Another one ...

Looks like a great stretch of weather coming! In preparation for that, we blew out all the green side bunkers on the West course yesterday. We also mulched the areas around the bunkers that had the most leaves. Today we are going to reset cups, check tee markers, and hopefully rake green side bunkers on the West if they aren't frozen.

We took a big tree down from between eight and nine East this week. Had obviously been dead for sometime and was in pretty bad shape. We completed the clean up other than the stump grinding.

Hopefully you can get out and enjoy the course over the next week!

Pond clean up!

We've had a pretty standard 10 days or so in the agro department. We are on our third mow of the high grass areas, which I'm really happy with. I was afraid we would have snow cover or terrible weather for weeks or a month and not much make progress. However we have had a good winter of working weather and we have accomplished a lot.

The last few days we knocked out the pond edge next to the tee on #1 West and behind the wedding area. This area is very visible and had gotten out of control. No longer! Still some work to do around the edge, as some of those small bushes and trees are frozen into the ice. But overall, a much cleaner, neater look.

One to two inches of rain today! Not great for the turf. When we thaw out after a few very cold days like we had early this week, things are sloppy. When we thaw out and get an inch or two of rain, things are very sloppy and easily damaged. 

Have a good weekend!

Pictures of the pond, before top, after bottom. Notice in the first picture, you can't even see most of the split rail fence "before". 

Five more!

Five more ... the number of additional touchdowns the Chiefs would have probably scored if their game against the Texans was a quarter longer. Fortunately for Bill O'Brien and all seven Texans fans, they only had to sit through the normal four quarters. Three of which did not go their way.

"Five more" is also the number of additional trees removed from the east side of the green on #18 West last week as we continue to tackle the shade issues there. This makes 13 trees total out of this area. The big oak tree that resided up against the cart path was removed. It had split almost all the way down the tree, probably from a lightning strike ( pictures below ). We tasked that out to the professionals at Princeton Tree Care. I'm glad it is on the ground. Since we had noticed the split that tree was making me nervous. Two more medium cedars and two smaller oaks were also removed. Those we did in-house. We did all the stump grinding in-house also.

I'm happy with what we have accomplished here. It will no doubt help that green complex. There are four more trees I'd like to do, but all four may be outside what I'm comfortable attempting in-house. There are professional tree care companies for a reason.

Refer back to our first post about this area if you haven't already ...

Some USGA articles about shade:

USGA: Casting Shade
USGA: Shade + Traffic = Dirt
USGA: Let There Be Light
USGA: Light The Way To Healthy Putting Greens

Picture of #18 area before ...

Screenshot of phone app showing sun position ... 

Picture after first set of trees were removed ... 

Picture after last weeks removals .. 

Big oak tree cracked ...

Beautiful!

What a beautiful morning!

We changed cups, blew off greens, and raked green side bunkers on both courses this morning. Enjoy it!

April in January!?!?

How about that forecast! It looks like another week to ten days of mild weather. This weekend is going to feel like April! Not bad for the 2nd weekend in January.

In preparation for what is hopefully a busy weekend we blew off fairways and tees yesterday, finishing them up today. We also blew out green side bunkers and mulched the leaves we blew out where we could. This morning we reset cups and blew off greens. We attempted to rake bunkers but they were still too frozen. Hopefully they thaw out and we can get green sides raked and cups changed in the morning.

I hope you can get out on the course this weekend! I may even tee it up!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Excited to see what 2020 brings us here at Royce Brook. Hope everyone playing in the Hangover Open today has a good time and we appreciate you playing at RB!