April Showers

The weather is pretty typical for the middle of April. The early part of this week we had about 2.5 inches of rain. No need to say anything about what that did to the course. Eric is day-to-day on carts. Thursday is possible so check with the pro shop.

Speaking of the pro shop - lots of new items. Check them out. And, remember Bill is very competitive when it comes to price on equipment. Let's make sure we support him. Also, he has a new shop assistant - Liz, a student at BGSU.

The Green Comm. meet on Wednesday and as always discussed a number of issues. The most important from our perspective was 2009 aerification program. Eric is going to modify the early season program and not do a deep coring and top dressing. Instead he will do a mini core, with sand, followed up with a deeper verticut. A couple reasons for the change. First, the soil temp. is below normal for this time of year and a deep coring would take too long to heal. He doesn't want to disrupt play any more than he has to. Second, the efforts of the past 2 years have shown real progress. The deep core will be done in the fall ( maybe twice). Third, plain and simple - budget issues, sand is expensive and we use a lot of it. Other items of interest included expanding the natural grass program, more use of the alternate tee on 8, and OB stakes on 5 and 6. The Comm. is also working on Founders Tourn. ideas. It expects to recommend several small but necessary projects around the course. If you have something in mind pass it along. But please no more asphalt!

Eric is doing a great job with limited resources and is committed to maintaining our course condition. We need to do everything we can to help him. Remember to fill your divots, fix your pitch marks and remind others who don't. We very fortunate to have such a well maintained course. Let's keep it that way.