Charge Up

This week, the Golf Course Maintenance Staff will be executing the irrigation system charge-up, or in other words, filling the lines. As discussed before, each winter the irrigation pipes are blown out using a massive air compressor to avoid broken pipes from freezing ground temperatures and water expansion. Now that the golf course is snow free and we're finally able to push a shovel into the ground, it's time to get some needed water to the golf course. Although this seems later than in past years, most of the golf course has been snow covered for most of the winter. As you know, this can be a good thing, or a bad thing and we will have to wait for an answer to that question. Depending on how successful we are in the fall blowing out the system, this is usually a good indicator of how many pipes we have to replace in the spring. Because water usually settles in low spots on the course, or even dips in the pipes themselves, a usual canditate for replacement pipes is somewhere on the South Golf Course. Pictured above is one of the lowest parts of the golf course, located in front of 7South Green. Although this is normally a time of high anxiety not knowing how favorable the ground was to us, it marks the beginning of another great season at one of my favorite places on earth. Here's to 2010!