Before we dive into our update, I want to take a moment and thank everybody that turned out for Les Delorme’s celebration of life April 20th. It was a wonderful event and a fitting way to remember Uncle Les. While he is no longer with us and will be missed, he will forever be a part of the Milestone Family.
Spring is officially here! Or so it seems (fingers crossed). We have a pretty warm week ahead with the all-important nighttime temps rising to mid 40’s tp 50 – which is good for the greens’ soil temp. Even better, the few wet spots on the course have dried down so cart restrictions have been lifted. Speaking of cart restrictions….let’s take a deeper dive into why we route traffic in certain ways.
Les Delorme - a rockstar even at a young age
Aside from staked off areas when they are saturated, we use two types of signage to limit traffic. #1 – NO CARTS and #2 NO CARTS PAST THIS POINT. The directives are pretty self explanatory. But why do we use them? Well, what most people don’t see is what happens early in the AM before golfers arrive….7 days a week. Five different types of mowers, spray rigs, top dressers loaded with sand, rollers and utility vehicles are all on the move. And most of the areas that we limit traffic (around the collars and greens) see heavy traffic from those pieces of equipment. That’s enough to make the turf cringe….can you imagine if carts were driving over those areas as well? I can tell you – there wouldn’t be any turf left. Yes, we do have a lot of hills and undulations on the course and walking can be challenging. But consider this….if you drive past a no cart sign to get behind a green so you can walk downhill to your ball, you will also be walking back uphill to get to your cart. So help us maintain course conditions and mind the signage!
Course Update
What’s new this week…..aside from our mowing program gearing up as the turf gets going, we were able to rebuild the bridge from #6-7 AND from #3-4. Both were way undersized (we couldn’t even move most mowers over them) and falling apart. Now we have a comfortable 9ft of solid decking.
A shiny new bridge from #6 to #7 tees
New passage from #3 to #4 tee
The small creek / drainage ditch running between #2-3 was in need of work. The lower section was choked out with years of organic material, limiting flow and backing up drainage. We spent a few hours dredging the area – and boy did the water start moving! As the material dries out, we will be smoothing the edge and seeding along the creek.
We also finished our work left of #9 tees. After dropping the first pine tree, we cleared the honeysuckles and debris, opening up the area for the growth of some gorgeous lilacs, lilies and irises. This is another step in our complete revamp of the tee complex. More info coming down the line.
The new tee box on #7 has also been completed. We hauled several loads of a combination of sand and compost to create our root-zone mix, did our final grading and seeded it in. Finally, we laid a cover over the top – and now we wait for germination. Weather dependent, we should see some shoots within the next 7-10 days.
And last but not least we began the process of building a proper pad and enclosure for certain tractor implements / pieces of equipment near the maintenance barn. A big thank you to a few of our partners The Solutions Construction and John Thomas Excavation for their help during the early stages of the process.
Next Up
With the new bridge on 7, we can begin hauling cart path material to the tee area which is in desperate need of renovation. We will also be seeding in the area along the cart path that we re-graded earlier this spring.
With soil temps on the move, we began our nutrition program on the greens yesterday. . We will talk more about that next week – what our program is, the products we use and how often we use them.
That’s all for now. Talk next week. Don’t forget to check out the upcoming tournaments, including the Rina Girardi Memorial (Saturday May 18th) on our events page. If you are interested in registering a team, stop in or call the clubhouse (518.499.0395).
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