Customer appreciation day

The event this past Saturday was a complete blast and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting all of the golfers on the 13th tee and on the putting green for the mini golf challenge. Congratulations to Mark Anderson and his closest to the pin accomplishment of 13' 11.75". Mark will be receiving a pass for a month of free golf. I will post more results later next week as well as photos. Here are pictures of the mini course I set up on Friday for the event as well as some other recent photos. Enjoy the fantastic weather we have in our future and I will see you on the golf courses!

Creating the routing. No Nicklaus or Pascuzzo and Pate, but not bad if I say so myself!

Adding the hazards and obstacles!

The masterpiece is complete and ready for Saturday.

The view from the 4th tee box, dogleg right par 3 with a risk/reward opportunity to cut the corner if you dared!

The finishing hole had about 12 feet of break and could barely be stopped in play with a perfect shot, just ask Kent Lauble :) We later decided to add a lateral hazard behind the hole to speed up play for Saturday.

Local residents playing through.

What an absolutely gorgeous morning! This is the view from behind the 17th green at Dairy Creek.

Just after sunrise and ahead of the mowers behind the 13th green at Dairy Creek. Richard, this would be a great picture for your "what hole is this" on your facebook site.

Struttin' their stuff! You can hear these guys all over the course at Dairy Creek and a few at Morro Bay too. Who says golf courses are BAD for the environment?!

Golf Course Etiquette

I played golf yesterday at Morro Bay, as I occasionally do, to see how the courses are playing and to get feedback from our customers. I was happy with the conditions of the course as far as quality of cut and general aesthetics, although some people mentioned that some of the rough was a bit tall. I agree, but the mower can only cover so much ground in a day and we have had quite a bit of rain recently, so bear with us as we play catch up. The greens were exceptionally good in my opinion and the crews' hard work is paying off. We are using some new methods to control the Poa annua and it's seedheads including rolling 3x per week and topdressing occassionally. The greens have responded very well creating a smooth surface, a few bumps here and there (read on I will address this issue below), firming up quite a bit, and rolling about a 9.25-9.5 on the stimp meter. Yes that is right near 9.5! Now that is not too fast by the standards of the best golfers on flat greens, but on Morro Bay's greens it is nearly too fast. With all of the slope on the greens and the influence of Black Hill and the Pacific Ocean I guarantee it is nearly all that you want to handle and the greens will test the best of putting strokes. The players in my group were putting balls off of the greens and we had the occassional 5 putt. From my perspective that is dangerous as we loose pin positions and potentially increase golfers frustration.

Addressing the bumpiness of the greens...there are so many ball marks that are not being repaired and those that are repaired have not been fixed properly to the point that the repaired marks are dying or being scalped by mowers. It is part of a golfers responsibility to fix your ball mark and I like the adage of fixing at least one more. Yesterday I was fixing probably 20 marks per green and probably could have fixed 20 more, but we had to move to the next tee box. To speed the repair of the damage it is important to properly fix the ball mark. Many times people will use their divot tool and pry the soil up to fill in the depressed area. This does more damage than not fixing the mark at all. The reason is as you pry the turf up the lifting tears the leaves from the roots effectively killing the plant and ultimately leaving a dead brown spot on the green in a week or two. That brown spot will then take at least 2 weeks to heal and fill in on our Poa greens at Morro Bay and maybe longer on a bentgrass green. To properly fix the ball mark you should insert your repair tool into the turf at an angle toward the center of the ball mark. Instead of lifting the turf you should do the opposite and push the outsides of the mark to the center of the mark. Continue this process all of the way around the ball mark until the cinter of the mark has been filled in with good healthy turf. This procedure will allow the ball mark to heal within hours and maintain the true ball roll that we all desire. It is every golfers' responsibility to leave the golf course in better condition than you find it and it truly helps many of those putts around the hole find the bottom of the cup!

Customer Appreciation Event - March 13!!

If you are a SLO Golf Card holder your membership allows you to take advantage of a spectacular event! AND if you are not a SLO Golf Card holder get out to either Chalk Mountain, Dairy Creek, or Morro Bay golf courses and buy yours by Friday March 12 so that you can get signed up for this appreciation event.

I say event because that is truly what it is...you pay your normal weekend green fee and you compete in a golf tournament with nearly $5,000 worth of prizes and give-a-ways (Month of free golf, clubs, clothing, balls, hats, Hole-in-one prizes etc.), take part in various contests before and after the tournament (i.e. miniature golf course putting contest on the putting green), 6" holes in the greens, some greens with multiple holes, fantastic food, and LOT'S of FUN!!

This event was scheduled for the 27th of February, but the date was changed due to weather concerns and the forecast for the 13th looks like 75 and sunny! Dairy Creek will be the site again this year and the course is looking as green as ever and the greens are rolling well. We had some cancellations due to the date change so you are in luck...grab a friend and join the party for our second Membership Appreciation Event. I look forward to seeing everyone on the 13th.

"Hit it hard, go find it, hit it hard again."

-Arnold Palmer