So Close, Yet So Far

Here is an update about current course conditions at Olympic View.

Well the end should be in sight, after patiently waiting for the snow to thaw, which it has done on the majority of the front 9, the Grounds Maintenance Team are happy that all the playing surfaces have been cleared from debris and play can resume when it is time. Mother Nature unfortunately has had different ideas. With constant freezing over night temperatures and a very cold wind, the snow has given way to frozen ground conditions with the majority of the greens on the front 9 staying frozen all day.

This can be a difficult call to make as far as whether or not to open. Even though the wind is keeping the frost off the grass blades, the plant and ground it lives in are very much frozen. As the sun hits the green, it starts to thaw the top layer of soil, this can create a fragile environment for the root system of the plant. Foot traffic can cause movement in the upper thawed layer, shearing the roots from the frozen layer below.

Currently we are checking the greens every morning and afternoon to monitor daily thaw patterns. As it stands the day time temperatures are just not quite high enough to allow for a full thaw of frozen ground and the remaining snow across the front 9. Looking forward, there are some clouds and rain in the forecast which will hopefully give way to warmer day time highs and more importantly, warmer overnight temperatures.

Snow on 1 and 4 Greens still hanging on

1 and 9 Fairways still have some decent coverage

Moving focus to our chilly back 9. The snow still covers most areas and all but the green on hole 12 still has snow on them. Like on the Front 9 as the snow thaws is uncovers the debris left over from the wind storm last week.

12 Green and surrounds were littered

Hole 11 with thick ice covering the pond

Hole 12. Ever increasing snow moving back towards the tee.

Hole 13 still mostly covered from Tee to Green

Hole 14

Hole 15

Hole 17 Just the Tee and Green still have snow.

Hole 10

All photos showing snow coverage were taken on the morning of Tuesday 26th February.

Although we are seeing daily changes in the amount of snow on the back 9, partly due to the heavy winds, the thaw is still extremely gradual and it will still take some time to go completely. Hopefully we start to see some warmer temperatures soon as all of us here at Olympic View are ready for Spring to arrive and to welcome you all back for a great 2019 season.

Thank you for reading this update.

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.

A Busy Winter

Hello everyone and a Happy New Year from the Grounds Team here at Olympic View. I am aware that you haven't heard from us in awhile and I wanted to right that wrong and let you know that in 2019 we plan to keep you more up to date with the goings on in the grounds department.

We shall keep you apprised of any up and coming projects, there should be some messages from Sydney the goose dog and maybe even a couple of videos to entertain and/or educate as the year goes on.

Firstly, I would like to make mention of the rope and stake situation on course. This Winter has been relativity pleasant golfing weather with warm temperatures and minimal delays in play. The last two months have seen plenty of rain and the course is saturated. This being said the course has been busy and the daily footfall has caused some extra wear and tear in high traffic areas. Currently all of our ropes and stakes are out on course to direct play around these areas, they are not intended to get in your way but to protect our course so that when Spring finally arrives we can have the course in tip top shape for your playing pleasure as soon as possible.

Please work with us in keeping these areas protected as we get through the final couple of months of Winter. We ask that if you need to move a stake to take a shot to please return it to it's original location and when walking around the greens to take the extra time to follow the traffic control. I would also like to say that having the amount of traffic control on course that we currently do brings us no pleasure here on grounds, a lot of work goes in to straightening, moving and cleaning these items daily and we hope as much as you do to the end of the Winter and the start of Spring so that we can begin to bring in these unsightly and inconvenient items.

Lastly a quick note on our cart path usage over Winter. As you will all know we are generally on cart paths only during the Winter months as the course has many wet areas that take time to dry. Usually even after a decent dry spell there are still many areas in the roughs that remain very wet for long periods of time. It is for this reason that even though a fairway may seem dry enough to use a cart on there may still be localized areas on both fairways and roughs that are still very wet.

During these months we are constantly checking these areas and we liaise with the Golf Shop daily on the decision to allow cart or carts carrying blue flags free reign on the course. As with the traffic control these measures are used solely to protect the course and to allow for a better experience come Spring.

Thank you for taking the time to read this first blog of 2019 and I will be posting another soon to let you know what we have in plan for the beginning of this year.

   

Divot bottles for pull carts

Over the past few years I’ve had a lot of conversations with many of you regarding divot bottles that can be hung on the push carts. I have been listening and we now finally have everything setup and ready to go for you to help us take care of our golf course. As you walk down towards the 1^st or 10^th tee from the Golfshop, we have a portable rack in front of the recently renovated garden where full divot repair bottles will be hung each morning. From there, we have refill stations at #4, 8, 10, 13 and 16 which are replenished daily by our grounds team. When repairing divots with the sand mix, please use only enough sand to fill it and then use the bottom of your shoe to level the pile. At the end of your round we have two options for you to return the bottles;

1 – The same rack where you picked it up at the beginning of your round

2 – A newly installed rack to the back right of the 18^th green as you head towards the parking lot.

