Opening Day April 1st, 2011

April 1st, 2011 was our Opening Day of the 2011 golf season. The weather was the best day we have had all spring. The temperature was nearly 70 degrees with clear blue sky. It was a very good day to show off the golf course to everyone. The prior day we had a member preview during which nearly 25 members enjoyed the golf course prior to opening to everyone. The members could look at the renovation work that we have been working on, on holes #2, #7, #9 and #11. The comments were very favorable to the slight changes that we have been making. To reassure everyone, David McLay Kidd has been involved in every change from start to finish. We appreciate having David so available to Tetherow in order to continue improving the golf course. Even though we have experienced some of the worst weather this winter and early spring that I can remember the first days of golf were the best. All it takes is a little bit of sunshine and warmer days to get the golf course looking pretty good. I can finally see the turfgrass starting to wake up from the long winter and beginning to look like Tetherow once again.

Course Conditions

The golf course is actually in great shape despite the brutal wet weather. The putting surfaces are very close to conditions like we experience during the peak of the season. They are getting greener and growing day by day. The tees and fairways are also beginning to awaken. Like I have explained in the past, the heavy topdressing during the winter provides the elements for an early green up of the golf course. There are some pictures later in this post concerning the topdressing. We are actually not to far off from peak season conditions. We have the month of April to get course conditions to a premium. The first week of May is the Tetherow 4-Ball where many of the best golf professionals in the Northwest arrive at Tetherow for three days of match play. The Tetherow 4-Ball was a great success last year and I presume that this year will not be any different. As we continue to work on golf course conditions, we still have a few unfinished projects to complete this month.

Composting

We have continued our composting efforts this year. The purchase of a chipper/shredder will help our efforts to produce the essential elements for compost. Compost is generally a mixture of "green" and "brown" waste. The "green" is our grass clippings and other similar bi-products and the "brown" is the bi-product of chipping woody materials. Show above is a pile of tree limbs that have been chipped directly into our composting pile ready for a thorough mixing. I have to thank Scott Moffenbeier from Broken Top Club for the tree limbs. Since we do not have many trees at Tetherow, I asked if Scott wanted to bring his limbs over for our composting. He does not have to pay for removal of the limbs and we get our "brown" waste. A win win for the both of us.

#9 Renovation

The #9 green renovation is coming along nicely. This past week we completed the profile and David McLay Kidd came and approved our work. Now we can start sodding. The pictures can tell the rest of the story.

Chris van der Velde and others looking over our work

Spreading out the sand layer

Installing the sand layer

Topdressing and Spring Green Up

#9 Look how green the turfgrass is due to the sand topdressing generating heat. We have only fertilized the greens to date. This greening is what I like to call "artificial heating".

#4 For comparison, the fairway has not been topdressed yet. We have had to postpone any topdressing efforts due to the amount of rain and snow that we have received. With all the moisture, the fairways are very soft and we needed to postpone the topdressing to prevent creating ruts in the fairways. Not very green when compared to #9.

#15 The tees were topdressed and the fairway was not. You get the picture.

So now that the golf course is open and members and guests are enjoying the course, we need to switch our efforts from construction back to maintenance. We still have a few construction projects to finish but with the added staff we will be able to do both construction and maintenance. We look forward to the golfing season and hope to see you out on the golf course.