Remnants Of Yet Another Hurricane With Member Guest A Few Days Away

Devastation was brought upon many with the two recent hurricanes and while the damage to our community and GCC's two courses was measurable it was nothing compared to those in the landing zones of each of these gigantic storms.  Just to keep things in proper perspective our minor flooding and tree damage pales in comparison to the  extensive property damage and the great many lives lost in these two storms and my heart goes out to everyone affected is these hardest of hit areas.

Mexico beach, Fl.

While we made it through the downgraded tropical depression associated with Hurricane Florence with nothing more than some significant flooding and a lot of tree debris the damage from the tropical depression associated with Hurricane Michael was not so kind.  The Irving Park course lost only one major tree on hole #14 but the Farm course witnessed a dozen trees uprooting from the high winds and saturated soils.  The bunkers on each course washed with the Irving Park bunkers suffering extensive washouts and all the sand contamination that comes with severe washing.  Debris on the two courses is extensive and will take several days, if not weeks, to get a hold on, especially at the Farm with the numerous large fallen trees.

As this storm hit on a Thursday, October 11 it did not give the staff a lot of time to make repairs before last weekend.  Now our Men's Member-Guest is just a day way and while we expect good conditions for this event a lot of our manpower that would have normally gone into tournament conditioning efforts has been reallocated towards storm cleanup.  The good news is this event is held during a time of the year where the cooler temperatures have slowed down the growth rate of the grass, so that frees up a lot of manpower to focus on things such as storm cleanup and course conditioning

The months of September and October have been as hot and wet as any I can remember.  The hot, moist and cloudy conditions have affected turf growth on each property but the Irving Park greens suffered the most.  The fall months are generally a time of recovery for cool season grasses but this year not so much.  While the Irving Park greens are in fair shape they are nowhere near where we would like for them to be for this time of the year.  We expect with a few weeks of cooler temperatures we will begin to finally see new root growth and surface healing of the plants.  This should result in a gradual firming of the surface and provide us the opportunity to once again producing green speeds more suitable for this time of the year.

Best wishes to all the teams who are entered into this year's Gentleman's Member-Guest and let's all hope the weather is a little more cooperative over these next few days.  2018 has been a crazy and very long year and your golf course maintenance team appreciates your patience and understanding as we have done our best to work through some very challenging situations brought unto us by the effects of good ole Mother Nature.