CLOSED for the 2009 season

The Golf Course is closed for the 2009 season. Faced with the very dry conditions, the turfgrass plants will weaken as the dryness continues. Heading into the winter with stress can damage the plant for the spring and start of the 2010 season. Thanks for a great year, see you in May.

And the winner is...

This year's edition of the Coal Bucket was a big success! The weather was great and twenty players turned out for the 41-year old tournament on Saturday.

Glenn Samuelson, fellow Golf Course Superintendent, is the latest name on the coal bucket. Glenn is the gross winner firing a 33 on the 8 hole course. Bob Essin was the net winner with a 34-27.
Pictured below (left to right) is the 2008 Champion Todd Hatami, Glenn Samuelson and Bob Essin.

Thanks to everyone for a memorable 2009 golf season.

Another Beautiful Day

A great day for being outside and playing in the Coal Bucket. Get to the golf course by noon to enter into the tournament. It's that easy. Enjoy the last few days of warmth in the valley. What else are you going to do today? Tivo or DVR the Breeders Cup or your college football game and watch them later.
Plus there are beverages and appetizers in the clubhouse following the tournament. Have a great end of the season.

Snowmold Trials

Dr. Ned Tisserat and Tamla Blunt from the Plant Diagnostic Clinic at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins continue their research with snowmold on golf courses. Vail Golf Club is one of the courses used for their research due to our high disease pressure. This widespread wintertime disease due to the duration of snow cover in the north can severely damage turfgrass if not treated correctly.

Vail Golf Club has a long standing relationship with the University and for numerous years has committed turfgrass plots on the 14th fairway for research. This year, for the first time, Dr. Tisserat and Ms. Blunt are using the 3 year old nursery green located on the 14 th hole. They will continue to use fairway turf on the 14th hole to continue with their years of research.

There are many different formulas and treatments applied within the given areas. Various chemical companies donate their products to be used for these trials. Vail Golf Club benefits from the information gathered each year to determine the best approach to combat snowmold.

Putting Your Mind To It

I knew I would figure it out sooner or later. I guess shorter days, frost and laying off the seasonal staff gives me the time to really expand on the blog. As you may have noticed I posted the irrigation as-builts of the first hole for you to view.
This is the new system on paper. You can click on it for a closer look.
Let me explain what you are viewing in a nutshell.
The "red line" signifies the mainline and the red symbols mark each lateral valve. The black lines identify the 2" lateral lines from the mainline. The full or part circles mark each sprinkler head. The part circles are adjustable heads located on the perimeter of the property or around the putting surfaces.
Each station or sprinkler head has two sets of numbers associated with them. The first set of numbers represents the decoder "address" (ex. 38522) for that station. For example, a 6 station decoder can operate up to 6 different irrigation heads. There is a five digit address for each station and that is how the central computer communicates with the sprinkler head.
The second set of numbers at each head represents that sprinkler head's "name". For example 1F-20 (1st hole fairway, station #20) which represents that valve-in head in the Rainbird computer programing. This is Rainbird's way of simplifying the process for irrigation managers to locate and name each station, instead of remembering a 5 digit number. There are 7 categories for naming irrigation heads. The seven categories for our system are greens, tees, fairways, approaches, greens surrounds, rough and miscellaneous.
By this time next year, Justin, Tony and I will have memorized about 80% of the "names" for all of the irrigation heads on the property. It just comes with the job.

A jump on things

I could not help but stop and take a photo of Golden Peak ski area on Vail Mountain this morning. This was taken approximately 500 yards west of the 5th and 6th holes on the golf course. A beautiful sight to see this time of year as Vail Resorts begins to open a portion of the mountain early for training.

A good portion of the snow has melted from the golf course. Shady areas are hanging on longer, but more sun is needed for playing the course.

Making the Turn

The weather has turned again and Saturday has given us plenty of sunshine. On Sunday, November 1st, the Nordic Season officially begins. The golf course is currently closed but will re-open for the Coal Bucket as long as the snow recedes. If or when the golf course opens at the most holes 1,2,8-12, 16-18. The driving range is closed for the season.

We'll let you know when the coal bucket will be as soon as a date is announced.

Coal Bucket?

So with the threat of a large snowfall on the horizon the only ones excited about activity at Vail Golf Club are the Nordic skiers. So far as of days end on Wednesday, about 2 inches fell followed by high winds and a little bit of sunshine but very cold. Not very good conditions for golf or skiing.