Men's Member Guest week 2021

 

Men's Member Guest week is here and we could not be more thankful that it is at the beginning of June as opposed to the end of July like last year. The heat is here and the bermudagrass is loving life. Click here for some drone shots from this past week.

This week has also coincided with the first week of being fully staffed for the summer. We have about 8 high school or college students on board now which brings our crew grand total up to 43 (including 4 women), the most it has been in quite some time. With every blade of grass now growing full speed, it takes some serious organization to get things trimmed up and kept under control. After sitting in front of their computer for the last year, the summer help was almost happy about grabbing a weedeater and getting some exercise!

Besides having the edges tuned in, the main focus for the week is putting green quality. With the humidity in the air more or less at a maximum, the plant is holding on to more water than we'd like. The clouds have hung around though so we have been able to perform some extra mowing and rolling to create faster green speeds. Faster green speeds mean more stress on the turf and significantly slower round times, two things we can not sustain through the summer. We will be happy to see the greens fans start to go back up next week!

One small detail project was putting in new pavers by 4 black tee where no one likes to stay on the cartpath. We will be working through both courses this summer, continuing to dress these areas up.

The whole staff has done an excellent job this season and the crazy schedule of this week always necessitates some rewards. We had the Mister Softee ice cream truck come in Thursday to provide some treats for all, including Boomer!

In non-ice cream related news, Grant Lowery, Assistant Superintendent on the Manakin, completed a half Iron Man last Sunday. We'd like to say his efforts at work more than prepared him for the race but Grant has been training diligently over the past year. A half iron man involves a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and a 13.1 run. Grant did this in the Blue Ridge mountains as well so there was some elevation to be dealt with. Please congratulate Grant if you see him out on the course!