Tomorrow (October 20^th) will be the last day to play Greywalls for the season. 

The Original closing date was Sunday but the weather (rain) has put us behind schedule. 

I will need to take advantage of the weather on Sunday to start making our winter fungicide applications.  Five more staff members will be laid off for the winter this week.  I will need their help blowing leaves on Sunday so I have a clean surface to spray onto. 

Once those applications are completed on the Greens/Tees/Approaches/Fairways we need to eliminate traffic in those areas to prevent any tracking or foot/tire removal of the product.  We have long winters of snow cover in Marquette and we need to take every precaution to ensure survival of our turfgrass over the winter months.  Unlike many areas in the country, we do not have the ability to reapply a product during the winter because of our sustained snowfall levels; it is a one and done application.  We need to make sure it is done and done right the first time around.

Using our one 175 Gallon sprayer it takes me 10 tanks to spray the Greywalls course and I must have light to no wind and no rain to complete the applications.  Prior to spraying the Tees we must fill every divot with our seed/sand/fertilizer divot mix.  Two days after spraying Greens and Approaches we will heavily topdress the Greens with sand and make a dormant application of milorganite to aid in spring snow/ice melt.  The next step is roping off the greens to prevent any winter activity traffic from entering the green surface areas.  We will be winterizing the Greywalls irrigation system on the 29^th so that gives me one week to fit all of this in before I have no water source on Greywalls. 

Snow fencing around some select areas is our last step to proper winterization of the golf course. 

When completed on Greywalls I will move the winterization operation over to the Heritage and do it all over again on that course (déjà vu for me).  We have a city water supply line to the Heritage shop so I am able to fill up the rig without a charged irrigation system (that system was winterized this week). 

There is a ton to do this time of year (and I never even touched on equipment winterization procedures) and it all must be completed properly so we increase our chances of having a very successful spring golfing season in 2013. 

We do things now for the future.