  

Your help is greatly appreciated and please encourage your playing partners to carry a bottle as well!

Thank you,

Brett Finlayson, Golf Course Superintendent

What do those guys get up to over Winter?

A question that we on grounds get asked at this time of year is "what do you do over Winter?" well apart from long mornings sitting in our lunch room drinking hot coco and putting the world to rights we actually manage to keep ourselves quite busy.

We find ourselves at the mercy of the weather as everyone does at this time of year with constant switches between heavy rain and frozen conditions we spend a lot of time with our eyes fixed on the forecast and guessing/hoping that our immediate plans won't be thwarted due to a sudden change in conditions. Although the needs of the course slow down they never stop.

Apart from normal setup we use the "off season" to complete projects, plan for the forth coming season and catch up on house keeping items around the Ground Maintenance Department which often get over looked during the speed and high demand of the busy Spring/Summer months.

Some tasks we have had success in completing and some near future task include:

16 Eco base

16 Bunker renovations - I wrote about this in more detail in a previous blog however to update you all, it went very well the Team completed it in 3 days, the drainage has been tested by mother nature and appears to work well. The next step will be to sand, I know a lot of you wondered why there is grass growing throughout the bunker. This is a tried and tested method of lining bunker bases that creates a natural Eco friendly barrier between the sand you play out of and the stones and undesirable materials beneath. Currently we are waiting until slightly warmer temperatures which will allow the sod to take root and knit together. At this point we will scalp the grass down to nothing and fill the bunker with sand.

Irrigation installs - We are in the process of moving some of our carry sprinkler heads to the cart path edges relocating them from the center of the carries. In doing this we hope to be able to provide better coverage to our carries utilizing all the water to the area in need rather than a turning head spending half of its time watering naturalized areas. This will provide for less misuse of water and a better standard of playing conditions in those areas moving forward.

Improved Irrigation at 10 Green walk on

Additionally we have been successful in installing perimeter irrigation around 10 greens walk on/off areas as well at extra irrigation at the walk on to 2 tee. All of these install areas will of course be seeded and grown in when the weather allows.

Improved Irrigation at 2 Tee walk on 

Tree work - During the last cold snap of 2017 we began removing some trees around the course, this was for two different reasons. Removal of hazardous dead/dying trees in several locations and increasing sunlight in areas that have over the years become increasingly shady and now only allow for poorer quality turf conditions. With our main focus this year being 15 greens we have also removed trees at 10 and 16. A lot of thought goes in to our tree removal process and only trees that have a direct impact on turf health or course infrastructure are ever removed while they are still healthy.

Corridor for sunlight right of 15 green

A picture of our new tee markers

Lastly we have also spent some time building all new tee markers. They have a new uniform sleek look and they will be installed along with newly designed flags shorty after our aeration process in early April. We hope you like them.

Moving forward our next major project will be a renovation of the triangle flower bed directly outside of the pro-shop at the bottom of the hill. We shall be reducing the size and changing the shape slightly, along with installing new concrete curbing around the edge. After this Jesse our gifted Horticulturalist, the man who brought you the magnificent flower bed at the Upper putting green and Wedding site, will be planting a spectacular display of flora that will greet you as you walk to the first tee.

Other areas on the concrete curb list in the short term will be along the cart path at 16 and the tee edge of 17. We hope that the install of concrete curbing in specific locations around the course will allow us to remove the tired wooden landscape ties as well as protecting grass in these high traffic areas where carts are constantly parked creating a cleaner and more attractive look.

Tired curbs around 17 tee

Tired curbs at 16

Finally, Glen Shilito along with help from grounds team members Jason and Conlan have began a two stage renovation of our on course washrooms. This renovation will be extensive and starting at the washrooms on 6. The plan will be to complete these and then in the Fall reno the washrooms on 13, however if the renovations on 6 are completed quicker than estimated we may endeavor to complete 13 also before Spring. The estimated completion time for each set will be 2-3 weeks. There will be a temporary porta-potty installed for your convenience at a slightly different location which will be near the cart path running behind the 6th tee.

As always we ask for your patience during any renovation or project work. Our end goal is to always improve Olympic View for your enjoyment and we always try to complete projects in a timely and professional manner to cause as little disturbance as possible to your experience. 

Christmas Snow Update

Hole 9 looking towards the green

On Tuesday the 19th of December we experienced a heavy snow fall. On course we had almost 6inchs of snow and with wide spread power outages in the West Shore area Olympic View closed it's doors for the day.

Since Tuesday we have experienced freezing temperatures that have allowed for little thaw. Last night (Thursday 21st) temperatures rose slightly and some rain did fall. This allowed for some thaw on hard surfaces around the clubhouse and on course cart paths but made very little difference to conditions on course with thick snow covering the vast majority of it.

