SNOW GONE! GREAT SHAPE! SUN HEADING NORTH!

Put another Wisconsin winter in the books, we came through in flying colors! No snow mold, no winter kill! Our snow mold fungicides worked great and they were applied flawlessly by our Operations Manager, Mark Mejchar and Assistant Superintendent, Bryan Bergner.  Yes, the course is still very wet and frost is still in the ground and it might snow alittle next week but it sure was nice to walk all 18 holes and see grass again.

Most likely, it will be about 2 weeks before we open the greens, so if you come out to play the course backwards, as it is set up now with cups and flags in the tees, please do not walk over the greens as you make your way to the next teeing area, located about 25 yards infront of the green at a blue 3 foot tall wooden stake. Our greens are very soft and wet and if you walk on them now your going to leave depressions behind that will play havoc with your putting 2 to 3 weeks from now.

Here are a few photo's from my walk today.

SKIN CANCER! MAN UP! BE A LEADER!

If your family, friends and employees love the outdoors like I do, than they, like me, have a destiny with skin cancer. The only difference between us is I'm 60 years old, and likely, most of the people you care about are younger. I've had more sun exposure time, which means, I have skin cancer, Basal Cell Carcinoma and a precancer called Actinic Keratosis. The good news is, I was on top of it, have a great Dermatologist, Dr. David Crosby, and he removed the Basal Cell and treated the AK so it would not develop into cancer. I'm good to go.

So what am I saying when I say, Man Up, (term, not gender driven) Be a Leader, I'm saying your the person responsible for protecting your family, your friends and fellow employees and yourself. How do you do that? Here is one example; at Westmoor, protecting yourself from the sun is a part of our Safety Training Program and has been for 20 plus years, it's right up there with how to operate equipment safely. We explain what the sun does to your skin and that working and playing outdoors predisposes you to a number of skin problems and that protecting yourself early and daily prevents nearly all skin cancers. We supply sunscreen, a SPF 30 or higher, but most importantly, we the Fulltime Staff slop it on, yes we call it slop because we want to emphasize the amount, every morning and make it a point of doing it in front of our fellow employees. The fact that you, the Leader, are slopping on sunscreen in front of the people you are leading, has a profound effect on them doing the same. You, put a hat on, there is a good chance they will too.

Now you the father the mother the friend take that process home and start slopping on the sunscreen in front of them, family and friends, and you know what, they will do the same. You see, safety is contagious if ----, if you, The Leader, LEADS!!!

Of all the cancers that humans can get, skin cancer is the most common. In the US, skin cancer is increasing in all races.
How can we protect ourselves? Sun exposure is the most preventable risk factor for all skin cancers, including melanoma. You can have fun in the sun and decrease your risk of skin cancer.
Here is how to be Sun Smart:
1. Generously apply a broad-spectrum water-resistant sunscreen of a SPF of 30 or more. We say slop it on.
2. Wear protective clothing; hat, sunglasses, long sleeved shirt and pants if possible.
3. Use extra caution near water, snow and sand as they reflect damaging rays from the sun.
4. The suns rays are strongest between 10:00 am and 4:00 pm
5. Make sure you protect your children
6. Supplement your diet with vitamin D.
7. Avoid tanning beds.

To get the latest on sun-protective products that meet the criteria of the American Academy of Dermatology and to learn more about skin cancer go to http://www.aad.org/

15fwy 3/14. Will Mid-week 60dg melt it all? Most likely not but it will be nice to see grass.

DEAD ELM ON #6 REMOVED IN DECEMBER

This large dead elm on #6 was taken down in December. Its demise was a lightning strike that occurred in the summer of 2009. Whether a lightning strike will actually kill a tree or how long after a lightning strike will it be before a tree dies is really unpredictable. Arborists think many factors come into play; moisture inside the tree and in the ground at the time of the strike, intensity of the thunder storm and the overall health of the tree are just a few of the factors they mention as contributing to survival or death after a strike.

For this season, we will sod the stump hole with bluegrass and the area will remain rough as it was. In the future, when funds become available,  we will proceed with the plan of Golf Course Architect, Todd Quitno of Lohmann Golf Designs which widens the fairway 15 yards where the old elm stood this will make hitting the fairway much easier, but he also plays with your mind by extending the pond up to the site of the old elm also. Risk and Reward at its best on this short par 4. Quitno embraces many of the same design philosophies of the great, early American Golf Course Architect, William Langford, and hole #6 is one of the of five holes Langford designed here at Westmoor.

