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ENJOYING THE FALL COLORS AND PREPARING THE PROPERTY FOR WINTER

JEFF HOLMES, CGCS GOLF COURSE MANAGER

The fall colors this season are the best we’ve seen in the past several years. What a beautiful property that everyone gets to enjoy! We have witnessed it before, but people who are not members actually pull into the front entrance and take pictures of the beautiful colors on Ridge No. 7 (those are maple trees that line the left side of the hole and are beautiful every year).

The grounds staff have been busy trying to finish up aerifying tees and fairways on both courses. It will be a continuous process, probably until the snow flies. As you all know, it becomes difficult to golf at Egypt Valley once the leaves start dropping. Our team will be working hard to try and keep up on the leaf clean up, but it’s pretty much impossible for a short time period when they are dropping continuously. As play continues to slow down, we may only have one course open each day so we can concentrate our efforts on one course and make it more playable for everyone.

Tee markers will be removed near the end of the month, so when you play, please move the wear around by teeing off from different areas. Don't always line up at the GAM markers; you can go forward and move back behind them, mix up the yardage. Ball mark repair and divot repair always become more relaxed in the fall, but it should not. The recovery time due to the cold weather is slow, so if repaired, the ball marks and divots can heal up before we hit spring golf again. What players do to the course in late fall can show in the spring, if not cared for properly, which is no different than our team trying to complete many processes in the fall to prepare for a successful spring start up.

We are trying to get some more of the cart path edges finished up before the snow stops us. We have quite a bit of path removal area to work on for No. 12 Ridge, a little bit left on No. 13 Ridge and then all of No. 16 Ridge. There is also some repair to finish on the Valley course, but the scope of the repair is smaller. Needless to say, we will be working on finishing the cart path work in the spring, as there’s too much to complete this fall with all the other work we have going on. Drier weather is also a huge plus for being more efficient and causing less damage to the course. When golfing, please cross the seeded areas at a perpendicular traffic pass. Do not drive down the seeded straw areas!

Our team is going to start spraying the tees and fairways the first and second week of November. This treatment is to prevent winter fungus—snow mold— from growing on the play areas. There are three different varieties of snow mold that can attack the turf, if not treated. Greens will be treated a little later in the month. Once we treat, we don’t mow the treated areas again until next spring. We will also be in the process of applying our final fertilizer for the season on greens, tees, fairways and the mowed rough.

The irrigation system will be winterized starting November 10 and 11. If the weather is favorable for golf, just be aware that if you are playing and the sprinkler heads are running, they are going to proceed down the fairway in order toward the green complex. The air compressor to be used was secured back in August for this process, so there is no changing the dates for winterizing the property.

Continue to enjoy this great fall and let's get some more golf in yet this season!