for Aerification Week of July 12-16  Irving Park Course Closed July 19 - 21 for Fairway Verticutting As with any large scale aerification procedure our objective next week will be to remove and manage excess organic matter. Organic matter is a combination of living and dead plant material found in soil – e.g., roots and stems. While some organic matter is good, especially living organic matter, high levels of dead organic matter can cause problems. The water-holding capacity of organic matter in most mature turf is almost five times more than the water-holding capacity ..read more