OV gets a taste of the Canadian Winter

I thought everyone may be starting to think about golf now that the snow has left the majority of the downtown area and the sides of the roads are looking clear. Here is a quick update from the Grounds Maintenance Department at Olympic View.

A couple of weeks ago it started to get pretty cold at Olympic View as the forecasted Arctic Air moved in over the region. This came in the form of freezing conditions followed by a light dusting of snow which had no problem settling on the already frozen ground.

Following that, a huge windstorm battered the course on Friday, February 8th and Saturday, February 9th. On the Sunday when the winds calmed down, myself and our 2nd Assistant, Sean Olsen, came in to a temperature of -10C to do a course check and survey any damages. The course was littered with small debris, branches and the light snow from the previous day had been blown in to snow drifts up to 2ft deep in places. For the most part and compared to other courses, we got away with any major damage and only a couple of smaller trees were felled as a result.

That evening there was a rather large snow event which continued on and off for the next few days as you may have noticed.

18 Fairway from the Clubhouse the morning after

Brett and myself ventured in that morning, while the rest of the city hunkered down for a snow day, to see what the situation was. Thanks to Glen Shillito for spending hours plowing the driveway and parking lot we could get access. When we arrived we were met with up to 18 inches of snow course wide and with the roads to the Grounds Maintenance Department being un-passable for vehicles without 4 wheel drive, the team drove to the Clubhouse over the next couple of days to help clear the parking lot and make walk ways and exits safe. From there we set about clearing a route along the cart paths from the Grounds Maintenance Department to the Clubhouse to allow our Team Members and equipment to go back and forth.

Cart path on 15, route cleared after 4 hours.

Over the next few days the team continued to remove snow from the Clubhouse and parking lot areas as well as moving around the course plowing the cart paths to allow for access to monitor the thaw.

The following are pictures as of the afternoon of Wednesday, February 20th, depicting current conditions and thaw progression.

The 1st fairway from the White Tee. One of our shadiest holes, the vast majority is still covered with up to 3 inches of thawing ice.




Hole 18 from the Club House fountain, snow on the higher areas are starting to recede but shady areas along the tree line are still thick. The Green still is covered with 2 inches.

13 Fairway is still covered from tee to green.

14 Fairway saw some of the deepest snow due to the wind swept drifts.

15 View to the Green. Pond is still covered with thick ice.

16 Very little signs of movement with 5 inches of snow still covering the tee.

The above pictures hopefully give you a good idea of the situation on our back 9 holes. Being tree lined for the most part, most of you will know that it always take a good amount longer to thaw than the holes on our front 9.

Below are a couple of photos showing the current situation on the front 9. Again these photos were taken the afternoon of Wednesday, February 20th.

View down 3 and across to 8 from 9 Tee

Hole 9 from cart path. View to Green

Thawing snow un-masking the debris situation from the wind storm

9 Green

As you can see the thaw on the front 9 has been drastically quicker than the back. This being said at time of writing, the only fully snow free green was on hole 5. Holes 1, 3, 4 and 9 still are covered with large amounts of snow.

Currently the Ground Maintenance Department have been out on course daily picking away at the task of debris clean up which is proving to be massive. As areas thaw, it is allowing our team jump to around blowing and raking the course to make it playable for when the snow does finally disappear.

The recent weather conditions and those that are forecast are far from being conducive for a quick thaw. Daytime temperatures on course are barely reaching 5-6C and overnight temperatures are dropping to freezing. Currently the early weekend has been forecasted with rain and we are hoping it will be enough to finish the thaw on the front 9, at least enough to allow play ASAP. The following week currently calls for more clear and cold conditions which will again slow the process down.

The Grounds Maintenance Team is working hard to tidy up after these storms and to get the course back in to shape for when Olympic View finally opens again. We hope to see you all out there soon and as always we are keeping the Golf Shop Team updated with current conditions.

Thank you for taking the time to read this update.