s052017

Reports
TURF
TALK
RICHARD HART / GREENS COMMITTEE MEMBER
Q&A with Blair
The 2017 season has arrived! On behalf
of the greens committee, I would like to
welcome everyone back for what is
shaping up to be another fantastic year
at our club. For the next few months, we
will be giving Blair a bit of a break from
his writing career here in Sideline 30 so
he can focus on his day job, preparing
and maintaining one of the most
beautiful properties in southern
Ontario.
The opening of the golf course is a
huge undertaking for our greens
department. The winter clean-up and
preparation of our 160-acre property is
a daunting task, which takes countless
man hours to complete. Along with the
annual course preparation, we have a
few in-house projects which will also
need to be scheduled over the coming
weeks. We have the new cart parking on
the driveway, the new garden by the
flag poles, and of course the stone
foundation from the original farm
house just to name a few.
We are all eager to have all projects
completed but we need to have
patience. The club has chosen to do
many of these projects "in house". This
will save money but in many cases will
mean the work will take a little longer
to complete. The plan is to first have our
golf course ready for daily play before
the focus will shift to projects.
After the opening weekend, I had a
chance to sit down with Blair to get his
thoughts on the condition of the
property, some of the maintenance
planning, and how he feels things are
shaping up for the 2017 season.
Q: "As many of us are aware, the
spring aerification was scheduled preopening
this year. How do you feel it
went? Any unforeseen problems?"
Blair: "Moving the aerification earlier in
the spring, I was concerned about poor
weather and a lack of labour. Luckily,
this spring the weather cooperated
nicely with soil temperatures higher
than normal, which helped with the
recovery. We actually started aerifying
one week earlier than when we
scheduled it on the calendar because
the weather was so good. We had
enough labour to get through the full
process as we were not mowing any
turf because nothing was growing yet.
With the course being closed, we didn't
have to concern ourselves with a
myriad of other jobs the way we do
when we punch in May. It worked out
better than I had thought it would. I
have to give full credit to Alex as it was
his 'what if' that suggested we try
moving it to this early time frame."
Q: "We read last month about your
concerns with focusing resources on
the aerification instead of spring
cleanup. Did this become a problem or
was your team able to work through
most of your pre-opening tasks?"
Blair: "Having staff focusing on
aerification meant we fell behind in all
other areas of course preparation
compared to where we normally are at
that time of the year. Frequent rain
events put us further behind. There
were many days this spring where we
got staff in, set up and working, only to
have to tell them to stay at home for a
day or more. It was so wet we couldn't
even let staff walk the course without
causing damage at times. I felt very
frustrated this spring because of the
wet conditions and lack of progress
preparing the property for opening day.
Having said that, I think I'm the only one
who had a concern with all the
incomplete tasks we had during the
first three weeks. Everyone I talked to
did not seem concerned with all the
work we still had to attend to such as
raking up sticks and pine cones or
unrepaired bunkers. I have to say a big
thank you to all member's for their
patience as we plugged away knocking
jobs off the list after we opened."
Q: Blair, as members we would all like
to help out in any way we can to keep
our golf course in the best condition
possible. If you had to pick two things
members could do to help with the
conditioning of the golf course, what
would they be?"
Blair: "Wow, only two, huh? I guess I
could actually sum it up with one
request, that every member treat the
club like you are still in your
'honeymoon phase'. What I mean by
that is we all put forward our best early
on in any relationship. I have always
7 / WHITEVALEGOLFCLUB.COM / MAY 2017