With in a blink of an eye we are in the last week of August, summer sure flew by. It was not to long ago in early July when we were managing expectations of our resent regrown greens. We entered into a busy golf calender with new seedlings which we just hoped would survive through daily play. Forecasting best case potential greens speeds to be 10, and mowing heights left above our usual standards for the season, boy were we wrong. Mother nature provided us with a relatively mild temperate summer with significant rainfall, this coupled with the greens crews hard work, the putting greens improved in density and thin areas disappeared quickly. The greens, tournament after tournament became stronger and greens speed improved from 10 up to 12 for events. Heights of cut have been restored very close to tradition and the impact of frequent mowing and rolling has shown minimal set back. The greens crew have received many great compliments on the course. Thank you for showing your support!
On July 27th we experienced one of the worst storms to hit our property. Forest lake Country Club was right in the epicenter of straight line winds which reached 70mph. The damage to the trees was so extensive that the course was closed for 4 days. We have numerous amounts of pictures and debris littered through the golf course. Below are a few
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| #9 Tee box with Oak limbs making this hole impassible |
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| Silver Maple between 12/13 |
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| Spruce Tree left side of #18 |
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| Little Leaf Linden #15/16, snapped off at the base |
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| 3 Silver Maples down on the left side of #11 |
Our main focus was to create a safe environment by removing hazardous trees and limbs, while trying to tackle the damage in a systematic manor to resume playing the golf course. In total 62 storm damaged trees blew over or were severely damaged, along with several smaller limbs. We have removed 54 of these to date. The effort of cleaning up storm damage of this magnitude is not accomplished alone. Special thanks to Schilbe Tree care for their quick response and hard work.
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| Kevin Schilbe clearing out debris on #9 Tee |
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| Over 600 yards of wood chips were hauled off property |
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| 4 transport truck loads of logs were hauled off property |
Currently the golf course is in good shape with the majority of tree work completed. The greens crew will be working on filling in the remaining stump holes and grassing these areas.