Hole 8 from the Blacks

Hole 13 

It appears that we have been quite lucky as far as damage with only a couple of small trees being brought down by the weight of the initial snow fall.

The thaw and freeze cycle that we have been experiencing has led to treacherous conditions all over the course with large areas of sheet ice and slippery banking's. We would like to urge our members and guests to resist the urge to walk on to the course during this time. We are conducting daily course checks but for the most part we are not around to assist if an accident were to occur.

Hole 6

Looking forward, the weather forecast has changed over the last couple of days with slightly warmer that previously predicted conditions over the Christmas period. A mix of rain and snow will continue over the next few days and the amount of either will largely govern the re-opening of golf course. Although slightly warmer temperatures are now in the forecast, they are still only just reaching above freezing which means the complete thaw of the course will be a slow process.

As always we will be checking conditions daily and the Golf Shop will be open to take calls. I plan to prepare another update after Christmas day which I will post on our Blog page

From Brett, Myself, Sydney and the rest of the grounds crew we hope you all have a splendid festive few days and we hope to see you back on course in the not to distant future.

Merry Christmas and we hope you have a Happy New Year

Sydney enjoying the snow

Looking forward. Improvments and projects this Fall/Winter.

In the hope that a blog from myself will be half as read as a blog from Sydney. I thought I would take some time to keep all of you in the loop with what we are planning over the next few months.

While some of you will be starting to think about putting your clubs away for the darker months Brett, myself and the grounds team are excited and looking forward, as this is the time when we are starting to think about improvement projects and renovations.

In recent years we feel we have utilized this time well and have made some good changes to the infrastructure of the course along with a some sensible improvements that will stand the test of time.

 This year we have three main areas we are wanting to tackle and I will quickly go through each of them in turn.

Practice Facility Tee Decks

Camber on Tee Deck

This past spring we leveled the Academy tee deck, we considered this to be a big success. Years of divot repair and Top Dressing has put a substantial camber on all of the decks. The pros from our point of view were

• We used a lot of the striped sod on course to re-fresh high traffic areas and to sod the top of the 13 tee renovation
• The sand that we took away from the one deck was recycled and lasted us a good 2 months in Practice Facility divoting this year.
• Increased and more level surface area for players to practice on and a slower rotation of divider movement front to back.

Leveling completed

As you have probably noticed the tee decks are now complete and we are just awaiting the germination of our seed. Thank you for your patience during the renovations and putting up with the noise while you were practicing. 

Lot of sand to re-use

16 Green Collar Dam and Bunker

This one is a personal favourite of mine, our little yet perfectly formed 16th hole is one of my favourite holes, aesthetically speaking. The problem with it's size it that the problems seem to be magnified. A lot of you will know the we struggle to keep decent turf at the front of the green. There are many factors effecting this, all culminating in to one problem. Drainage, Sunlight and a Collar dam. We have fixed the drainage and we have removed several trees to the right to allow for better sunlight and air flow.

Problem Area

 Collar dams build up over time around the edge of greens, there are many reasons for this slow elevation of the greens surround and we have several greens with this issue. Removing these dams is time consuming and disruptive. The effect they have on the green can be quite severe, rain/irrigation water gets trapped behind the higher collar and just sits on the green. Over time the ground stays saturated and the turf begins to rot. Removing the dam is the only way to allow the excess water to run off the green and not pool. Other greens we would like to do this to are 1,8 and 11 and we hope to get to these also in the coming months.

                   Collar dam and sand build up

As well as the dams we plan to incorporate the renovation of the front bunker, years of sand built up is evident on the collar and this extremely high play bunker is most definitely showing the signs of how "popular" it is. As mentioned we will incorporate the two separate projects and do them both at once. The renovation of the bunker will allow for a re-design of the approach and the re- design of the approach will allow of the removal of the collar dam.

Tired bunker in need of face lift

Obviously during this time we will provide a temporary green short of the bunker area. We know this isn't ideal and we ask for your patience during this renovation which we will try to do, as always, quickly and efficiently in order to re-open the hole.

Soil and Seed

You may have noticed that we are utilising soil and seed in high traffic/bare areas around the course. We ask that you please stay outside the ropes that we have put up and help us to give the seed the best possible chance to grow. The reason behind doing this now is that we hope to get the grass established before the temperatures drop so that it is more able to withstand the drier conditions of the Summer when it rolls around.

Other smaller installations and projects include;

• Continued installation of upgraded isolation valves for the Irrigation system
• Improved drainage around 14 tee
• To fix the gate at the pump house
• Root pruning around some of our greens and rough areas
• To remove some of the dead or dying trees around the course

So as you can see we never stop here on grounds we are always trying our hardest to improve the course and make it better and better. I am sure by now you are all very bored of having me prattle on so here is a short video of Sydney chasing the Geese. 

Thanks and we will see you out there.