So lets talk about the rain. I spent a bit of time digging through the weather office's records for comparisons between years past, and looked at that information against the yearly average. As I looked at the data over the last three years, the term that came to mind to describe what I found was... volatile.
This year's numbers are a good example. Total precipitation for April, May and June on average is 118, 109 and 98.3. This years numbers tell a different story. April 2013 saw 67 mms of precipitation, just over half the normal amount. May was 99.8, less that the average but not far off. June swam into the record books with a whopping 180 mms of rain, double the norms for the region.
Obviously that makes June a wet month, but if you take the total rain for the last three months and compare that to the total of the norms for the same three months, there's only about 20mms difference over that time period. So why does this year seem so wet? I think the answer lies in mainly how that rain has been dispersed over the time frame. During the last three months we've had only one big storm which dropped sixty mms in one day, difficult to recover from at any time. Other than that it's the constant precipitation and cloud cover that prevent the course from drying up. At this point the soil is completely saturated, and with out the sunshine to evaporate the moisture, 5mm can seem like 30.
The past five days have been hard, with rain fall amounts totaling at least 80mms. As professionals bent on providing the best product we can for members, this summer has been very frustrating. Unfinished projects, grass clipping up the wazoo and a perpetual case of trench foot are beginning to have an effect on moral, but we continue to be optimistic about the rest of the summer. The next couple of days look to be sunny and hopefully we can stretch that out into at least a week of sunshine.
Baby steps... right?
As a side note, our irrigation numbers are way down. Our current use for this year is just over 200k US gallons, last year we had already used 1.9 million US gallons. At least were saving money in power consumption.
I would like to mention that as bad as the weather seems here, it could always be worse. The recent flooding in Alberta has demonstrated that point all to well. There are several golf courses in the affected area that have been shut down for the year. For the year. (Click here to read about Kananaskis Golf Club). I realize that the golf industry is probably the last thing on people's minds during such a crisis, but my heart goes out anyone who loses their job from such devastation. Especially people who spend long hard days creating and maintaining such landscapes, only to have it torn away so quickly.
Our progress on 8tee is haltingly moving forward. Here are parts 7 and 8 of Anatomy of a Tee.
Due to the last few days of rain the we haven been able to mow much of the course. One of the jobs we can do is continue our work on the bunkers. Our High School Student have started for the summer and after preforming their morning jobs (mowing greens, tees or raking sand traps) you will see them around the course edging the sand traps. We begin with the green side traps and once completed, we then move onto the fairway traps. We start on 18 and work backward through the course, as to not disturb more than one group during the process. All of our students are new this year (there were six, but one quit already), and are being trained at a rather large learning curve. Below are the students tacking the massive trap on 18.
Just a reminder about the use of bug spray on the course. When applying it please do so on non- playing surfaces. The spray is very harmful to turf. Below is a picture of the damage on the turf where someone has sprayed their legs. Because their feet block the spray, we are left with a negative imprint which hangs around for weeks.
See you out there.
This year's numbers are a good example. Total precipitation for April, May and June on average is 118, 109 and 98.3. This years numbers tell a different story. April 2013 saw 67 mms of precipitation, just over half the normal amount. May was 99.8, less that the average but not far off. June swam into the record books with a whopping 180 mms of rain, double the norms for the region.
Obviously that makes June a wet month, but if you take the total rain for the last three months and compare that to the total of the norms for the same three months, there's only about 20mms difference over that time period. So why does this year seem so wet? I think the answer lies in mainly how that rain has been dispersed over the time frame. During the last three months we've had only one big storm which dropped sixty mms in one day, difficult to recover from at any time. Other than that it's the constant precipitation and cloud cover that prevent the course from drying up. At this point the soil is completely saturated, and with out the sunshine to evaporate the moisture, 5mm can seem like 30.
The past five days have been hard, with rain fall amounts totaling at least 80mms. As professionals bent on providing the best product we can for members, this summer has been very frustrating. Unfinished projects, grass clipping up the wazoo and a perpetual case of trench foot are beginning to have an effect on moral, but we continue to be optimistic about the rest of the summer. The next couple of days look to be sunny and hopefully we can stretch that out into at least a week of sunshine.
Baby steps... right?
As a side note, our irrigation numbers are way down. Our current use for this year is just over 200k US gallons, last year we had already used 1.9 million US gallons. At least were saving money in power consumption.
I would like to mention that as bad as the weather seems here, it could always be worse. The recent flooding in Alberta has demonstrated that point all to well. There are several golf courses in the affected area that have been shut down for the year. For the year. (Click here to read about Kananaskis Golf Club). I realize that the golf industry is probably the last thing on people's minds during such a crisis, but my heart goes out anyone who loses their job from such devastation. Especially people who spend long hard days creating and maintaining such landscapes, only to have it torn away so quickly.
Our progress on 8tee is haltingly moving forward. Here are parts 7 and 8 of Anatomy of a Tee.
Click Here to see Part 7
Click Here to see Part 8
As we fight our way through the wet weather I would remind our cart users to please obey the cart rules for the day. The next series of pictures are all examples of cart tracks where they should not be. All of these were taken after a day where carts were restricted to the cart paths.
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| Number 7 to the left of the big willow tree. |
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| Number 12 just 20 yards from the tee. |
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| Perhaps a little too close to the edge of the cartpath. |
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| Complete disregard for the rules. |
Just a reminder about the use of bug spray on the course. When applying it please do so on non- playing surfaces. The spray is very harmful to turf. Below is a picture of the damage on the turf where someone has sprayed their legs. Because their feet block the spray, we are left with a negative imprint which hangs around for weeks.
See you out there.
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