JERRY NELSON "IS" THE MASTER OF FLOWER POWER. HANDSDOWN!

Soft spoken, but a man with an extensive wealth of gardening knowledge, Nelson delivers the spectacular. He's the "Mailman" when it comes to consistent deliveries. Some landscape companies and master gardeners can talk a good game but fail in delivering a "knock your socks off display" year after year, not so with Nelson, you will be walking bare foot and be happy your doing it.You see, this is a year round deal for Jerry, if he's not speaking at a winter gardening conference in the upper Midwest, he is attending it, with a mission of attaining plant material and a design that will WOW his costumers. 
Having trouble believing me, well tune into his weekly radio Gardening show on WRJN AM 1400 out of Racine every Saturday morning from 7:05 to 8:00 and you will hear the Master at his best. Or take a garden tour at his home, he is a Master Gardener, you know, and in many gardening minds, he is the Master of the Master. He is also a prominent member of many gardening societies one being the Wisconsin & Illinois Lilly Society.

So last week, when I saw Jerry going over his plan for Westmoors 2011 Seasonal Displays, with our Horticulturist, Jim Hicks, I got excited, because I knew the "Mailman" was about to deliver once again!!

In the photo above, Jerry is on the left side and Jim is on the right. Jerry Nelson can be reached by calling his company, Classic Gardens, at 262-835-2530 or 262-951-1463 or emailing him at jerryn72@gmail.com

CORRODED WATER LEVEL CONTROL STRUCTURE, AT 17 POND, REPLACED WITH CORROSIVE RESISTANT STRUCTURE, LAST NOVEMBER

Last March we sleeved our galvanized metal irrigation wet well and intake pipe with a plastic composite material because our sodium chloride rich pond water (result of Hwy salt runoff from I-94) had corroded the metal away. Late last November, we replaced the corroded metal intake pipe, pond level control structure and exit pipe with a corrosive resistant plastic PVC Water Level Control Structure we purchased from Agri Drain Corp, out of Adair, Iowa  www.agridrain.com  You can see from the photos above how corroded the metal intake pipe was and what the new PVC Water Level Control Structure looks like, along with some of the methods we used to install it. Other than the backhoe, and its operator, Chuck Christoph of Christoph Excavting, this replacement operation was done all in-house. Great Job by Mark, John, Jim, Zac, Nick and Bryan!!

2010 ASSET PERFORMACE EVALUATION. #1 ASSET: THE GREENS

How do you go about evaluating the performance of your greens? Well, Chris Hartwiger, Senior Agronomist with the USGA who operates out of the Southeast Region of the US put together a wonderful, and nearly all encompassing, Putting Green Performance Pyramid that provides a building block check list arranged in a fashion to determine a greens overall strenghts and from those strengths it tells you how far and how long you can push that green to attain a peak performance. If you are missing some of the foundations building blocks, lowest level of the pyramid, than you can expect some deterioration of the putting surface if you push the green to peak performance for too long of a time, especially if weather conditions are not favorable.

The weather in 2010 in SE Wisconsin was more akin to the weather of St. Louis and Memphis where bent grass survival is tested annually.This weather was a fantastic test for our one year old, Penn A-1 pushup greens. Eighteen of our greens performed beautifully, our 11th was ok and within our "Standard" for excellence, but our 6th, with its lack of air movement, sunlight, limited cupping area and a congested entry point had a problem. The growth became stunted and the stand thinned a bit. To protect it from further damage we roped of its narrow entry point, raised the height of cut and went to a mow one day and roll the next schedule. These actions protected the quality of the surface but slowed the speed to below our "Standard". Having one green perform below our "Green Standard" is not what we like to have but if this weather pattern is more a trend, than an aberation, this substandard for #6 will reoccur. To insure this doesn't happen we need to install a fan or fans for air movement, thin out trees and undergrowth to the southwest of the green for sunlight an air movement, educate golfers on where to enter and exit the green and make sure our green venting program, a program that produces a small hole or slice in the green for oxygen infusion and the exodus of harmful gasses is adhered to on a 2-3 week schedule throughout the season. With all of these elements of the pyramid corrected on #6, and our venting program intact, we will have a significantly better chance of achieving our standard, even with, The Memphis Weather Blues. To view the entire USGA Pyramid article, by Chris Hartwiger, please view my January 22, 2011 blog post.