16 Hours Till Opening

Wooosh!

Whooosh - the sound of the fastest tarp removal crew in the world?  I think our crew is great, but the fastest in the world is a big moniker.   Wooosh is actually the sound made by the tarp when a giant wind gust blew in while removing the tarp form #11 green.

The following two video clips are time lapse photos taken every five seconds and strung together to make two quick video clips.   They were taken on our practice green yesterday and the 11^th green today.

If you watch the video clips closely, you can see us remove the nails securing the tarp.  We then flip the tarp to clean off any remaining sand or debris.  We fold the tarp, roll it up, and then do the same to all the bubble wrap under the tarp.  The sensors and air ducting are then removed.  We sweep the green for debris and nails.  Then we follow the tarp removal with a mow.

When we got to the 11^th green the wind was gusting and the crew was questioning if we should remove the tarp.   I decided we could handle the challenge.  As we started to flip the tarp to clean it, you can see it took off on us.  Luckily the crew reacted quickly and we held it down.  The next time we are debating the removal of the tarp in the wind, I am going to listen to the crew!

Will try to learn how to make vidoe clips bigger.

A Different Twist on KP

We came up with a twist on the standard closest to the hole competition.  The crew was excited and happy with the results on the turf after we removed the tarp from #13 green - a notoriously troublesome green.  Green was in such good shape, we gave it a mow at a very high height of cut (H.O.C.) - .25”.  We did not want to remove too much leaf blade at one time. 

In the video the green looks a little off color near the cup.  It is a little distorted from the camera phone and the area is not growing as fast as it was the last portion of the green to clear of snow and is very shaded.

One final note – Andrew, intern from Olds College, did end up winning the competition.  In celebration he made a bold move at the end of the video by stuffing a snowball down the Assistant Superintendents jacket.  We have been joking with Andrew that it could be a long summer for him!

Good to be out on the turf.