Winters Persistence

View from one fairway looking
back at the clubhouse

Welcome to the Willow Ridge Grounds Blog, and incidentally the inaugural post.  I just want to take a brief moment to put a face to the blogs author, Joshua Haugh.  For those of you that don't know me, I am the current assistant superintendent here at Willow Ridge and as of March I will be heading into my fourth season.  Prior to my time here I spent a couple seasons working at Whistling Straits in Sheboygan Wisconsin, which offered many invaluable opportunities and provided me with the chance to work the 2010 PGA Championship.  While Whistling was incredible, Willow Ridge has also provided me with some invaluable experience that will surely benefit me as I continue to progress in my career field.  That being said I am excited for the start of the 2014 golf season here at Willow, and look forward to another great year.

The catalyst behind the blogs conception was education, to help shed some light on the maintenance practices performed throughout the season to provide the membership with the best playing conditions.  This blog while directed toward the membership is not solely relegated to them, it will also help provide perspective to other employees not within the grounds department, or any other individual whose interest is piqued by golf course maintenance.  We stand to offer insight, reasoning, and visual representation of what we're doing and how it effects the golf course.  That being said if there is anything that piques your interest, don't hesitate to pose a question.

Switching gears now, as you're all aware this has been an uncharacteristic winter for the area with snowfall totals exceeding 50 inches and  the cold temperatures to keep it around .  Couple the heavy snow with thawing and freezing cycles and the occasional rain shower, and you have a winter with a number of challenges.  The weather has slowed a few projects (7 tee renovation, Tree removal) we were making headway on earlier in the winter, and made travel onto the course a dangerous and at times an impossible endeavor with hard packed snow mixed with sheets of ice.  However in lieu of the variable and cold weather the crew has been working diligently to refinish all of the accessories on the course, such as the tee markers, benches etc, so when the weather does break we can hit the ground running.  The crew has also spent some time customizing storage units helping to make our operation more efficient.  We have also gone through each individual piece of equipment to insure reliability, this includes but is not limited to reel and bedknife sharpening, general maintenance, and many other aspects of equipment maintenance.  Also, prior to the icy conditions we dedicated some time to pruning trees, and raising the base of many trees to help with playability as well as offer greater clearance for our equipment.  So while stymied by this cold snowy winter, the guys have really done a great job getting other facets of our operation prepared for the upcoming season. In parting envision those warmer sunny spring days, and eventually they will come to fruition and yield another great season for golf.                                

Crew taking advantage of warmer
conditions to prepare the benches
for the onset of the golf season.