I would like to welcome everybody to the upcoming 2015 golfing season. It has been a long winter and is still holding on. The course has come through the winter in very good condition with the greens and tees having no disease present in them after this long winter. We completed our spring renovation for the course on the 18th of April in preparation for the upcoming season.  Due to the ongoing cold period, growth has been slow but this will increase as the temperatures warm up.

Our goal in the maintenance department is to not just maintain the golf course, but to continually improve the course and the course condition each year. Even though last year was a long hard year we have done many improvements and adopted and developed new procedures that will make the golf course in the best condition this year that it has been since the course opened. The following are some of the things we have done and are implementing to insure these improvements.

– Throughout last year we established service roads around the property and throughout the golf course. With the majority of the wear on the golf course coming from maintenance and service vehicles, this will reduce the wear from this equipment by as much as 75%.

– We re-established our greens nursery so we have a supply of greens quality turf available if any repairs are required.

– We have built a fairway turf nursery to the right hand side of whole #15 to give us a supply of Kentucky turf to carry out repairs as needed.

– We have developed new procedures for maintaining the bunkers to ensure that they are in good condition all year round.

– We have implemented a new herbicide program for control of weeds in the rough to keep them weed free.

– This year we will be implementing some new mowing techniques to improve the quality of the playing surfaces on the greens, tees and fairways.

– The driving range tee has been extended to give more turf area to practice from.

– A new tee was added to hole №4. This tee will not affect the majority of you. It was mainly introduced for the low handicap and professional golfers to make the hole more challenging.

– On hole №17 we went ahead and removed the undergrowth in the bushes on the right hand side of the fairway and just left the trees to improve the fairness of play.

– On the left hand side of green №5, right hand side of green #15 and right hand side of the creek opposite the green on hole №7 we are lowering these areas to fairway height to improve the fairness of play on these holes.

We have and are doing further improvements and will continue to do so to continually improve the course and your golfing experience.

We ask you to help us as well in your own small way by carrying out your own course management in regards to the following.

PLEASE:

• Repair your pitch marks.
• Repair your divots
• Rake bunkers after use.
• Don’t drive golf carts in the fescue rough
• Keep golf carts at least 30m from the greens. The cart path exit points before each green are a good indication of how close you should go to the green with your cart.

Keep in mind the above items are more for your benefit than ours.

In finishing I would just like to wish every golfer an enjoyable season and good golfing. This year I will hold a questions and answers forum on Facebook. If you have any questions, suggestions or clarifications about the golf course I will be only too happy to answer you.

Yours truly
Andrew Glen
Golf Course Superintendent
Superior Golf Club