Kevin Moores, Ice, Shelter and Number 13 Tree.

Happy New Year!

As my first post as official Superintendent of the golf course I am happy to say that we have a replacement to fill my former position as Assistant Superintendent. Kevin Moores, formally of Ashburn Golf Club, has joined the maintenance department.  With his experience and good nature, I am sure that Kevin will be a welcome asset to an already strong team.  What follows is a bio that I have asked Kevin to write as a form of introduction.  

Hello to the members and staff of Oakfield Golf and Country Club!

My name is Kevin Moores. I am originally from Cole Harbour and have called HRM home for the great majority of my life. My career in turf began innocently enough as a high school student looking to earn some hard earned money over the summers. I first started working at Glen Arbour in the summer of 2003 filling divots and line trimming most days. After spending a couple of years paying my dues, I got to take part in some of the more advanced tasks on the golf course. Then I was part of the staff that put on the 2005 LPGA Canadian Woman’s Open and got my first taste of tournament experience. I would continue working at Glen Arbour in years to follow and decided that I wanted to make a career out of turf management.

I moved to Ontario in 2010 to attend the University of Guelph, enrolled in the Turfgrass Management program.  Here, I was able to learn from some of the best turf scientists in country to gain a solid foundation of knowledge as well as touring golf courses and meeting superintendents to broaden my knowledge of day to day operations at some of the outstanding golf courses in Southern Ontario.

My required internship took me to the United States to work at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. This once in a lifetime opportunity gave me a chance to work a PGA Tour event, the 2011 Wells Fargo Championship. Also included in my internship was getting to work full time at a top of the line private golf course, getting to volunteer at the 2011 AT&T Championship in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and working once a week for the NFL at the Carolina Panthers’ Stadium. Needless to say, I am extremely happy to this day that I took advantage of that summer.

After graduating from the University of Guelph I stayed in Southern Ontario and took a job at Weston Golf and Country Club. I had met the management team during my time at Guelph and decided that spending the 2012 season at Weston would be an excellent chance to further educate myself in the field at a top 50 Canadian golf course with a Superintendent and an Assistant that took great lengths to help me achieve my goals.

I made the difficult choice to move back home to Halifax at the end of 2012. The draw of staying in Ontario had become outweighed by my desire to return to my family and friends and attempt to earn a living here in Nova Scotia. I was hired as the Second Assistant Superintendent at Ashburn early in 2013. I would spend the next two years getting my first taste of a management position and thanks in part to that, was in position to apply for the position I currently have at Oakfield!

Away from the golf course, my girlfriend Olivia and I live in Dartmouth. I am a huge sports fan (Golf, Basketball, and Football especially) a big fan of fitness (the workday isn’t over until I have left the gym) and a lover of all types of music (with a massive bias towards hard rock). I look forward to what 2015 has in store and whether I am driving on the cart paths, or getting my hands dirty with the latest irrigation repair or fertilizer application, feel free to say hello and we will make this year a positive experience for everyone at Oakfield Golf and Country Club!

Kevin Moores
Assistant Superintendent

Kevin will be helping to contribute to this blog and we look forward to having him on our team.

I hope all is well with our membership both here and for those who have opted to winter in warmer climates.  The weather here has been as typical as East Coast weather can be, generally unpredictable and volatile.  Today the weather is overcast and about five degrees above zero, and tonight the expected temperature will be minus 20.  This had pretty much been the pattern for the the last few weeks, periods above zero followed by periods of frigid cold snaps.  These warmer periods gratefully provide relief from the sting of winter but play havoc with the turf.  The constant freeze/ thaw can cause several difficulties in managing turf.  The flux in temperatures can disrupt the natural dormancy of plants, cause desiccation from ice build up around the plant, and in some cases, create large ice deposits which defeat natural drainage and suffocate plants.  While there are many factors involved, in general terms, a small amount of ice coverage over a period of less then 30 days does little damage.  Just after New Years we experience a large snow that turned to rain fall and then froze in sub zero temperatures over night.  This ice has been with us since that point.  

This is the surface of ten green. The ice is about an inch and half thick. 

To mitigated the potential for damage to the turf and encourage the ice to break up Kevin spread some organic fertilizer that is made of large black prills on the greens with out tarps.  The greens with tarps are some what protected by the green fleck woven into the tarp, which acts as a heat sink and draws warms from the sun.

 The black prills will sink into the ice and when the sun shines (and it will), the prills heat up and create pockets in the ice.  This is a passive way of breaking the cycle, if the ice continues with out break, we may have to consider stronger methods.  

During the time between the course closing and Christmas we have some opportunities to get out on the course and get some work done.  The ladies will be happy to know that the shelter they have requested at nine tee is well on its way to being completed. 

Bill and I put the rest of the wall together before snow fall.

The brick wall above is mostly made up of stone remnants from the other stone walls built on the course, with some purchasing to fill in the gaps and cap the wall.  The wall will eventually be surrounded by a mounding on the backside.  At the top of the wall a garden will be installed and a mesh fence to protect ladies from errant balls overshot at eight green.  

And finally, as recommended by a local tree expert and approved by the greens committee, the remainder of the large Maple tree has been remove from thirteen.   The demise of the tree stemmed from what is called co-dominate leaders, or two trunks that evolve directly beside each other.  In the picture below you can see how the trunks are intertwined.

Where the trunks touch causes a weakness in the tree, as a pocket is created where organic matter and water can sit.  This is compounded by the wind moving the trees individually and creating friction. Eventually the center of both trees can rot and the internal strength is weakened.  The first part (the right hand side in the picture) of the tree collapsed during a storm in mid season this year. 

Unfortunately, this tree was a dominate feature on number thirteen, so much so that I felt that it would make a great picture for our collection both in the club house and on our score cards.  And while I realize the beauty and time it takes for a tree to achieve such presence and mass, the reality of the danger became more evident when the base of the tree was exposed. 

It would have to be removed. Below is a cross section of the trunk about twenty feet from the ground.  As you can see the rot was extensive.

Even the upper limbs of the tree were showing signs of rot as the seen in the picture below.

Prior to the the bridge work being done on 13 we removed the remainder of  tree and had the contractors working on the bridge remove the stump.  Leaving the stump would create problems in the future with settling and interfere with growth of a replacement tree.

In the spring we will fill in the hole and cleanup the turf. Our goal is to have this competed before we open for the season, weather permitting.  We are also sourcing a new tree for the same area, preferabley a large Oak.

See you at the AGM!